Natyashastra

History glossary

Topic: Gupta Empire and the Classical Age · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies"

Meaning

The Natyashastra is an old Sanskrit book about natya (drama together with dance and music). It is said to be the work of the sage Bharata (often called Bharata Muni). NCERT's timeline places it c. 300 CE, but its real date is uncertain.

It matters because it is the oldest surviving rule-book for Indian theatre, dance and music. Its idea of rasa (the feeling a performance wakes in the audience) still shapes Indian classical arts today.

Explanation

Background: why such a book was written

  • Sanskrit drama grew in court circles. Kings and rich patrons paid for plays to be staged.
  • Actors, dancers and musicians needed fixed rules: how to move, speak, dress and build a stage. The Natyashastra collected these rules into one book.
  • The text calls drama a "fifth Veda" (the Natyaveda). Its story says the god Brahma made it for all people, taking:
  • words from the Rigveda
  • song from the Samaveda
  • acting from the Yajurveda

  • rasa from the Atharvaveda

  • What the claim did: it gave theatre the respect of sacred learning, and it was open to everyone, not only the few allowed to study the Vedas.

  • Like other learning of this age, it probably brought together older knowledge gathered over many generations. It is not one man's sudden invention. This fits the wider picture of the Gupta age as a time of consolidation, when old learning was collected and given final shape.

Main parts of the text

  • Rasa theory: the heart of the book.
  • Rasa means "taste" or "flavour". It is the feeling the audience enjoys while watching a play.
  • Bharata lists eight rasas: shringara (love), hasya (laughter), karuna (sorrow), raudra (anger), vira (courage), bhayanaka (fear), bibhatsa (disgust) and adbhuta (wonder).

  • A ninth rasa, shanta (peace), was added by later thinkers. It is not part of Bharata's original list.

  • Bhava: the emotional state an actor shows on stage. Each rasa grows out of a lasting bhava, for example love leading to shringara. The causes and outward signs of a bhava, put together on stage, produce rasa in the viewer.

  • Abhinaya (the art of acting) is of four kinds:
  • angika: through the body (hand gestures, face, movement)
  • vachika: through speech and song
  • aharya: through costume, make-up and stage props

  • sattvika: through inner feeling (tears, trembling, a change of colour)

  • Music: it sorts instruments into four groups:

  • tata: string instruments
  • sushira: wind instruments
  • avanaddha: drums covered with skin

  • ghana: solid instruments such as cymbals

  • Theatre building and production: types and sizes of playhouse, the stage, kinds of plays and kinds of characters.

  • Language rules: which characters speak Sanskrit and which speak Prakrit (the everyday languages of the people).

How it worked and changed over time

  • Playwrights of the classical age wrote within this framework. In Kalidasa's plays, kings and brahmanas speak Sanskrit, while women and most other characters speak Prakrit.
  • Later scholars wrote commentaries on it. The best known is Abhinavagupta's Abhinavabharati from Kashmir (c. 10th–11th century), which made rasa theory deeper.
  • The book became the root text for later works on dance and music.

Results and legacy

  • India's classical dance forms (for example Bharatanatyam, Kathakali and Odissi) trace their grammar of gesture and expression back to the Natyashastra.
  • Rasa theory moved beyond the stage into poetry, painting and music. It became a key idea in Indian ideas about beauty and art.
  • It shows that classical-age learning was organised and practical. It gave working rules for performers, much as the Brihat Samhita gave rules for building and farming.

Time, place and evidence

  • Date: uncertain. NCERT's timeline places it c. 300 CE. Many scholars think it was put together in stages over several centuries around the turn of the Common Era and given its final form by about the early Gupta period.
  • Author: traditionally Bharata. Since the text probably grew over time, "Bharata" may stand for a tradition of teachers rather than one person.
  • Language: Sanskrit, mostly in verse.
  • Setting: north Indian court culture of the early classical age, the same world in which Kalidasa wrote Meghadutam, Raghuvamsha and Kumarasambhava.
  • How we know:
  • the text itself, preserved in manuscripts
  • later commentaries, mainly the Abhinavabharati
  • classical Sanskrit plays that follow its rules, such as the Sanskrit–Prakrit split between characters
  • temple sculpture of dance poses in later centuries, which show its dance vocabulary in stone

Don't confuse with

  • Arthashastra: a treatise on statecraft, economy and administration, linked with Kautilya. The Natyashastra is about drama, dance and music.
  • Abhinavabharati: a later commentary on the Natyashastra by Abhinavagupta (Kashmir). It is not the original text, and it is where shanta rasa gets its strong backing.
  • Abhijnana Shakuntalam / Kalidasa's works: these are plays and poems that follow dramatic rules. The Natyashastra is the rule-book (theory), not a play.
  • Brihat Samhita: Varahamihira's encyclopedia of astronomy, astrology, weather, architecture, town planning and farming. It is not about the performing arts.

Prelims Hooks

  • Natyashastra – Bharata (Bharata Muni): a Sanskrit treatise on drama, dance and music. NCERT dates it c. 300 CE.
  • Original number of rasas = eight. Shanta (the ninth) was added later. "Bharata listed nine rasas" is a common trap.
  • Four kinds of abhinaya: angika (body), vachika (speech), aharya (costume), sattvika (inner feeling).
  • Four groups of instruments: tata (string), sushira (wind), avanaddha (skin-covered drum), ghana (solid, e.g. cymbals).
  • The text calls itself the "fifth Veda" (Natyaveda), drawing on all four Vedas.
  • Abhinavabharati (by Abhinavagupta) is the best-known commentary on the Natyashastra.

Mains Points

  • A pillar of Indian heritage that is still alive. One ancient text still guides classical dance, theatre and music. Rasa theory gives Indian art a shared language of emotion, and it is a strong example of continuity in Indian culture across nearly two thousand years.
  • Art as a mirror of social order. The Sanskrit–Prakrit rule shows how status was built into culture.
  • Kings and brahmanas spoke Sanskrit on stage.
  • Women and people of lower rank spoke Prakrit.

  • This is useful for questions on caste, gender and class in early societies, since it shows how literature reflected social hierarchy.

  • Part of the "classical age" debate. The Natyashastra fits the picture of consolidation: older knowledge collected into a settled text, like Ayurveda and the Puranas. But it was also elite, Sanskrit and court-centred. That supports the view that "classical" describes mainly the culture of the upper classes, not of all society.

Related concepts

Read more

Sources

  1. 1Class 12, Ch 3 "Kinship, Caste and Class - Early Societies" (primary)