By Pratyusha Chakrabarti and Nivedita Mahapatra
Note: The following essay uses two translations of the Nāṭyaśāstra. In-text citations such as – (Bharata 1) indicate M. M. Ghosh’s translation; if Babulal Shukla’s translation is used, it has been accordingly indicated. Further, while diacritics have been used for words such as brāhmaṇas, they have not been italicised given the frequency and familiarity of their usage.
“There is no wise maxim, no learning, no art or craft, no device, no action that is not found in the drama (nāṭya).” – śloka 116, Chapter I, The Nāṭyaśāstra.1
The Nāṭyaśāstra, attributed to Bharata, is considered to be an encyclopaedic text on dramaturgy, dance and performing arts. It occupies an important place in popular imaginations of a perceived ‘high’ culture prevalent in ‘ancient’ India. Like most texts of its period, little can be said with any degree of certainty concerning its exact date of compilation or the historicity of its author(s). However, like most textual material, a close examination of its content offers valuable insight into the interrelated factors of the social provenance of its author and the authorial intent embedded in the text. Therefore, on the basis of a close reading of Manomohan Ghosh’s translation of the Nāṭyaśāstra, this essay seeks to locate the Nāṭyaśāstra within (or out of) the contemporary śāstra tradition and its brāhmaṇical, patriarchal matrix.
To examine the significance of the śāstra in ‘Nāṭyaśāstra’ would entail, first, a brief delineation of the nature of śāstra, its purpose and the relationship between śāstra and practise. At its very essence, they may indicate as a set of moralistic injunctions on the basis of which brahmin or dvija men should lead their lives. As the eighth-century scholar Mīmāṃsaka Kumārilabhaṭṭa states, śāstra “teaches people what they should and should not do. It does this by means of eternal [words] or those made [by men]” (qtd. in Pollock, “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History” 500). Such normative or didactic ‘cultural grammars’, Pollock posits, exist in every society, but were epitomised in the Indian context given the extreme ritualisation of secular life (501).
While Kumārilabhaṭṭa’s definition makes the injunctive nature of the śāstra very clear, it brings to light yet another interesting aspect — that of authorship. The general perception of the composition or rather, compilation of treatises like the Nāṭyaśāstra is usually that of a long process involving the accumulation of multiple interpolations leading to their being products of a tradition rather than an author. However, as Olivelle posits, these texts were “authored by individuals with clear authorial intent” (Olivelle, Manu’s Code of Law 5-6).2 Irrespective of whether we see them as being ‘authored’ or a result of gradual accumulation, it is undeniable that śāstra texts were the products of an injunctive tradition – a category the Nāṭyaśāstra finds itself fitting, given the content of the text.
Further, we must make note of the fact that introduction of śāstras into society must be mediated by a śiṣṭa. Both ‘śāstra’ and ‘śiṣṭa’ are derived from the verbal root śās which means to train, to teach or to educate. Taken in the past participle, śiṣṭa would refer to an educated person, while the suffix tra carries connotations of the śāstra being an instrument of training (65). In the context of the legal treatises, only brāhmaṇa(s) are allowed to read, debate and transmit the śāstra amongst themselves. Interestingly, while the Nāṭyaśāstra claims to be the fifth Veda (Bharata 3), created by the Brahman for all the varṇas – sārvavarṇikam (3), Bharata adds that sages who “know the mystery of the Vedas” are capable of maintaining the Nāṭyaśāstra and putting it into practice (5). Tellingly, he educates only his sons in the Nāṭyaveda to transmit the same to ensure its survival (5-7).
Hence, the śāstra creates a śiṣṭa qualified to comment on the śāstra — not only is the production of the text controlled, so is its interpretation. Further, given that the interpreters as well as the authors (going by Olivelle’s postulation of authorial agency) are clearly elements from the brāhmaṇical class, we may note the creation of an endless cycle of hegemony, used in the Gramscian sense of the term. Kunal Chakrabarti, in Religious Process: The Purāṇas and the Making of a Regional Tradition, posits the brāhmaṇas as performing the function of ‘traditional intellectuals’ through “their attempts to manipulate popular themes, the location of ideological domination in non-coercive organs of society, and the mutually supportive function of the state and civil institutions in terms of division of power” (11-15). However, this essay also postulates that brāhmaṇas may be seen as organic intellectuals too, since they are working within their ‘class’ to further their own interests and thus are “constructor[s], organiser[s] and permanent persuader[s]” (Gramsci, trans. and ed. Hoare and Smith, “The Intellectuals”, Selections from Prison Notebooks 10).
It is important to note that the text itself claims divine origin by positing that it was ‘uttered by the Brahman’ (Bharata 1) or that Bharata learnt it from the Brahman (5). Further, it also claims that elements of the four canonical Vedas come together to form the fifth Veda, the Nāṭyaveda (4). Taking either conceptualisation and keeping in mind the apauruṣeya origins that the Vedas allegedly have in that they were realised, not composed, the Nāṭyaśāstra clearly locates its source and thus itself, as being divine. In portraying itself as created by the Gods and maintained by the brāhmaṇas, we identify a clear attempt to strictly control, if not prohibit any attempts at subversion.
Before moving on to examples from the text itself, another important intervention needs to be made with respect to the question of the degree to which śāstric injunctions find implementation in society, primarily since the essay becomes irrelevant if these injunctions are entirely hypothetical. There is no scholarly consensus on whether the śāstra follows practice, or whether they are formulated based on popular practice. In fact, there is a disagreement on this within the śāstras themselves — as Olivelle highlights, Manu insists on caṇḍala executioners carrying out their work yathāśāstram, (according to the śāstras), in Vatsyayan’s opinion, śāstras are a precondition for rule-governed activities: – “The śāstra alone, however removed it may be, is the cause of practice” (Olivelle 64). Modern scholars have vacillated between two antithetical viewpoints – that of the śāstra as historical truth or entirely ‘panditic fantasy’, but Olivelle concludes that the truth lies somewhere in-between — while it is unwise to accept them uncritically, it is also dangerous to posit that they have no relation to real life (65).
Presuming this nuanced understanding of their implementation, this essay seeks to draw on the content of the text to understand its relation to brāhmaṇical ways of thinking. The Nāṭyaśāstra makes places strong emphasis on the performance of ceremonies (pūjā) at all stages of the production of the play including during the construction of the playhouse and the stage and make offerings in accordance with the principles of Vedic yajña in which brāhmaṇas are inevitably privileged (Bharata 22-24). In this context, Kapila Vatsyayana draws attention to Bharata’s role as a ‘synthesiser’, given the juxtaposition of the constant analogy of the Vedic yajña (such as the replication of the stage as a vedikā) and insistence on pūjā — symptomatic of the coexistence of the Vedic and Purāṇic Hinduism systems of practice (Vatsyayana, Bharata: The Nāṭyaśāstra 16). Therefore, while she dates the Nāṭyaśāstra to a period predating temple-building, she sees the Nāṭyaśāstra as foreshadowing practices of image consecration and worship (17).
More importantly, heretics, and other ‘undesirable persons’ including śramaṇa(s) are to be explicitly excluded from foundation-laying practices (Bharata 23). The foundation may not be raised without adequate offerings of considerable gifts of jewels, cows and clothes to the brāhmaṇas (25-26). Notably, non-conformity to the above injunctions is threatened with dire consequences — those who do not perform the pūjā will find their art useless and will be reborn as an animal or one of lower-order; the actor (nartaka) and the patron (arthapati) shall incur a loss (16-17). The proliferation of brāhmaṇas and brāhmaṇism into events as perceivably mundane as the laying of a foundation for a playhouse demonstrates Pollock’s aforementioned argument of the ‘ritualization’ of the secular and its role in the efficacy of didactic texts such as the Nāṭyaśāstra.
The Nāṭyaśāstra consistently categorises and classifies and in doing so, creates hierarchies. This practice is most visible when it comes to the intersecting hierarchies of gender3, caste and, we would argue, class. The text focuses on male and female character types with all roles, styles and techniques of performance distinguished on the basis of masculine and feminine natures. While both male and female characters are arranged in a three-fold hierarchy: superior (uttama), middling (madhyama) and inferior (adhama), it is interesting to note that female character types are paid more attention to. Characters are further divided into two types based on their employment with respect to the dealings with the king: ‘external’ (bāhya) and ‘internal’ (ābhyantara). Women as well as ‘hermaphrodites’ (varṣadhara and aupasthāyika-nirmuṇḍa) find employment only in the internal palace harems. The outer world (bāhya) is exclusively male (440-482).
The portrayal of women and their occupations is contested by scholars such as Iravati and Kenneth Zysk. Iravati highlights what she considers proof of not only women’s participation, but the advanced stage of their expertise in acting and music both vocal and instrumental which they attained under the guidance of the ācārya (Iravati, Performing Artistes in Ancient India 63). Zysk, on the other hand, argues for a fundamental erotic basis for the delination of female character types, stressing on the centrality of man-woman amorous relationships to Bharata’s conceptualisation. According to him the Nāṭyaśāstra is perhaps the only text that that provides for this association between female character types and Indian eroticism, thus forming a bridge between Sāmudrikāśāstra and Kāmaśāstra (Zysk, “The Human Character Types in Ancient India” 225). This is illustrated by the fact that Bharata introduces the female character and behaviour types through the mode of erotic pleasure (kāma), thus rooting them in their erotic nature and conduct which in turn indicates towards the courtesans of the royal harem trained and educated in the Kāmaśāstra (224).
As hinted at above, class plays an important role in the process of hierarchisation. The chief queen is described with all ‘virtuous’ traits both in terms of talents as well as nature, while the other queens are depicted as having all traits but denied proper consecration and thus being jealous. Ordinary wives are shown to be exceptionally bad-natured. A similar degradation of character and virtues with decreasing socio-economic status can be traced with respect to male characters as well. An interesting exception to the above trend are the concubines (bhoginī) who are described as an extremely good-natured and virtuous woman (Bharata 527-537).
Class also shows up in another interesting juxtaposition — that of the folk and classical, often analogous to a juxtaposition of the rural and the urban. Bharata refers to the grāmyadharma, which a later commentator, Abhinavagupta extrapolates as being against, or not in accordance with, the śāstras (Bharata, trans. Babulal Shukla Nāṭyaśāstram 2-4). Iravati too draws upon this notion, positing that the Nāṭyaśāstra is an attempt to ‘classicalise’ the folk traditions that were perhaps more sensually oriented in nature and hence, frowned upon. Theatre before Bharata catered to undisciplined and uninhibited tastes of the audience characterised by Bharata as śūdra. In Iravati’s opinion, this also translates into a ‘love-hate’ relationship between society and the actors or performers of these plays (Iravati “Preface” ix). With Bharata’s intervention, folk theatre that was ‘vulgar’ was codified and hence, attained respectability. Therefore, the actors’ craft is appropriated into the brāhmaṇical fold, used as an instrument for brāhmaṇical hegemony that seeks to exclude these very actors from their midst (214-215). Further, a dichotomy of purity and pollution and imposition of a certain (brāhmaṇical) morality may be noted.
Categorisation is also conducted in a spatial plane, where Bharata delineates the various lifestyles, modes of dress etc. of people from different regions of the subcontinent (Bharata 410-439). B.D. Chattopadhyaya argues that ‘apolitical’ texts such as the Nāṭyaśāstra and Kāvyamīmāṃsā, draw up schémas that under line the differences in the nuances of lifestyles and in the ways men and women conducted and expressed themselves. These schémas portray the relationships between janapadas or localities or regions as relationships of difference. In Chattopadhyaya’s understanding, the diverse origins of the practise Bharata seeking to synthesise may be seen in such elements of regional difference within the Nāṭyaśāstra (Chattopadhyaya, “Interrogating ‘Unity in Diversity’: Voices from India’s Ancient Texts” 9).
Interestingly, the Nāṭyaśāstra also remarks upon four kinds of ‘languages’ to be seen in a play. Of these, atibhāṣā and āryabhāṣā – languages of the Gods and kings respectively, are said to have saṃskāra i.e. be in Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit). As noted by Andrew Ollet, Saṃskṛta and Prākṛta are not used as names of languages, but as degrees of purity in recitation, two types of actors’ lines (Ollet, Language of the Snakes 162, 177). Further, the language used clearly functions as a marker of status, even among the dialects. For example, the Jester uses Prācya, guards of the Royal Harem use Māgadhī, charcoal makers use Śābari while forest dwellers speak Drāviḍī. As Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya says, “The recognition and accommodation of differences in the production of plays by Bharata was not intended simply to list them; they also implied hierarchy and status. Thus, of the four kinds of language to be used, atibhāṣā was intended for use only by those enacting divine characters and ārya-bhāṣā by kings. Jāti-bhāṣā was of various kinds, mixed with ‘foreign’ words, common in Bhārata-varṣa. Jātyantari-bhāṣā (alternative reading: yonyantarī bhāṣā) was for rustics, foresters, and animals, birds, etc. which are characters in a drama’ (Chattopadhyaya 10). Mistakes in pronunciation count as one of the worst mistakes an actor can make, and the success of a play is judged by a grammarian and an expert in sacrifice, among others (Bharata 516-521). The emphasis on correct speech – the speech with saṃskāra i.e. brāhmaṇical speech may be well noted.
Therefore, even a text on histrionics cannot be considered ‘secular’ or ‘neutral’. Whether it is through speech, gesture or ceremonial injunction, the Nāṭyaśāstra posits clear hierarchies of class, caste and gender that often intersect to present a picture that is not synonymous to the vision of the Dharmaśāstras but part of the same narrative tradition of assimilation and hierarchisation. Arising out of pre-existing traditions, or giving rise to new ones, the Nāṭyaśāstra clearly takes its place in the brāhmaṇical system of knowledge production and proliferation. Perhaps, to locate the śāstra in the Nāṭyaśāstra, one needs to merely look at the final benediction in the text, a śloka that contains the following phrase: ‘Let there be peace to cows and brāhmaṇas’ (561).
Notes
- Bharata. The Nāṭyaśāstra: A Treatise on Hindu Dramaturgy and Histrionics. Translated by Manomohan Ghosh, Calcutta, The Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1951, p 15.
- Olivelle makes this remark especially in the context of legal treatises such as the Mānavadharmaśāstra. However, this essay believes that given the similarity in their provenance with respect to the time period and authorship, Olivelle’s postulation may be applied to the Nāṭyaśāstra as well.
- This essay uses gender primarily in the sense of character tropes and types assigned to female characters. The Nāṭyaśāstradoes mention intersex individuals and other genders using terms such as napuṃsaka (Bharata 232) but given the lack of elaboration or clarity regarding the same in the text, we consider it to be beyond the scope of this essay.
Works Cited
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The authors are currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in History at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.
This article has been edited by Mayukhi Ghosh.
Historically Speaking 