Natya Shastra

01The fifth Veda

The first chapter tells how the devas, at the coming of the Treta Yuga, asked Brahma for something that could be seen as well as heard, a Veda open to all, including those not permitted to hear the four. Brahma remembered all the Vedas and made the Natyaveda from them: recitation from the Rigveda, song from the Samaveda, gesture from the Yajurveda and rasa from the Atharvaveda. He gave it to Bharata Muni and his hundred sons. Natya, Brahma tells the devas, is a re-telling of the moods of all three worlds; there is no knowledge, craft, art or yoga that is not seen in it.

02The first performance

Bharata staged the first play at Indra’s banner festival, the dhvaja-maha, after the devas had beaten the asuras, and the play showed that victory. The vighnas, spirits of the defeated asuras, froze the actors’ speech and movement in mid-scene. Indra seized the flagstaff and beat them to pieces with it; that staff, the jarjara, is worshipped on the stage before every performance. Brahma then had Vishvakarma build a proper playhouse and set devas to guard each part of it. Bhagwan Shiva, watching a later performance in the Himalaya, gave Bharata the tandava through his attendant Tandu, and Mata Parvati gave the gentle lasya.

03Bharata and the text’s age

The book names Bharata Muni as its teacher, and the closing chapters tell how his sons, for mocking the rishis in a play, were cursed to be born as men, and how King Nahusha brought natya down to earth. Of Bharata himself nothing else is told; some read the name as the patron of all bharatas, the actors. Scholars commonly date the present text between the second century BCE and the second century CE, and many think it grew over time, since it mixes anushtubh verses, arya verses and prose. By Kalidasa’s day Bharata was already the authority: in the Vikramorvashiya, Bharata stages a play in Indra’s heaven.

04Thirty-six chapters

Tradition calls it the Shatsahasri, the work of six thousand verses. It runs to 36 chapters, 37 in some recensions, and two main recensions exist, a northern and a southern, which differ in order and readings. The plan follows the stage from the ground up. First the origin and the playhouse, the worship of the stage and the preliminaries; then rasa and bhava; then the four kinds of abhinaya one after another; then the forms of drama and their plot structure; then music and instruments; and last the types of characters, the company and the descent of natya to earth. It is at once a shastra of drama, dance, music, poetics and stagecraft.

05Rasa

The sixth chapter says no meaning moves forward without rasa, and gives the sutra on which all Indian aesthetics stands: rasa arises from the union of vibhava (the causes), anubhava (the visible responses) and vyabhicharibhava (the passing feelings). Bharata explains it by food. As a dish gets its taste from many spices, herbs and things combined, so a rasa comes from many bhavas combined, and the cultured spectator tastes it as a diner tastes food. He names eight rasas, each with its lasting emotion: shringara from rati, hasya from hasa, karuna from shoka, raudra from krodha, vira from utsaha, bhayanaka from bhaya, bibhatsa from jugupsa and adbhuta from vismaya. Each also has a colour and a presiding deity.

06Bhava and the forty-nine states

The seventh chapter counts forty-nine bhavas in all. Eight are lasting (sthayi), the roots of the rasas. Thirty-three are transitory (vyabhichari), among them weariness, doubt, envy, intoxication, recollection, shame, joy, anxiety, sleep and death, each with its causes and the way an actor shows it. Eight are sattvika, the signs the body gives without being told: stupor, sweating, horripilation, a break in the voice, trembling, change of colour, tears and fainting. Later teachers added shanta as a ninth rasa, and Abhinavagupta defended it. The nine rasas, navarasa, are what every dancer in Bharat learns today.

07Body, voice, costume

Abhinaya, ‘carrying towards’ the audience, has four kinds. Angika is the body: the fourth chapter gives the 108 karanas, the units of Shiva’s tandava, and the 32 angaharas made from them; later chapters give movements of the head, thirty-six kinds of glance, the eyebrows, cheeks and lips, and the hand gestures, 24 for one hand and 13 for two, with more for pure dance. Vachika is speech: metres, figures of speech, the Sanskrit and Prakrits each character speaks, modes of address. Aharya is costume, make-up, ornaments and props. Sattvika is the inner state shown through the body. The gopurams of Chidambaram carry carvings of the karanas with Bharata’s verses inscribed beside them.

08Playhouse and the ten forms

The second chapter measures the playhouse in hastas. It may be rectangular, square or triangular, and large, middling or small; Bharata recommends the middling rectangle, 64 hastas by 32, so that every word and every glance carries. Pillars, the stage, the green room behind it and the seating are all fixed, and the ground is consecrated before building. Later chapters define the ten kinds of play (dasharupaka): nataka, prakarana, anka, vyayoga, bhana, samavakara, vithi, prahasana, dima and ihamriga. A plot moves through five junctures (sandhis), from mukha, the opening, to nirvahana, the resolution. Kalidasa’s Abhijnanashakuntalam is built exactly on this frame.

09Svara, shruti and the drum

Chapters 28 to 33 are the oldest full treatment of Indian music. Instruments are of four kinds: tata (strung, like the vina), sushira (blown, like the flute), avanaddha (covered, the drums) and ghana (solid, cymbals and bells). There are seven svaras, sa ri ga ma pa dha ni, and twenty-two shrutis, the microtones within the octave. Two parent scales, shadja-grama and madhyama-grama, give rise to the murchanas and the eighteen jatis, ancestors of the later ragas. Bharata tests the shrutis with two identical vinas, lowering one string at a time, an experiment musicians still repeat. The dhruva songs sung between scenes and the playing of the pushkara drums close the section.

10Abhinavagupta and after

Bhatta Lollata, Shankuka and Bhatta Nayaka each read the rasa sutra differently, and around 1000 CE Abhinavagupta of Kashmir answered them all in the Abhinavabharati, holding that rasa is tasted by the sahridaya, the spectator of like heart, as a state beyond his private self. His reading became the standard one. The text itself was nearly lost to print until the nineteenth century: Joanny Grosset began a critical edition at Lyon in 1898, the Kavyamala series of Bombay printed it in 1894, and the Gaekwad’s Oriental Series brought out the text with the Abhinavabharati from 1926 to 1964. In 2025 manuscripts of the Natya Shastra were inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

What it contains

1. 1
   Chapters 1–5: Origin, theatre and rites

   The descent of the Natyaveda from Brahma and the first performance at Indra’s banner festival. The building and consecration of the playhouse, the worship of the stage and the jarjara, the tandava with its 108 karanas, and the long preliminaries (purvaranga) before a play begins.

2. 2
   Chapters 6–7: Rasa and bhava

   The rasa sutra, the eight rasas with their colours and deities, and the forty-nine bhavas: eight lasting, thirty-three transitory and eight involuntary. The heart of the book for poets as much as actors.

3. 3
   Chapters 8–13: Angika abhinaya

   Movements of the head, eyes, brows, nose, cheeks, lips and neck; the hand gestures; the chest, sides, waist, thighs and feet. Then the charis (steps), mandalas (combinations of steps), gaits for each type of character, and the zones of the stage.

4. 4
   Chapters 14–20: Vachika abhinaya and forms of drama

   Prosody and metres, the qualities and faults of poetry and the figures of speech, the languages each character speaks and the modes of address. Then the ten kinds of play, their acts and the five junctures of a plot.

5. 5
   Chapters 21–27: Aharya, sattvika and success

   Costume, make-up, masks and props, and the sattvika display of feeling. The general and the worldly modes of acting, the portrayal of women and lovers, and how a performance is judged, with the signs of divine and human success.

6. 6
   Chapters 28–33: Music

   The four kinds of instrument, svaras, shrutis, gramas, murchanas and jatis. Stringed and wind instruments, the dhruva songs of the stage, and the pushkara drums with their strokes and rhythms.

7. 7
   Chapters 34–36: Roles and the descent to earth

   Types of characters, high, middle and low, and the members of a theatre company. The book ends with the curse on Bharata’s sons and King Nahusha bringing natya down to the human world, with the merit of watching and performing it.

Famous verses

जग्राह पाठ्यमृग्वेदात्सामभ्यो गीतमेव च। यजुर्वेदादभिनयान् रसानाथर्वणादपि॥

He took recitation from the Rigveda, song from the Samans, gesture from the Yajurveda, and the rasas from the Atharvaveda.Natya Shastra 1.17

नैकान्ततोऽत्र भवतां देवानां चानुभावनम्। त्रैलोक्यस्यास्य सर्वस्य नाट्यं भावानुकीर्तनम्॥

Here there is no showing of you devas alone; natya is a re-telling of the moods of all the three worlds.Natya Shastra 1.107

न तज्ज्ञानं न तच्छिल्पं न सा विद्या न सा कला। नासौ योगो न तत्कर्म नाट्येऽस्मिन् यन्न दृश्यते॥

There is no knowledge, no craft, no learning, no art, no yoga and no action that is not seen in this natya.Natya Shastra 1.116

शृङ्गारहास्यकरुणा रौद्रवीरभयानकाः। बीभत्साद्भुतसंज्ञौ चेत्यष्टौ नाट्ये रसाः स्मृताः॥

Shringara, hasya, karuna, raudra, vira, bhayanaka, and those called bibhatsa and adbhuta: these are the eight rasas of drama.Natya Shastra 6.15

विभावानुभावव्यभिचारिसंयोगाद्रसनिष्पत्तिः

Rasa arises from the union of the causes, the responses and the passing feelings.Natya Shastra 6, prose after verse 31 (the rasa sutra)