 This lecture is titled Indian Drama Classical Theory and Practice. The lecture is divided into three parts. In part one, we will examine the great treatise on performative arts written by Bharat Muni. We will also look at two examples in part B that he has mentioned by way of varieties of plays Natak and Bhan and then we will take up the issue of classical folk modern continuum. This is to expose you to classical theories. We started with Aristotle and we have come to Bharat Muni's Natya Shastra. In terms of various theories and terms that have been used so far, I think by now you are aware of the fact that terms like literature, drama and performance have undergone alterations based on aesthetic practice and the playwrights or theatre groups imagination. So while talking about Aristotle, the term poetry, the term fiction, the term drama, these were used in variety of ways and some groups emphasized one term over another term because they felt that it revealed their own point of view better. So similarly here, the terminology is entirely different and it is really a great privilege to be able to talk about such a great treatise and also the examples that have unfolded long ago. In Bharat Muni's Natya Shastra, what is actually right at the outset interesting is its location in terms of democratic space. This is the way I perceive it because when you look at the early part of this document, you notice a kind of tussle, a kind of conflict which again is of course reflection of social conflict or conflict of worldviews, but it also pushes you towards the very nature of drama which thrives on conflicts. It sort of looks at a conflict in variety of ways. So to quote from Natya Shastra, Brahma asked the Vignas why they wanted to destroy Natya. Virupaka, Virupaksh on behalf of the Vignas said that the Natya Vedas created by Brahma at the request of the gods was to glorify the gods at the cost of the Vignas' humiliation. So there was this feeling that a whole set of people were left out of this framework or from this creation. These are mythic stories. So then it is stated here, you are as much the creator of us as of the gods, so you should not have done it. So right from the very early part of this text, you begin to see the assertion of democratic space and therefore it is very interesting again to note that Brahma went on to suggest that actually Natya Vedas had a very very different outlook. It was inclusive, it was capacious. So again to quote from this text, Brahma said, if that is all, then there is no need for you to feel angry or aggrieved, I have created the Natya Vedas to show the good and bad actions and feelings of both the gods and yourselves. It is the representation of the ways of the entire three worlds. So that is the kind of range of imagination that is contained in drama as a mode of representation. So it says it is the representation of the entire three worlds and not only of the gods of or of yourselves, it gives you peace, entertainment, happiness as well as beneficial advice based on the actions of high, low and middle people. No wonder Natya Shastra was called the fifth Vedas, but again apart from this question of contested world views and also this question of who gets the primacy in terms of the projection in this representational mode. I think the other thing that is very visible is the aesthetic fineness which is visible in almost every stage of this text. And for example, if we are talking about content and the democratic space that it allowed for and it created, I am not just allowed for it created in a fundamental sense, then it also talks about the relationship between this text and the audience. So this sense of creating the text, the sense of representing the material for the audience, all these things have been of course taken care of in terms of great degree of sophistication. It will not be possible for us to capture the totality and the depth of this because unless one reads a lot of these texts, it is very difficult to understand what is being talked about. But we are trying to foreground some important issues for you and I think it one can safely say that when we quote from the eulogy of Natya and when Bharat Muni points out based on the practice of that time, that drama brings rest and peace to persons afflicted by sorrow or fatigue or grief or helplessness. He is actually talking about very rich format of drama which also allowed for complex viewing and he feels that this aesthetic experience leads to all these virtues, all these if I would used an Aristotelian phrase, cathartic emotions. There is no art, this is very unique again, very thought provoking statement where he says there is no art, no knowledge, no yoga, no action that is not found in Natya. In other words, Natya is close to life, Natya has all the elements that life has and of course life is in a flux whereas drama gives it shape, form and also refines that whole process of representation to provide aesthetic pleasure which stands on its own and therefore it leads to the kind of release of internal sort of possibilities in the members of the audience also. After this Bharat Muni of course went on to talk about the intricacies of the stage and I really personally think it is absolutely marvelous to read this, I have tried to read it in the original but I am really sort of not so well versed with Sanskrit and therefore the translation also makes me feel quite excited because look at the description of the stage also. So, it is both in terms of the space, the separated space which was used and also you know the sense that that separated space is the space where imaginatively the theme would be constructed for the audience. So, I would go back to that slide where he talks about the stage, different areas of the stages as thus distinguish the area of performance could be either a house or a town or a garden etc. According to the dialogue one could see if it is an inside of a house or an outside locale or the middle of a road or a far off country. So, again it is really very pleasurable as I am sure you must have experienced it and we experienced this time and again when we go to theatre to see a play or a performance that is the term he is used here. When you see even things that you are familiar with their representation and again to have a range of this kind it allows for the inside and the outside to be represented and that is again as I feel you know really fascinating it shows the kind of plays that were presented at that time and all the artistic interpretations and finesse that was necessary. In terms of plays he has pointed out that there are two kinds of plays. One is lokh dharmi that is where the characters behave naturally. I think the parallel in terms of western terminology would be perhaps realism where there is life like a representational mode plays of chekka plays of ipson would fall within this category. Naatya dharmi according to this definition is dramatic somewhat stylized when characters are side by side and the speech of one is supposed not to be heard by the other is Naatya dharmi. So, that is there is an element of artifice involved in Naatya dharmi plays because even if the person is speaking the character is speaking and if the playwright does not want this to be shared by the other character. So, the other character would pretend that he or she has not listened to the dialogue but the audience would be able to listen to it. So, you know you have soliloquy right here which again is a fascinating aspect to the fact that theater has always allowed for not only the external aspect of human beings but the emotive inner life. And also the rapport between the performers and the audience is that of sharing secrets sharing the inner insights. And that makes for a very very finely textured understanding of this form. So, Naatya dharmi is of this kind and then in this type mountains aerial chariots weapons etcetera are given human forms. So, again that is a delightful kind of possibility because when human beings enact all these other inanimate objects that also lends an interpretive charge to it which of course through good performances adds to the delight in the perceptions of the audience. About the language issue and again about the protagonists the choice of protagonist you know Sanskrit drama sort of has always been controversial especially when contemporary theater practitioners look at these ideas I think many of these ideas really trouble them or make them feel worried about the world view that this contained. But if we look at it in terms of the practice of that time and what it represented it does show that this was a very hierarchy oriented world but I think in terms of again the aesthetic representation you do see that they did not exclude any character. So, within the hierarchy itself or within the world view which was saturated in class divisions and also class divisions you still see that it is inclusive because it represents different kinds of characters. So, the kinds of four languages that are mentioned and it is pointed out that though the languages themselves are Sanskrit and prakrit these four kinds are only the intonations and I really am not an expert on this but I just thought I should mention this because from the point of view of hybridity that we have talked about in module 1 and 2 in terms of contemporary writers and this whole issue of hybridity which shows the way you know people use multiple languages the mix and match and also are very expressive and inventive in using language I think this holds some interest for us. So, atibhasha is intended for gods, aribhasha is intended for the kings, jatibhasha is various kinds mixed with foreign words refined or rustic and jatyantari bhasah is rustic foresters, animals and birds. So, you remember human beings acting as animals and birds they would also use this language. Characters in disguise, sramanas, ascetics, mendicants should use prakrit. Similarly, children, persons possessed by evil spirits, women, persons of low birth, intoxicated persons must also use prakrit. But itinerant recluses, sages, Buddhists, learned brahmin and other qualified in the knowledge of the Vedas should speak Sanskrit. As I said this has been a bone of contention and at the same time it does show a sort of inclusive outlook in terms of not leaving out any kind of person from this representational enterprise. This goes on to talk about queens, courtesans, artisans under special circumstances and if the occasion demands may also speak Sanskrit. For example, and this is rather interesting that for the queen she is allowed to speak Sanskrit. Why? Because the queen may have to know matters connected with war and peace with the movements of planets and stars or cries of birds for booding good or evil results. So, she must speak Sanskrit. I found it very interesting that what is expected of the queen is that she would know about power politics, but she would also be scientifically aware, she would be aware of the movements of planets and stars, but also ecologically connected and also very intuitive in terms of sense of good or evil that sort of would emerge in any situation. If I were you I would pick up this sentence and try and figure out if I could write a play imagining such a possibility. Well, Bharat Muni went on to talk about ten varieties of plays and what we have done here is not to really talk about the ten kinds of plays, but only pick up two that is Natak and Vaan. Natak because we feel that it has all the propensities of portraying conflict and also the sort of ups and downs, the upheavals within the text in terms of characters and how they are transformed and Vaan because Vaan is a monologic form. So, let us see how we can you know make sense of this material, so that is why as I pointed out that although on the one hand we are looking at this text from Bharat Muni mainly in order to understand what the practice of that historical period, but we are also interested in extrapolating and also interested in understanding how at different points in time Indian theatre practitioners as well as western theatre practitioners have taken their inspiration from the ideas contained in Bharat Muni's Natashastra. So of course as I said we are not looking at all the ten varieties, we are only looking at Natak and Vaan and I have mentioned ten to forty seven because in this edition that we are using they pointed out how in these lines Bharat Muni has explained what Natak is all about. So it is kind of almost in a prescriptive mode, but the characteristics of Natak have been described and similarly Vaan has been described. Now one way of dealing with this we thought was to not really look at the text from Bharat Muni, but actually look at a great example of Natak from that time and that is Kalidas' Shakuntalam. Of course this picture that we have chosen for you we do feel that you know this does not perhaps fully imagine Kalidas and there are of course lots and lots of images of Kavikalidas that begin to crop up in one's consciousness based on either you know cinematic representation or paintings one may have seen. But I think more needs to be done on this because we could not quite find something that really gripped our attention the way the iconic pictures of Kabir earlier had gripped our attention and they completely represent the poet's world. I am not so sure but so what we have done is to use Shakuntalam and also share the features of Natak in that process. What are the features of Natak and therefore what is the relevance of this form and how have modern practitioners been inspired and influenced by this form in general and what are the responses to this text in particular. So now Shakuntalam when it is translated it reads like a different text in different translation. This particular translation that we have used and it is not that we evaluated every translation and decided on this particular translation it just so happens that I have always been exposed to this particular translation by Arthur Ryder. So this is one that translates the title as of Shakuntala recognized by a token. In other translations it is the ring which is mentioned. This particular play if you look at the illustration the second illustration this is from Raja Ravi Verma and his famous painting of Shakuntala again this is a sort of almost an iconic scene but what is really very interesting about this form of drama is the fact that although there is a central conflict there is also a sense of you know I would say rise and fall in the destiny of the characters but at the same time it also revolves around the idea of a mood or a rasa which is dominant. In Shakuntalam is Sringarras which is dominant and also Viraha is also part of this you know the mood that is created. So the mood is created partly of course through the theme but also there are songs the interpretive songs that are constantly you know generated by the playwright. The story of Shakuntala is from the Mahabharat and Kalidas actually sort of had a different take on the story. The story briefly is about Shakuntala who lived in a hermitage and how Dushan the king went there and he was attracted by her and so this first part the first portrayal that is before you it deals with Shakuntala and her friends who are totally immersed in the landscape of the hermitage. So she is projected almost like nature's child and so let us see what else in terms of the pictures first and then I will maybe read few lines from the text. The second picture before you is that of Shakuntala who after she falls in love with Dushyant and they actually have a Gandharva Viva that means sort of contract between the two individuals to remain married he goes back to his court and meanwhile Shakuntala has been cursed that you know she would not the person she is married to would forget her. And so you know by the time she goes to the court and you know tell Dushyant that she is going to have a child Dushyant has forgotten her. So this particular painting it shows the mood the mood of Viraha in Shakuntala what I think may be useful is to notice that plays of this variety when they were presented at that time they also had sort of device by which you know or not device but the convention that it had to start with a benediction. So it starts with a prayer for the well being of the audience which is what Shakuntala also starts with and it also shows the conversations between the stage director actress and director in this text. And I again the reason I want to foreground this very briefly is because this device shows a very different outlook towards theatre there is no attempt to create the illusion of reality in the way modern western realistic drama try to create an illusion of reality. So you had to suspend your disbelief and then you went to see drama here the story is already quite well known based on the epic which was also part of the oral tradition. So people the audience were at that time very very well versed with the story of Shakuntala and Dushyant and a variation that they had heard or may have heard at that time through oral narratives and so there was no great suspense about the story. And in addition then there is this playful banter between the people involved in producing this play and I would actually like to read it from the point of view of the actress here because I notice in this you know defined as a prologue that the actress is very keen on sort of satisfying whatever the stage director and the director asks her to. And so this is how it starts after the prayer he says madam if you are ready pray come here enter an actress and she says here I am sir what am I to do and he says our audience is very discriminating and we have to offer them a play called Shakuntala and the ring of recognition written by the famous Kalidas every member of the cast must be on his metal and then he says she says what do you want me to do and he says you must sing something to please the ears of the audience. So starts with a song about the season of spring which sort of brings in new life and so on and so forth. And so it starts with a song and then again there is a bit of a banter between these. Now this may seem innocuous to you if you are not familiar with theatre traditions or it may seem innocuous if you are familiar with this tradition both ways but actually this has had profound impact on many many theatre practitioners in India and the west because this whole idea of beginning to talk to the audience I think that has enchanted playwrights quite a bit because it breaks certain barriers it sort of also includes the audience directly in the world view of the writer the sense of what is being explored they become you know closer there is a closer bond between all the sides so to say. So this is how the play begins and we will talk about this format later on and so please take note of this convention of prayer followed by a banter between the directors actors the sutradhar is there many times and so on and so forth. The only two small parts that have been you know identified for sharing with you one is in act one and I think this particular scene is depicted in the Raja Ravi Burma painting also the first one with Shakuntala and her friends and you also see another woman a woman monk in the background that contrast is also very interesting but I think this is the line that unfolds in that hermitage where actually already the friends are talking to each other and it is shown that Shakuntala has very you know intimate sense of connection with every plant every bird every animal every human being in that hermitage. So she is very deeply connected child of that hermitage and you know she talks to Priyambada her friend and preceding the lines that I have selected Shakuntala says and I again this will really evoke a lot of sort of I think aesthetic pleasure if you read it in the original but here she says in translation oh girls that mango tree is trying to tell me something with his branches that move in the wind like fingers I must go and see him and she does so and Priyambada her friend says there Shakuntala stand right where you are a minute and Shakuntala says why Priyambada when I see you there it looks as if a wine were clinging to the mango tree and Shakuntala says I see why they call you the flatterer and the king whose eavesdropping he says but the flattery is true and the lines that I have chosen here from act one they actually are uttered by Dushyant who has come to the hermitage while he is on a hunt and he chances on this hermitage and then he eavesdrops and he says her arms are tender shoots her lips are blossoms red and warm bewitching youth begins to flower in beauty on her form so this first part is you know these lines they are seen from the sort of male gaze of King Dushyant and I like to contrast it with the voice of Shakuntala in the fifth act where actually Dushyant refuses to recognize Shakuntala and so I think it has a particular title it is called Shakuntala's rejection a very harsh term and a harsh experience for Shakuntala where the king after he listens to this claim that she is a wife you know he has forgotten this and these are the lines that I would like to read to you to project Shakuntala's agony again think of the second painting and this is the kind of situation perhaps which will help you understand the emotions on the face of Shakuntala and her friends. Act 5 Shakuntala's rejection and the king listening with anxious suspicion what is this insinuation and Shakuntala to herself it is very interesting to note that this device of talking to herself has been used very extensively in this particular act where she is almost voiceless she is almost heavy with the child and with grief she is burdened she is highly burdened because there is the sense of uncertainty as to what would happen to her. But when she confronts the situation and Dushyant rejects her completely this is what she says to herself oh oh so hearty and so slanderous and I the reason again I think this is interesting is because on the one hand one can see that in a Nartak the king is the protagonist and it is the action of the king which is given you know precedence over the action of other characters although the play is called Shakuntala. So I think Kalidas was interested in foregrounding Shakuntala but he also was really you know it is not clear whether he was looking at her as a victim or he was also trying to see the kind of grief that she suffered. I think it allows the text allows for complex reading and in that sense what Shakuntala says to herself becomes very important because she does not lose her personhood at all and so she is sort of angry and she says what how so hearty and so slanderous and then later on the king as he listens to her outburst he begins to feel admiration for her so he does not remember because of the curse now of course the curse does it show that this was an external reason because of which Tushant forgot her or was it because of arrogance of power which allowed him to play with the lives of people that is not clear but also it is subject to one's interpretation but at the same time he begins to feel admiration for her because this is what he says now to himself and the reason he says this to himself is because publicly he is already taken a stance that she does not belong to him and he has no connection with Shakuntala. So now he says to himself but her anger is free from cockatry because she has lived in the forest see so again this living in the forest is associated with the state of innocence where the person is not corrupted by the manipulations of the city life the court life in particular and therefore you know he sort of is greatly attracted by this honesty that he can sense in her outpouring because you know there is absolutely comes from her soul and heart now Shakuntala says well well I had my way I trusted a king and put myself in his hands he had a honey face and a heart of stone so really very strong contrasting image and then she breaks down she covers her face with a dress and weeps later on in this scene it is again a very very interesting situation where you know you instead of you know the Sita like situation where the earth opens and Sita sort of decides to go back to the earth earth mother here Shakuntala is actually lifted by an aerial figure and in that sense again this is you know a very mythological kind of situation but it also suggests to everybody who is present there that Shakuntala is an honest woman what she is saying is truth and it is not an act of manipulation at all and this is on page 61 when they they you know the voices behind the scenes are crying out and saying a miracle a miracle and the king is listening what does this mean and the chaplain says your majesty a wonderful thing has happened and he says what when converse pupils had departed she tossed her arms bemoaned her plight accused her crushing fate and then the king says and the chaplain says before our eyes a heavenly light in women's form but shining bright seized her and vanished straight all betray astonishment. So you know again these plays these mythic or mythological portrayals they allow for a fresh way of interpretation of these weighty themes because the iconic plays and the characters and the situations of conflict that are portrayed they have become part of our national imagination we will talk about that a little later. So this is the great Kalidas who also I think whose play represents Natak at its best Prachikadikam by Shudrak is another play that later on we will talk about but at this point let us shift to the Bhan because that is another variety of drama and I sort of we feel particularly gripped by it from the perspective of this course on creativity and creative writing because in our attempt to teach plot and character we are also trying to sort of find out writing exercises for students who have started taking writing work seriously to figure out how you know they can locate their sense of selfhood while undertaking initial stages of writing in a somewhat self-conscious manner we do feel that the efficacy of monologue as a preliminary writing exercise is I think fairly well established from our point of view and of course solidock we an aside also within a play are forms of that you know are other forms of internal monologues that we are also equally interested in but what Bhan does is to really locate the presence of monologue as a full fleshed artistic form and therefore let us look at what Bharat Muni had to say about Bhan because if he gave it the status of a full fleshed form what does it contain that has been the question that for the last one month or so we been pursuing I think little longer than that. So Bhan is to be he says acted by one person in one act it shall include many or various episodes and plenty of movements it can be autobiographical or it can be fictional very interesting from the point of view of writing exercises because in the early stages of writing this difference between the autobiographical and the fictional is very very hard to sustain for many of the students. So then it is described this quality of fictionality when it refers to the acts of another person the actor on the stage must carry on a dialogue with the other one by Akash Bhashita speaking face up with one who is of the stage. So it is like it is a monologue but there is an imagined person that the protagonist could be talking to that is one form the other is purely autobiographical in that sense is close to the solidock we but the solidock we you know comes in sporadically whereas here the focus would be completely on a single point of view. So I think more than this at this point in time we will not be able to say about Bhan as an art form because we have been trying to locate examples and Shudra along with Mrich Katikam had published a Bhan and you know when we were sort of locate trying to locate Bhan we were very lucky to have the help of professor Ram Subramanian who finally put us in touch with a very eminent scholar of Sanskrit from Bangalore Dr. Ganesh and Dr. Ganesh has helped us locate a text that was published in 1960 with four Bhan's there. So what we decided is that you know since we really hadn't read any of these Bhan's ourselves although we think that it has great potential as an art form and also it has significance for creative writing courses where students are struggling with this notion of the self and the other in variety of ways I think we would still try and explore these examples but Dr. Ganesh Ashta Badhani he gave us some sense of what it is all about. We had posed these questions to him yesterday when we were able to get in touch with him and you know these are the questions that he tried to help us understand. We won't report everything here except to say that you know I think talking to him was wonderful because he took our questions very seriously and he will help us locate these four Bhan's. So the question that we had were related to the fact of this issue of language. If this is a standalone piece was it in Sanskrit or Prakrith that was one question. The other question was related to the character type because according to Bharat Muni it projected either a rogue or a gallant. So my question to him yesterday was related to the difference between the characters in Abhan and Vidushak for example from Sanskrit drama who always subverts the main plot who also is seen as a lower character but he also has a sharp satirical gaze and I think his response was that this is slightly different and also these are sort of perhaps meant for refined audience and therefore the character spoke a mix of Sanskrit and Prakrith and especially in the fictional form if they were talking to somebody who was in the category where the Prakrith had to be spoken then Prakrith was used by this character and in other words there is greater degree of sophistication in the way the characters are projected these are not just reactive. Vidushak is a reactive figure that is the way I figured it out and in that sense he reacts to the you know fallible nature of the powerful figures around him. What happens actually even in Shakuntalam that the fishermen who actually catch fish which contains the ring of Shakuntala they also have fairly cutting things to say about the upper classes. So that is why you know I think it allows for complexing but here in this case another issue that sort of I really want to resolve is in terms of the democratic space which is used by the character and by the writer in this format. So a writer like Shudrakh why did he feel compelled to write Han. Finally does it allow for introspection this form does it allow for introspection by the protagonist. So then these are the questions that we pose to Dr. Ganesh Ashtavadhani but I think we will also wait to read and maybe talk to him again and report back to you when we find the material. What we have been trying to do when we look back at the great ancient forms which have actually triggered the discourses within each culture of what constitutes representational forms. We are really looking at the interacting continuum of the classical, the folk and the modern because all of these we have already talked about it at length earlier there is such a sense of connection and in that sense what I would like to sort of point out to you again is the fact that you know this continuum also contains seeds of creativity. Our earlier preoccupation with diversity of languages and aesthetic forms we have mentioned they you know we look at it seriously because these animate the Indian imagination and for a creative outlook even if let us say everything does not work out for you when you read it but for a creative outlook I think that it is need for alertness towards our own complex cross currents and to just give you some idea about what a tremendous sense of flow this is all about it may be useful to talk about the hybridity of the Masha a performative form in Maharashtra which draws from Bhan you know so it sort of draws directly from Bhan which we have been talking about as a monologic form but what it has done is to add also some other forms so the hybridity is consists of a combination of Bhan, Prehessen, Kathak, the Shavatar etc to create new mode of public presentation and we would like to show a short clip from Ram Joshi one of the great performers of Tamasha in order to give you a sense of the form today or you know in recent years how it developed but we also would like to mention that it has been pointed out by important scholars that the Sanskrit theater declined in 1000 AD and it led to the rise of folk forms and what the trajectory of Bhan shows is a movement from classical to folk and that's why we are placing Tamasha before you and in according to some scholars Tamasha developed among the Maratha people in the 16th century from the decaying remnants of the literary Sanskrit dramatic and linguistic traditions these remnants in particular included two entertainment forms one act skits and musical sketches by now Bhan has become musical sketch other notable observation regarding Bhan and his transformation in Tamasha as musical sketches has been made by Tabia Abraham in her article the folk popular traditions where it has been pointed out that the oldest known example dates from the end of the 14th century but the form goes back at least to the classical period and possibly even to an earlier tradition of mimes from the pre classical era this is of course with reference to Tamasha and his connection to these multiple other forms specially Bhan and it is suggested that some aspects of it go back to even pre classical era and the traditional mimes that's really absolutely fascinating journey backwards what we would suggest to you is to imagine the past by bringing alive the spirit and aesthetic innovations practiced by Bhan artists or pre classical mime artists. So, if only you know this could be an act of imagination now this particular kind of activity may require in-depth research but I think research as you know is an integral part of a writer's vocation. So, if something grips you or form grips you and you feel that for the kind of you know issue or experience you want to articulate these forms will really take you to your destination then I think you may require some effort in that direction there is this very interesting case in this frame of reference that one can mention is which is that of Girish Karnat who wanted to write in English and when he first as a young person began to write the mythic themes gripped his attention to such an extent and Kannada his mother tongue gripped his imagination his subconscious layers of creativity in such a way that finally he wrote Yayati in Kannada. So, you know its writing is a process of discovery and just about anything is possible but you can take this journey to the mythic sources also. We have the works cited listed for you we hope that you would be able to read some of this writing and we also hope that you would really be able to find your own destiny as a writer. Thank you very much.