'The Natyasastra'

Somewhere between the 2nd century B.C.E. and the 2nd century C.E., what are now The Natyasastra’s 37 chapters were likely assembled in India.  (Some editions have 36 chapters, including Manomohan Ghosh’s 1951 version, and some have 38.  I used Ghosh’s 1967 37-chapter rendering of The Natyasastra.).  The oldest known “how-to” book on Asian theater, predating Zeami Motokiyo’s (c. 1363-c. 1443) treatises on Japanese Noh drama (written between 1402 and 1430) by some 16 centuries, it’s attributed to the sage Bharata-muni (dates unknown; may have lived about 500 C.E.) but was probably compiled by several contributors over many years.  (The compilation and publication is likewise uncertain and estimates range between 500 B.C.E. and 500 C.E.) 

The book’s title is variously rendered as Natyasastra, Natyashastra, Natya Sastra, or Natya Shastra, often with diacritical marks.  The word(s) mean, loosely, ‘theater treatise’ or ‘performance manual.’  The Sanskrit word natya is usually translated as drama but it can refer to other expressive performance forms, such as dance (one of the Hindu god Shiva’s avatars is Nataraja, “the lord of dance”), and sastra (which is pronounced ‘shastra’) means ‘treatise,’ ‘manual,’ ‘book.’ ‘rules,’ or other term of similar meaning.  Because I based my reading of The Natyasastra on Ghosh’s translation, I’ll be using his version of the book’s title. 

Our primary source of information about ancient Sanskrit performance and a guide to understanding many of the living performance traditions in India today, the treatise is still used by classical Indian performers such as actors of Sanskrit dramas by the likes of Kalidasa, Sudraka, Bhasa, and Asvaghosa; Kathakali dancer-actors; Kutiyattam storytellers; and Bharata Natyam and Orissi dancers, as well as classical musicians and singers.  Unlike Aristotle’s (384-322 B.C.E.) Poetics (c. 335 B.C.E.), The Natyasastra was written for theater practitioners, not analysts.  A complete handbook of theater production, it covers all elements of playwriting, theater construction, costume, make-up, acting, dance, music, and aesthetics (including Rasa theory, on which I posted on 13 January 2010) in the minutest detail. 

(The root of natya is the Sanskrit work nat, which means ‘act’ or ‘represent,’ so natya can even be rendered as ‘acting.’  Like many Asian performance forms, classical Indian theater doesn’t make the same distinction we Westerners make among ballet, drama, and opera.  What we call Chinese or Beijing Opera is the progenitor of Japanese Kabuki, which many Western critics categorize as dance drama.  But Kabuki performers don’t consider themselves “dancers.”  Ask them, and they’ll insist they are Kabuki “actors.”  The form they work in, like Kathakali in India, Indonesian Wayang Topeng and Wayang Orang, and many other Asian performing arts, combine acting, singing, dancing, and what we’d recognize as mime into one synthesized art form.  The Natyasastra reflects this totality: performance, according to Bharata, is a combination of all the arts: speech, dance, singing, music, gesture and mime, decor and costumes.)

The Natyasastra is partly a religious text, the “fifth Veda,” revealing to the people the rules of dramaturgy and stagecraft as handed down to Bharata (muni is a term of honor meaning ‘sage’ or ‘saint’) by the god Brahma.  The production of a play is an offering to the gods, and performing is a Vedic ritual act.  Composed in verse (with some prose passages in a few chapters), The Natyasastra (like Konstantin Stanislavsky’s “ABC’s”) is conveyed as a sort of dialogue between Bharata and his disciples.   Bharata (whose name is also the Sanskrit word for both ‘actor’ and ‘India’) had 100 sons, who all became actors.  (Bharata Natyam simply means ‘Indian dance,’ for instance.)

In addition to the presentation of ancient theology, principally of the Vedic tradition of pre-Buddhist and pre-Hindu India (though, because it was compiled during a period of religious transition on the Subcontinent, its religious philosophy is something of a hybrid), The Natyasastra also discusses what we’d call performance theory, aesthetic philosophy, mythological history, and practical theater craft. 

Between 1865 and 1898, a number of studies, articles and partial translations of The Natyasastra and other Sanskrit treatises were published in several European languages, including French, English, and German, though none seems to have been a complete rendering of the text.  In modern times, particularly after 1950, there have been many translations of The Natyasastra, all or in part, into English and other languages, as well as many more critical studies of the treatise.  (An Internet search indicated that few are currently in print or available even to special order from stores like Barnes and Noble or Amazon.)  

Because of its status as a Vedic text, The Natyasastra views theater not as an entertainment, but as a way of getting spectators to another state of mind (rasa).  (This is what Rasa-Bhava is intended to accomplish, as you’ll see.)  In theory, because attending a performance is supposed to be a spiritual experience, the viewer is supposed to be transported to a more transcendent plane, but today Indian performers see the effect in a more secular frame.  (There is at least a superficial resemblance between this precept and Aristotle’s notion of catharsis as mentioned in his definition of tragedy in chapter 6 of the Poetics.)

A complete run-down of all the topics touched on in The Natyasastra would be impossibly lengthy, and I really mean this post to be a general introduction to the treatise.  (There are various translations in libraries, especially university libraries, and used copies can be found on line and in antiquarian bookstores.)  I’ll compile a précis of the chapters (which will vary slightly depending on whether you compare mine with a 36- or 38-chapter version) and comment at more length when I feel it’s warranted.  (Note that my original study of The Natyasastra was in pursuit of its discussion of acting and Bharata’s instructions in comparison to the Konstantin Stanislavsky system, the basis of my acting training.  I developed this comparison into “The Natyasastra and Stanislavsky: Points of Contact,” published in  Theatre Studies, volume 36 [1991].)

The first chapter of The Natyasastra recounts the mythical “Origin of Drama” (chapter titles will vary depending on the translation).  Bharata tells his disciples that Brahma, the Creator, handed down The Natyasastra to all the castes as the Natyaveda.  The sage describes the first production of a play at a festival for Indra, the guardian god, but Vighnas, evil spirits, try to ruin the production.  Indra destroys the Vighnas. 

Chapter II is the “Description of the Playhouse,” detailing how the theaters are to be constructed.  Bharata describes the rites and rituals associated with the theater construction.  “Puja to the Gods of the Stage,” the third chapter, lays out the hierarchy of gods of the theater and which one presides over which areas of the theater building.  (Puja is a devotional prayer ritual.  Even today, when dramatic performances are no longer considered worship rituals, a prasad, a food offering, is placed at the edge of the stage.)  The gods have to be pacified and the building purified to avoid terrible consequences of offending the gods.

In Chapter IV, “Description of the Class Dance,” Bharata says that he’s written a play to be performed for the gods.  The deities are pleased and instruct another sage, Tandu, to teach Bharata the Tandava dance (literally ‘Tandu’s creation’ but commonly known as the “class dance”) and there’s a detailed, gesture-by-gesture, body part-by-body part description of the dance.  Bharata explains when dance is appropriate to a play and when it’s not.

“Preliminaries of a Play,” the fifth chapter, describes the rituals associated with the prelude to a dramatic performance (Utthapana ceremony).  Following the set-up, there’s a song in praise of gods, Brahmins, and kings (“Benediction”); an entrance song (“Walking Around”); and the introduction of the play (“Laudation”) by the Director (literally, ‘the expert,’ not a prototypical, pre-Saxe-Meiningen stage director but the company manager).

Chapter VI (“The Sentiments”) and VII (“The Emotional and Other States”) cover Rasa-Bhava.  This is the section of the book that makes it possible for the actors to transport the spectators to a different frame of mind, not unlike what we in the West mean when we speak of “the willing suspension of disbelief” (a term coined in 1817 by the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834)—we freely enter into the fictional world of the play.  The Natyasastra is very precise in its discussion and description of this process—but if you can cut through the Sanskrit terms and stilted English translation, the basic principles of the theory are not more alien than that which Stanislavsky, Uta Hagen, Lee Strasberg, or most 20th-century acting teachers inculcate.

Chapters VI and VII together identify and describe the bhavas, the “Psychological States” or “Modes of Being” of the performers, and the corresponding rasas, the “Sentiments” felt by the spectators.  The bhava, the emotion felt by the actors, results from a “Determinant” (vibhava), or determining circumstance.  The vibhava affects the characters so that they feel sorrow, fear, wrath, or some such emotion (bhava).  The “Consequent” (anubhava) of a particular bhava is a specific behavior such as weeping, fainting, blushing, or the like.  The anubhava, if properly executed, will cause the audience to feel a specific rasa corresponding to the bhava felt by the actor. 

Chapter VII goes into great detail about the bhavas, which are broken down into three categories.  The third category of bhavas are the eight sattvas, or “Spirited” modes.  There’s no adequate translation of sattva, but this allows the actor to convince himself the circumstances are real to the character, even though, as the actor, he knows they’re not.  (This is a very simplistic reduction of Rasa-Bhava.  I’ve tried to be brief here; however, I refer the reader once again to my post on Rick On Theater “Rasa-Bhava & The Audience,” 13 January 2010, for a more detailed examination of this complex and fascinating acting theory.)

Chapters VIII, IX, and X (“The Gestures of Minor Limbs,” “The Gestures of Hands,” and “The Gestures of Other Limbs”) cover in great detail all the codified movements of the parts of the actor’s body.  Indian classical theater, like many other Asian performance forms, uses highly stylized and long-established gestural expressions and The Natyasastra naturally stresses the expressiveness of the body, since it is vital that “the audience . . . follow the meaning of the play visually, through the codified system of hand gestures and facial expressions.”  These chapters and others that describe the movements, gestures, and expressions of the actors, which in Indian classical theater are closely related to Rasa-Bhava, are very technical and extremely detailed.

Chapters XI, XII, and XIII (“The Cari Movements,” “The Mandela Gaits,” and “The Different Gaits”) cover walking and foot movements the same way the previous three chapters did gestures.  (A cari is the movement of a single foot.  There are movements of two feet called karana and a combination of karanas is called a khanda.  Three or four khandas make up a mandala.  That may give readers an idea how precise The Natyasastra is in codifying movements and gestures.)

“Zones and Local Usages,” the fourteenth chapter of The Natyasastra, designates the different "zones” of the stage and explains the significance of each one to the play and the characters that appear there.  “Local usage” (pravrtti), just as the phrase suggests, applies to the costumes, languages, manners, and professions of different countries in the world as they appear in plays.  (The “world” to which Bharata refers, of course, is largely the Indian subcontinent of South Asia and the countries are the ancient kingdoms.)  Even this is codified as The Natyasastra designates only four regions for this differentiation: Daksinatya Local Usage (southern countries), Avanti (central and western), Odgra-Migadhi (eastern), and Pancala-Madhyama (northern/Himalayan).

Chapters XV through XXII cover playwriting and dramaturgy.  “Rules of Prosody” (Chapter XV) defines, describes, and classifies the poetic meters used in classic Indian drama.  Since Sanskrit drama is written mostly in verse, it also details the proper way an actor must recite each kind of poetry.  It’s a lesson on elocution, voice, speech, and articulation—a voice and speech lesson with specific instructions in the proper pronunciation of the sounds of the Sanskrit and Prakrit languages.  “Metrical Patterns” (Chapter XVI) lists all the different types of poetic meters and how they are employed in plays, with examples of various dramatic situations in which each pattern would apply.  Different meters correspond to specific rasas.  Chapter XVII, “Diction of a Play,” names the 36 “marks of excellence” of a well-written play, such as Ornateness, Compactness, Simile, Metaphor, and 32 more.  (In this usage, “diction” doesn’t refer to speech articulation or enunciation, but the effectiveness and clarity of the poet’s word choice and expression.) 

Chapter XVIII, “Rules of the Use of Languages” instructs poets on the distinction of Sanskrit, the largely literary tongue which on stage is used for the speech of noble, heroic, and refined characters, and Prakrit, the vernacular language, with its many regional, local, and class dialects, of lower-caste, mad, or drunken characters, as well as women and children.  (Prakrit is also often more appropriate for songs in a play.  Most of a classical Indian play is written in Sanskrit.)  “Modes of Address and Intonation” (Chapter XIX) explains how characters of different types and social status speak to one another.  It also specifies how the verses are to be recited in terms of vocal quality, with certain inflections corresponding once again to certain rasas.  (This is that other kind of “diction,” how words are pronounced.) 

In Chapter XX, Bharata describes the “Ten Kinds of Play” that make up classic Sanskrit drama.  He lays out their structure, the rules for their composition, and what is appropriate or not to represent on stage.  Chapter XXI, “The Limbs of the Juncture,” is a detailed analysis of the plot structure of a play.  (“Joints” and “Limbs” are the terms The Natyasastra uses for what Michael Chekhov, the acting teacher, theorist, and director who was a nephew of playwright Anton Chekhov, called the play’s “Main Climaxes,” the points in the play’s action when the character’s pursuit of his major goal changes direction.  

The Natyasastra divides the action of a play into five stages: Beginning, Effort, Possibility of Attainment, Certainty of Attainment and Attainment of the Object.  Roughly, these stages agree with the Stanislavskian identification and pursuit of the objective (Beginning and Effort), encountering obstacles (Effort and Possibility of Attainment), and overcoming the obstacles and achieving the objective (Certainty of Attainment and Attainment of the Object).  Sanskrit drama did not have unhappy endings so there were no plays in which the main characters’ objectives were not accomplished.

In “The Styles,” the twenty-second chapter, Bharata relates the mythological origins of the performance styles of Sanskrit dramas, which is both a matter of the way the plays are written (that is, the writing style) and the way they are performed (the acting style).  As with most other categorizations in The Natyasastra, these are very specifically defined and described, and, once again, each style corresponds to certain rasas generated in the audience. 

Chapter XXIII covers “The Costumes and Make-up” of a classical Indian play.  It covers props (including fake animals) as well.  Bharata describes both how these are made and how they’re used on stage.

Chapters XXIV through XXVI deal with acting, portraying specific characters, and what we’d call acting technique (the practical methods of making viewers believe a fiction: that it’s cold and rainy, that the knife you’re playing with is really sharp, that you have a headache).  Chapter XXIV, “The Basic Representation,” focuses on speech, the movement of the body, and physical grace.  It also instructs aspiring actors on portraying emotions and feelings and various psychological and emotional states, and how to respond to different circumstances and situations that occur in Sanskrit drama.  Successfully representing these states is key to creating the correct rasa in the spectator.

“Dealing with Courtezans [sic]” (Chapter XXV) actually explains how to portray men and women in various types of courtship, romantic, and sexual relationships (for example, a woman overcome with love, winning a woman’s heart, and a courtesan’s mercenary treatment of men).  Most Sanskrit plays are some sort of love story.  “Special Representation,” the twenty-sixth chapter of The Natyasastra, is instruction on how to enact physically what Uta Hagen called the “given circumstances” of a scene: the time of day, the season of the year, the weather, bright sun, dust, and so on. 

Chapter XXVII describes “Success in Dramatic Production,” which Bharata separates into two kinds.  One is human success, which is simply signs of appreciation from the audience for the performance—applause, laughter, praise, gifts.  The other kind is divine success, which is the approval of the gods.  This is manifested by the lack of disturbance from the audience, errors in the performance such as accidents or actors forgetting lines, fire or an animal getting loose in the theater, and so on.  If all goes well, the gods are signaling their approval. 

The music of a Sanskrit performance is discussed in Chapters XXVIII through XXXIV, covering not only the types of music to be heard, but the instruments on which it will be played (with several chapter devoted to specific types of instruments such as reeds, cymbals, and drums).  Chapter XXXII describes the songs performed in a play. 

Chapter XXXV, “Types of Characters,” is essentially the breakdown of the classical theatrical troupe.  Like Shakespeare’s Lord Chamberlain’s Men in Elizabethan England, Sanskrit acting companies had to have the actors on hand to cover all the plays in their repertory, so, like repertory companies in the West from Shakespeare’s day to the Straw Hat Circuit in the first half of the 20th century in the U.S., they categorized the characters so they could distribute them to the appropriate performers according to their abilities, special talents, age, appearance, and so on.  In other words, they engaged in “typecasting,” just like Western companies in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

(To be clear, “typecasting” isn’t what most people think it is.  Characters are divided into “types,” such as “leading man,” “leading lady,” and “character man.”  The company’s actors are also “typed” and when it comes time to assign actors to roles, actors are matched to their roles according to type—along, of course, with other considerations.  So a leading actor is cast in a leading man part, a character woman is cast as a character part, and so on.  It was a way for repertory troupes to be sure that they had enough appropriate actors on the roster to cover all the parts in their repertoire.  The classic Indian categories were different, of course, but the idea was the same.)

The Natyasastra, needless to say, describes in great detail many different characters that make up the three types that populate the Sanskrit plays and the physical and temperamental attributes of the actor best suited to play them.  In “Distribution of Roles” (Chapter XXXVI), Bharata advises the Director (this is the company manager once again) to follow the precepts for typecasting that he’s laid out.  This chapter also describes at length each of the kinds of parts that occur in a Sanskrit drama, and also non-performing member of the troupe such as the makers of garlands and headgear, the company painter, and so on.

The last chapter, XXXVII, in Ghosh’s translation of The Natyasastra, is “Descent of Drama on the Earth.”  When Bharata had finished presenting the Natyaveda to the sages, they asked him how the drama had come from heaven to the earth.  Bharata explained to them that his 100 sons had angered certain sages by caricaturing them and the sons lost their status as Brahmins, members of the highest caste, and became Sudras, the lowest caste.  The sages cursed Bharata’s sons, but the gods interceded on Bharata’s behalf.  Indra retrieved the Natyaveda and instructed Bharata to spread is over the earth.  The 100 sons of Bharata, having become actors themselves, taught the text to their sons, founding a family of actors, and the gods were pleased and redeemed Bharata’s offspring.  (This suggests that, at least in ancient India, the acting profession was prized and honored, a fate actors didn’t experience in the West, where they were often vilified and ostracized, especially among religious folk, because they make their living by lying, pretense, and deceit.  There are still members of some faiths that see acting and theater as inherently sinful.)