Sanskrit Drama

What defines it

1. 01

   Nandi, sutradhara and bharatavakya

2. 02

   Sanskrit and Prakrit by rank of character

3. 03

   The vidushaka

4. 04

   Ten rupakas of the Dasharupaka

01The playwrights

Kalidasa wrote three plays: Malavikagnimitram, Vikramorvashiyam and Abhijnanashakuntalam, the story of Shakuntala and Dushyanta from the Mahabharata, with the ring, the curse of Durvasa and the parting at Kanva’s ashrama. Shudraka’s Mrichchhakatika, The Little Clay Cart, is a play of a poor Brahmin, a courtesan and a city revolution. Vishakhadatta’s Mudrarakshasa follows Chanakya’s plot to win Rakshasa over to Chandragupta. Harsha wrote Ratnavali, Priyadarshika and Nagananda; the Pallava king Mahendravarman I wrote the farce Mattavilasa; Bhavabhuti, at Kannauj, wrote the Uttararamacharita.

02The rules of the stage

A Sanskrit play opens with the nandi, a benediction, and the sutradhara, the stage manager, introduces the play. Kings, Brahmins and heroes speak Sanskrit; women, children and servants speak Prakrit, usually Shauraseni, and sing in Maharashtri. The vidushaka, the Brahmin jester, is the hero’s friend. Death and violence are not shown on stage, and the play ends in peace with the bharatavakya, a prayer for the land. Dhananjaya’s Dasharupaka, written at the Paramara court of Munja, sets out the ten kinds of play.

03Lost and found

Bhasa was praised by Kalidasa himself, but his plays were known only by name until T. Ganapati Sastri found thirteen of them in palm-leaf manuscripts in Kerala and printed them from 1912 in the Trivandrum Sanskrit Series; among them is the Svapnavasavadatta. Sir William Jones translated Shakuntala into English in 1789, and Goethe wrote a famous verse in its praise. The plays survive on the stage today in Kerala’s Koodiyattam and in new productions by Sanskrit and Hindi theatre groups.

Great masters

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