Which of the following statements about Bharata's Natyashastra is/are correct ? 1. It is dated by scholars between the second century BCE and the second century CE. 2. It analyses theatrical spectacle as an amalgam of speech, vocal and instrumental music, gesture, mime, etc. 3. The ground it covers is less extensive than Aristotle's Poetics, its nearest ancient Greek counterpart. Select the answer using the codes given below :

Correct — B, (b) 1 and 2 only.

Statement 1 is correct. The Natyashastra, the Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts attributed to the sage Bharata, cannot be dated precisely, but the conventional scholarly position places its first complete compilation between about 200 BCE and 200 CE - that is, between the second century BCE and the second century CE, which is what the statement says. Wider estimates exist, running from 500 BCE to 500 CE, and the text is generally taken to have grown over time from earlier material: the Natasutras, referred to by Panini, are older still. But the range the statement gives is the one usually printed, and the statement is careful to attribute it to scholars rather than to assert a date outright.

Statement 2 is correct and is a fair summary of what the treatise does. The Natyashastra treats a dramatic performance as a composite art in which several media act together, and it legislates for each of them: dramatic composition and the structure of a play; the construction of the playhouse; the modes of representation, which it groups as speech, bodily movement, costume and make-up, and the representation of emotional states; music, both vocal and instrumental, with its scales, modes and drumming; dance; and the theory of rasa, the aesthetic emotion the whole is designed to produce in the spectator. Its 36 chapters and roughly six thousand verses are organised around exactly the amalgam the statement describes.

Statement 3 is not correct, and it is the reverse of the truth. Aristotle's Poetics is a short work, surviving in one book of about twenty-six brief chapters, and it is concerned chiefly with tragedy and epic - plot, character, diction, the unities as later readers derived them, and catharsis. The Natyashastra runs to 36 chapters and covers not only dramatic composition but stagecraft, acting technique, costume, make-up, gesture, music, dance and the architecture of the theatre itself. On any measure of ground covered the Sanskrit treatise is the more extensive of the two by a wide margin, which is why the comparison is usually made in the opposite direction.

With statements 1 and 2 sound and statement 3 inverted, the answer is (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)2 only — This option accepts only the description of what the treatise analyses and rejects its dating. The dating in statement 1 is the standard one and is stated in the cautious form the subject requires - dated by scholars, and given as a range of four centuries rather than as a year. A candidate who rejects it has usually confused the date of the text with the date of the tradition it describes, which is older, or with the date of the surviving manuscripts and of Abhinavagupta's great commentary, the Abhinavabharati, which belongs to about the tenth or eleventh century CE.
• (c)1, 2 and 3 — This option accepts all three statements, and so accepts the claim that the Natyashastra covers less ground than the Poetics. The two works are not comparable in scale: the Poetics is a single short book dealing mainly with tragedy and epic poetry, while the Natyashastra is a manual of the entire theatrical art in 36 chapters, prescribing everything from the dimensions of the playhouse to the tuning of instruments and the movements of the eyes. The option is attractive only because a candidate who has verified the first two statements may assume that a third statement in the same register must also be sound.
• (d)1 and 3 only — This option pairs the correct dating with the inverted comparison and discards the accurate description of the treatise's subject matter. Statement 2 is the one statement in the item that a reader can check against almost any account of the text, since the analysis of performance into speech, vocal and instrumental music, gesture and mime is the organising principle of the whole work and the basis of its four modes of representation. Rejecting it while accepting the comparison with the Poetics gets the item exactly the wrong way round.

The Natyashastra is the oldest surviving Indian treatise on the performing arts and the foundation of the classical tradition in drama, dance and music.

Authorship and date. It is attributed to Bharata, a figure about whom nothing independent is known, and its first complete compilation is usually placed between 200 BCE and 200 CE. It draws on an older body of material - the Natasutras mentioned by Panini - and it was itself expanded over time. The definitive commentary is Abhinavagupta's Abhinavabharati, of about the tenth to eleventh century CE.

Scope. Thirty-six chapters, about six thousand verses. The text covers the origin of drama, the construction and consecration of the playhouse, the ten types of play, plot structure and its junctures, the four modes of representation - angika (bodily), vachika (verbal), aharya (costume and ornament) and sattvika (the involuntary signs of emotion) - and then music, dance, prosody, diction and the conduct of a performance.

Rasa. The best-known contribution is the theory of rasa, the aesthetic relish produced in the spectator. The text names eight rasas and derives each from a dominant emotional state through the interplay of causes, effects and transitory feelings; a ninth, shanta or the tranquil, was added by later theorists.

Comparison with the Poetics. Both works theorise drama, and both were written in societies with a living theatre, which is why they are set beside each other. The differences matter more than the resemblance: Aristotle analyses the literary structure of tragedy, while Bharata prescribes a total theatrical practice, and the Sanskrit treatise is by far the larger of the two in extent and in range.

Key facts

• The Natyashastra is a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts attributed to the sage Bharata, whose first complete compilation is conventionally dated between about 200 BCE and 200 CE, with wider estimates running from 500 BCE to 500 CE.
• It consists of 36 chapters and roughly six thousand verses, covering dramatic composition, the structure of a play, the construction of the playhouse, acting, gesture, costume, make-up, vocal and instrumental music, and dance.
• Its four modes of representation are angika (bodily), vachika (verbal), aharya (costume and ornament) and sattvika (the involuntary bodily signs of feeling), which together constitute the amalgam the second statement describes.
• Aristotle's Poetics survives as a single short book of about twenty-six brief chapters concerned mainly with tragedy and epic, so it covers far less ground than the Natyashastra rather than more.
• The theory of rasa is the treatise's best-known contribution, with eight rasas named in the text and a ninth, shanta, added by later theorists; the standard commentary is Abhinavagupta's Abhinavabharati of about the tenth to eleventh century CE.

Common traps

• Accepting a comparative statement because both things compared are real and relevant, without checking the direction of the comparison.
• Confusing the date of the treatise with the date of Abhinavagupta's commentary or with the date of the tradition the text describes.
• Rejecting the dating because it is given as a four-century range; ranges are how the dating of such texts is properly expressed.
• Assuming the Natyashastra is a work on dance alone, when it legislates for drama, music, stagecraft and theatre architecture as well.
• Counting the rasas as nine in the text itself; the treatise names eight and the ninth was added by later theorists.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Consider the following statements about the Natyashastra : 1. It consists of thirty-six chapters and deals with the construction of the playhouse as well as with acting and music. 2. Its theory of rasa names eight rasas, to which a ninth was added by later theorists. Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?

  • (a)1 only
  • (b)2 only
  • (c)Both 1 and 2
  • (d)Neither 1 nor 2

  Answer(c) Both 1 and 2 - the treatise runs to 36 chapters and covers theatre architecture, acting and music among much else, and it names eight rasas, the ninth, shanta, being a later addition.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Abhinavabharati is best described as :

  • (a)A later commentary on the Natyashastra
  • (b)A manual of temple architecture
  • (c)An early Tamil work on grammar and poetics
  • (d)A treatise on classical music of the Vijayanagara period

  Answer(a) A later commentary on the Natyashastra - written by Abhinavagupta, of about the tenth to eleventh century CE, and the standard commentary through which the treatise has been read since.