Bhāsa

Bhāsa is one of the earliest Indian playwrights in Sanskrit, predating Kālidasa. Estimates of his floruit range from the 4th century BCE^[1] to the 4th century CE;^[2] the thirteen plays attributed to him are commonly dated closer to the first or second century CE.^[3]

Bhasa's plays had been lost for centuries until the manuscripts were rediscovered in 1910 by the Indian scholar Ganapati Shastri.^[4] Bhāsa had previously only been known from mentions in other works, such as the Rajashekhara's Kāvya-mimāmsā, which attributes the play Swapnavāsavadattam to him.

In the introduction to his first play Mālavikāgnimitram, Kālidāsa wrote: "Shall we neglect the works of such illustrious authors as Bhāsa, Saūmilla, and Kaviputra? Can the audience feel any respect for the work of a modern poet, a Kālidāsa?"^[5]

Date

Bhāsa's date of birth is uncertain: he likely lived after Aśvaghoṣa (1st-2nd century CE) as a verse in his Pratijna-yaugandharayana is probably from Aśvaghoṣa's Buddha-charita. He definitely lived before Kālidāsa (4th-5th century CE), who knew of his fame as an established poet.^[6] Bhāsa's language is closer to Kālidāsa than it is to Aśvaghoṣa.^[7]^[6]

Indian scholar M.L. Varadpande dates him as early as 4th century BCE.^[1] According to British scholar Richard Stoneman, Bhasa may have belonged to the late Maurya period at the earliest, and was already known by the 1st century BCE. Stoneman notes that the thirteen plays attributed to Bhasa are generally dated closer to the 1st or 2nd century CE.^[3] Other scholarly estimates of Bhasa's floruit range from the late 2nd century CE^[8] to the 4th century CE.^[9]^[2]

Bhāsa's works do not follow all the dictates of the Natya Shastra. This has been taken as a proof of their antiquity; no post-Kālidāsa play has been found to break the rules of the Natya Shastra. Scenes from Bhāsa present signs of physical violence on the stage, as in plays like Urubhangam. This is strictly frowned upon by Natya Shastra.^[10] However, these facts alone don't make chronology certain. Indu Shekhar states that, "Whatever the exact date [of Natya Shastra] may have been, it is significant that no direct reference to NS was made before the seventh century," when it became accepted as the subject of attention for many poets, writers, and theorists.^[11]

Plays of Bhāsa

The Urubhanga and Karna-bhara are the only known tragic Sanskrit plays in ancient India. Though branded the villain of the Mahabharata, Duryodhana is the actual hero in Uru-Bhanga shown repenting his past as he lies with his thighs crushed awaiting death. His relations with his family are shown with great pathos. The epic contains no reference to such repentance. The Karna-bhara ends with the premonitions of the sad end of Karna, another epic character from Mahabharata. Early plays in India, inspired by Natya Shastra, strictly considered sad endings inappropriate.^[12]

The plays are generally short compared to later playwrights and most of them draw on themes from the Indian epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana. Though he is firmly on the side of the heroes of the epic, Bhāsa treats their opponents with great sympathy. He takes a lot of liberties with the story to achieve this. In the Pratima-nataka, Kaikeyi who is responsible for the tragic events in the Ramayana is shown as enduring the calumny of all so that a far noble end is achieved.^[13]

Plays based on Ramayana

Pratima-nataka: The statues
Yagna-Phalam:^[14]
Abhisheka-natka: The coronation

His most famous plays — Pratigya Yaugandharayanam^[15] (the vow of Yaugandharayana) and Swapnavāsavadattam (Vasavadatta in the dream) — are based on the legends that had grown around the legendary King Udayana, probably a contemporary of the Gautama Buddha.

Modern revival

The first person to revive Bhasa in modern Indian theatre was a Professor of Ancient Indian Drama at National School of Drama, and theatre director, Shanta Gandhi, who first directed productions of Madhyamavyayoga (1966) ("The Middle One") and Urubhanga ("The Broken Thigh") in Hindi. A decade later, his work was approached by playwright Kavalam Narayan Panikkar and theatre director, Ratan Thiyam using Manipuri dance and theatre traditions, and traditional martial art of Thang-Ta, who first performed Karna-bhara ("Karna's burden") in 1976, and later Urubhanga.^[16]^[17]

Waman Kendre did an adaptation of Madhyama Vyāyoga in three different languages: O My Love in English, Mohe Piya in Hindi and Piya Bawari in Marathi.^[18]

Notes

^ ^a ^b Varadpande, M. L.; Varadpande, Manohar Laxman (1987). History of Indian Theatre. Abhinav Publications. p. 90. ISBN 978-81-7017-221-5. The earliest known Indian playwright Bhasa (c. 400 BC) wrote about 13 plays.
^ ^a ^b Goodwin, Robert E. (1998), The Playworld of Sanskrit Drama, Motilal Banarsidass, p. xviii, ISBN 978-81-208-1589-6
^ ^a ^b Stoneman, Richard (2019). The Greek Experience of India: From Alexander to the Indo-Greeks. p. 414. ISBN 978-0-691-15403-9.
^ "About Sanskrit". Central Sanskrit University, Government of India.
^ C. R. Devadhar (1966) "Mālavikāgnimitram of Kālidāsa", p.3
^ ^a ^b Keith, Arthur Berriedale (1992), The Sanskrit Drama in Its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice, Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 93–95, ISBN 978-81-208-0977-2
^ Winternitz, Maurice; Winternitz, Moriz (1985), History of Indian Literature, Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 204–205, ISBN 978-81-208-0056-4
^ Singh, Upinder (2017). Political Violence in Ancient India. Harvard University Press. p. 130. ISBN 978-0-674-97527-9. Retrieved 4 February 2024. Bhasa probably lived in the late second century
^ Kroeber, Alfred Louis (1944), Configurations of Culture Growth, University of California Press, p. 419, GGKEY:Q5N845X8FFF, His date cannot be much earlier than 300, nor later than 350
^ V. Venkatachalam (1986) "Bhāsa", p.14
^ Īndū Shekhar (1 May 1978). Sanskrit Drama: Its Origin and Decline. Brill Archive. pp. 44–. GGKEY:3TX00B7LD6T.
^ K. P. A. Menon (1996) "Complete plays of Bhāsa", p.28
^ Govind Keshav Bhat(1968) "Bhāsa-studies", p.47
^ "The Yajnaphala Of Mahakavi Bhasa".
^ Ahlborn, Matthias (2006) Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa : digitalisierte Textkonstitution, Übersetzung und Annotierung, Universität Würzburg, Dissertation (German translation)
^ Dharwadker, p. 167
^ Dharwadker, p. 105
^ "Interview with Waman Kendre". Mumbai Theatre Guide. Retrieved 25 July 2015.

References

Thirteen Trivandrum plays ascribed to Bhāsa( 2 Vols), translated by H.C.Woolner, Lakshman Sarup, 193
Māni Mādhava Chākyār (1975), Nātyakalpadruma, Kerala Kalamandalam, Vallathol Nagar
Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava (2005). Theatres of independence: drama, theory, and urban performance in India since 1947. University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-961-4.
Encyclopaedia of Indian Theatre: Bhasa, by Biswajit Sinha, Ashok Kumar Choudhury. Raj Publications, 2000. ISBN 81-86208-11-9.