theater

January 10th Read the assignment 15 from Theatre in Sri Lanka by A. J. Gunawardana and post your thoughts for the assigned reading

January 11th Read the assignment 16 from The Classical Drama of India by Henry W. Wells and post your thoughts for the assigned reading

January 12th Read the assignments 17 about Kootiyattam and Yakshagana from The sacred and the Secular of Indian’s Performing Arts and post your thoughts for the assigned reading

f
\

The Classical Drama
of India

Studies in its Values for the

Literature and Theatre of the World

HENRY W. WELLS

Issued under the auspices of

THE LITERARY lfALF-YEARLY

ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE

BOMBAY· CALCUTTA· MADRAS· NEW DELH

LUCKNOW . LONDON · NEW YORK

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I
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I

PRINTED IN INDIA

BY Z. T. BANDUKWALA AT LEADERS PRESS
PRIVATE LIMITED, BOMBAY AND PUBLISHED BY F. S.
JAYASINGHE, ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, BOMBAY

1111 1111 1111111 111111111 111 1111 1111111111111111 11111 11111 1111111 1r’ To

9091 00918099 7
KAPILA VATSYAYANA

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/ Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 . POETIC DRAMA IN ENGLAND AND INDIA 6

,I( 3 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND THE WORLD STAGE 20

4 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND THE MODERN STAGE 31

SANSKRIT DRAMA AND INDIAN THOUGHT

6 ACHIEVEMENT IN EQUILIBRIUM 5

7 SACRED DRAMA 71

8 DEFICIENCIES 81

9 THE ART OF. SWOONING 90
/

;( 10 THEATRICAL TECHNIQUE ON THE SANSKRIT

STAGE 99

II SANSKRIT DRAMATIC STYLE II5

12 A PRAKARANA: THE LITTLE CLAY CART 131

13 A NAT AKA : RAMA’S LATER HISTORY

Index 193

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Introduction

THE SOMEWHAT unusual form of this book, which is determined by
the character of its subject, warrants a short prefatory explanation.
If the truly remarkable Sanskrit drama were more familiar or readily
accessible than is in fact the case, a descriptive method would be
rightly preferred. But in fact no account that is not concentrated
upon fundamentals can be seriously rewarding. The book is, accord-
ingly, a sequence of reflective essays built around a central idea,
developing a single thesis from various angles, considering first
the features of the Indian drama the nearest to that of the West,
and so coming by deliberate degrees to the unique problem posed
by a theatre at once spiritually contemplative and theatrically
successful. The reader should not, then, anticipate an historical
surveyor a comprehensive description. The earlier chapters define
the aims which this drama serves, the later chapters, the means
which the playwrights employ through their manipulation of form
and detail.

Few books have thus far appeared in English and surprisingly
few in the Western languages as a whole dealing with the Sanskrit
theatre in any general terms whatsoever. Studies in India itself
have been in almost every sense of the word dispersed, issuing from
many hands, appearing in widely different parts of the country,
and as a rule treating some highly specialized topics. Feeling,
perhaps, that an insuperable wall has been created by the oub:ide
world against a current interest in the Sanskrit theatre, the Inc4an
scholars themselves have shown scant interest in interpreting to
others the splendors of their dramatic literature. In short, they
have written relatively little from the point of view of comparative
literature. Meanwhile the attention of the West has been primarily

The Classical Drama of I ndia

occupied with its own rich accumulations of drama and has, fortu-
nately, made some fruitful excursions into the theatre of the Far
East, especially of China and Japan. Even that eminently going
concern, the dance-theatre of Bali, has attracted popular attention
in the West and recent Hindu dancers, as Shan Kar, whose art
dispenses with language, have seemed better carriers of the spirit
of India than the great dramatists who wrote some fifteen hundred
years ago in a language now almost exclusively academic.

A further obstruction to fresh study by English scholars has been
the oblique blessing of an undoubted masterpiece in exposition of
literary and dramatic history, A. B. Keith’s Sans~rit Drama,
published over a generation ago. Few Indians have thus far written
with equal authority. So thorough a survey, generous in its extent,
meticulous in its documentation, and mature in its jUdgments,
apparently has had for several decades the dubious good fortune
of discouraging fresh inquiry. Yet’ his unquestionable erudition
notwithstanding, it has gradually become clear that Keith wrote
from a number of prepossessions ill adapted to favoring a broad-
minded or sympathetic view. His defect is partly owing to a commit-
ment to British morality but much more to a conservative view in
aesthetics leading him to discover the norm for serious drama in
Greek tragedy and the ultimate wisdom in theatrical opinion in
the theories of Aristotle. Thus classical prejudices are superimposed
upon British principles, the British principles themselves leaning
considerably more upon the precepts of Matthew Arnold than upon
the practices of Shakespeare. Keith approached Indian drama and
poetry with an analytical mind but a cold heart. Within the last
forty years, a warmer and more sympathetic understanding has
developed. Imagination in the theatre-or out of it-is very diff-
erent today from what it was in the times of Pinero. The change
in the times encourages a new outlook.

Because its method is primarily speculative, this book is organized
on lines totally different from those of an orthodox history of drama-
tic literature. The evolution of the drama from the historical view-
point is barely mentioned; none of the singularly vexed chrono-
logical puzzles are debated; no author is studied intensively; no
apparatus for scholarly research is proposed and no textual exegesis
offered. No philological problems are discussed and analysis is
presented more with the English-speaking reader or even stage-
producer or man of the theatre in mind than the professional

2
Introduction

Sanskrit scholar. The writer himself is not of that fraternity but
author of several books dealing with poetry, drama, and compara-
tive literature. It is from the standpoint of world drama and world
literature that the Indian plays are reviewed, with confident belief
that from this perspective they will be found worthy of high place
among plays in a harvest comprehending all times and lands.

The first chapter defines both the likeness and difference between
English poetic drama, especially the Shakespearean and Elizabethan,
on the one hand and the Sanskrit on the other, interpreting the
theatre presumably the less well known, at least in England and
America or even in such a country as Japan, with reference to that
more readily accessible to the modem mind wherever it exists.
Comparisons are made not to the advantage of one and detriment
of the other but simply to clarify what their respective aims are,
where these are alike and where they diverge. The second chapter,
more judicial, more pragmatic, and less specialized, discusses the
simpler question, why certain plays, unlike others, still have validity
not so much for audiences in India itself (though that question
is by no means disregarded) as for audiences today throughout the
world. A succeeding section examines the imaginative modem
plays closest to the Sanskrit in spirit and in form.

Since Indian drama is deeply grounded in Indian thinking, both
philosophical and religious, the fourth chapter offers an exposition
of the spirit of the drama in relation to that of serious and reflective
Indian literature in general. The architecture of the successful
native theatre was strictly determined by the spiritual terrain
on which it was built, even though no other literary or artistic
expression of Indian culture in its final form closely approached
that of the stage-no more, for example, than Shakespeare’s plays
are “representative” of Elizabethan literature as a whole.

The fifth and most crucial chapter expounds the book’s main
thesis, an exposition of spiritual equilibrium as the goal to which
the plays aspire.

Most of them are homogeneous expressions of a highly sophisticat-
ed court culture and many, as the masterpiece of romantic comedy,
The Little Clay Cart, even reflect a well developed urban life. But
throughout all the plays the current of religious sentiment runs
strong. In a few dramas, the best of which, interestingly enough,
lie outside the general pale of Sanskrit, religious feeling and folk-
culture actually predominate. A chapter on the sacred drama is

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T he Classical Drama of I ndia

primarily concerned with two such works, the famous Tamil play,
Arichandra, from southern India, and the Tibetan traditional drama,
Tchrimek~tndan. Analysis of these should illuminate even the main
s tream of Sanskrit drama, since they are unsurpassed distillations
of religious conceptions in dramatic form.

The Indian drama, it should be confessed, must reveal certain
inveterate delinquencies, especially in Western eyes. If as dramatic
art it has certain great virtues, so it has also palpable defects.
Often both these qualities, ironically enough, arise from the same
core of experience and mutually interpret each other. A short
chapter, then, examines features which this writer, at least, can
only regard as deficiencies in the literature, in the theatre, or in both.
There are also qualities that tend to limit the appeal of inferior
plays to the land of their origin. Chapter Seven is thus the anti-
thesis of Chapter Two. One deals with plays falling short of universal
currency, the other, with those sharing in it.

Three chapters follow offering a general view of the technique of
the plays. One is concentrated on a single convention, the use of
swooning, from a close study of which much of the aesthetics of the
Sanskrit drama can be deduced. There follows a more excursive
statement of the style in which the plays were presumably first
presented and which must, at least to some extent, be used when-
ever they are successfully performed. Thereafter is an analysis
of the technique of the plays considered primarily as dramatic
literature.

Finally, lest the argument remain too abstract , too negative, or
too doctrinaire, two major plays representative of the two most
‘important types of drama known to the Hindus are studied with
considerably closer attention to detail. The words comedy and
tragedy do not apply here though they do give a rough and appro-
ximate analogy. The Little Clay Cart is surveyed as an example of
the prakarana, Riima’s Later History, of the niitaka. The flight
of the central chapters into the abstract will, then, be terminated
by a landing on the firm surface of specific, material achievement,
where the spirit and doctrine are made flesh and thus manifested
in the art of a supremely poetic theatre.

Such is the program. Descriptions of scenes are occasionally
repeated so that they may be viewed afresh from new angles and
ground retraced to facilitate further advances. The succession of
chapters each in a sense an essay in itself will, it is hoped, be found

I ntroaua lOn

appropriate in introducing a subject so full of controversy, of theory,
and, for some readers, perhaps, of news. Although the book as a
whole aims at critical unity, the ideas constitute a system of compo-
nent parts which in turn result in chapters measurably self-
sufficient. Furthermore, if progress on little-travelled paths should
offer some difficulties, these may be eased by the presence, as it were,
of landing-places between the stairs.

f
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The Classical Drama
of India

Studies in its Values for the

Literature and Theatre of the World

HENRY W. WELLS

Issued under the auspices of

THE LITERARY lfALF-YEARLY

ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE

BOMBAY· CALCUTTA· MADRAS· NEW DELHI

LUCKNOW . LONDON · NEW YORK

I
I

I
I
I

PRIN TED IN INDIA

BY Z. T. BANDUKWALA AT LEADERS PRESS
PRIVATE LIMITED, BOMBAY AND PUBLISHED BY F. S.
JAYASINGHE , ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, BOMBAY

1111 1111 1111111 11 11111 11 111 11 11 11 11111 11 1111111 11 111 11111 1111111
1r’ To 3 9091 00918099 7

KAPILA VATSYAYANA

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/ Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 . POETIC DRAMA IN ENGLAND AND INDIA 6

,I( 3 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND THE WORLD STAGE 20

4 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND THE MODERN STAGE 31

5 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND INDIAN THOUGHT

6 ACHIEVEMENT IN EQUILIBRIUM 52

7 SACRED DRAMA 71

8 DEFICIENCIES 81

9 THE ART OF. SWOONIN G 90
/

;( 10 THEATRICAL TECHNIQUE ON THE SANSKRIT

STAGE 99

II SANSKRIT DRAMATIC STYLE II5

12 A PRAKARANA: THE LITTLE CLAY CART 131

13 A NAT AKA : RAMA’S LATER HISTORY

Index 193

5
Sanskrit Drama
and Indian Thought

THE POETIC drama of India during the period defined in the West
by the first Christian millennium would be better understood if one of
its major qualities had not been habitually overlooked in Western
criticism and in the East presumably at first taken for granted and
later allowed to rest largely unnoted. This is best described as
“equilibrium,” a balance achieved by opposing forces found to the
aesthetic imagination to be in harmony and not in collision. This
signifies in the general scheme of the play that the’ action is neither
.progression nor montage nor marked by either the rise or -fall of
excitement but by a paradoxical poise that customarily takes the
form of circular motion ending close to the point of its beginning. It
appears further through elaboration of detail in a symmetry achieved
with sharp juxtapositions. However bold the contrasts or conflicts,
they are never restless; they operate on a radically different dyna-
mics from those in Western drama. Indian drama suggests the
smooth revolution of wheels, Western drama, a mounting progress
of the dramatic vehicle to a destination greatly unlike its beginning.
Movement and contrast, the essence of dramatic form, are, indeed,
conspicuous in the great drama of all peoples, for drama is essen-
tially action and contention. But the treatment of these basic
qualities differs vastly according to the philosophy and tempera-
ment of different civilizations. The Indian stage is so deeply com-
mitted to the profound cultivation of its own form , which in turn
reflects a formula for life itself, that it dispenses with many attri-
butes held at various times essential to the serious drama of the
West, as characterization, naturalism, heroic accomplishments by
exertion of the will, and sharp effects of climax and surprise. Time
is conceived in Western drama as a forward-moving vista, as if

Sanskrit Drama and Indian Tho ugh

viewed from a moving plane, whereas in the Eastern drama it
resembles a dome continuously visible though pre-eminently ex-
pansive.

The simplest and by no means least revealing mode of expressing
the contrast is to note that the Western stage in its traditional
comedy and tragedy deals typically in narratives that terminate
in marriage or in death, recording either a wooing or a plot ending
in mortality, while the Eastern stage deals in narratives that hinge
on separation and reunion. Its typical focus is not upon wooing but
upon the family. It celebr.ates not courtship but social stability.
The lost are found, the generations bound together; the stories echo
the seasonal and cyclical myths. The contrasts resemble those in
the procession of the year, a circular dance of months and days.
The play is not a river ending in the sea, either in mystical union
with God nor in fulfillment of human ambition. Rather, it is a
celebration of cosmic poise, a highly formal and unmistakably
aesthetic projection of life idealistically conceived. Western drama
when most eminently serious is heroic , a celebration of action strong-
ly propelled by volition; Eastern drama when equally serious is
idealistic a~ a meditation resolved in peace, possibly presenting
a mirror of great calamity and suffering but of disasters overcome
by the restoration of normal and harmonious relations, a sentiment
of repose overpowering the storm. Thus Indian drama is never
tragic in the Western sense of the word nor is it in its lighter modes
hilariously comic or Aristophanic. Much as it dwells upon the
emotions and shuns violent dialectics or dialectics in any form , it
avoids the exuberance typical of Western theatres. It has neither
the dialectical exuberance of Bernard Shaw nor the emotional
indulgence of Federico Garcia-Lorca.

Equilibrium is an aesthetic or possibly a spiritual ideat not a
logical nor an ethical conception. There can be no problem plays in
the Indian theatre, for there is basically only one problem, the
celebration of poise. Great scope remains for the playwright’s
ingenuity and intelligence in achieving the balance of elements
and parts but little or no room for moral strife. Forces morally
opposed face each other as in a tournament or game. Possibly
contrary to a superficial, a priori view, no Aristotelian ethical
doctrine to the effect that extremes are bad and the mean is good
is stated or implied. Instead, the hero may go to the utmost limits
of ecstacy or grief and such are assumed entirely normal, as in

The Classical Drama of India

William Blake’s celebrated apology for emotional unrestraint.
But these extremes must somehow balance each other with a
balance paradoxically but pragmatically resulting through aesthetic
terms in a cancellation of violence itself.

Partly as corollary to this balance is the unmistakably aesthetic
conception that emotions are not romantically or sentimentally
expressed and that neither actor nor audience experiences the
emotions of the play to be those of real life . Indian criticism is
explicit on this point and the virtuosity of the equilibrium, which
in Indian eyes constitutes dramatic beauty and the very core of
drama itself, precludes the familiar Western outlook. Even per-
formances of Indian plays themselves in the West have frequently
shown obliviousness to this outstanding aspect of the sophis-
ticated Indian theatre. The plays are dedicated, as the introduc-
tory and concluding prayers show, to Siva, patron of music, art,
and dance, who in the well-known image balances himself upon
one foot while dancing in a ring formed by a fiery serpent, whose
head consumes its tail. One ear-ring is masculine, the other, femi-
nine. He is god of destruction and rebirth, of continual, unfailing
movement within the magic circle of immovability, the very deity
of spiritual equilibrium.

Some further difficulties in interpretation arise from a deceptive
predisposition to suppose Sanskrit drama in some way broadly
representative or typical of Hindu culture. Although as we shall
presently see, unmistakably the offspring of this culture, it is no
more typical of it than Elizabethan drama is typical of Elizabethan
thought. In this connection it is helpful to recall that, from causes
neither altogether clear nor dark, the world of Elizabethan drama
is very unlike the general world-outlook represented by Elizabethan
literature as a whole or even by the Elizabethan dramatists them-
selves when writing for other media than the stage. Thus while
Shakespeare’s sonnets at times echo his plays verbally, they are
really very unlike them, even in point of language, and his two
longish narrative poems come by no means close to his great plays,
though one of them may be read as a preliminary exercise for the
rhetoric of his earliest dramas . Broadly examined, Indian litera-
ture and culture likewise present enormous diversities and the
most glaring contradictions. There are many religions and schools
of philosophy, many levels of culture, much primitivism, much
urbanity, much worldliness, much other-worldliness, four castes

Sanskrit Drama and Indian Thought

and many centuries to be considered. Some Indian traditions
have obviously persisted longer than others. The tradition in
drama described in these pages is really nameless; it is only roughly
associated with the Sanskrit tongue, for much that is fundamental
in it holds true also for plays extending geographically from the
languages of Tibet to the Tamil of Southern India. Yet a main
stem persisted, by the most conservative estimate from about
200 to goo A.D.-we cannot be sure of the dates, especially where
origins are concerned. The great drama seems always to have
owed much of its genius to court cultures. With an enormous
indebtedness to music and dancing, out of which it may well have
grown, it reached an outlook more purely aesthetic than that of
virtually any other branch of Hindu expression, in this respect
also comparable to the Elizabethan theatre in the total picture of
Elizabethan cultural life. It clearly reflects both the typical folk-
lore and philosophy, the manners and religions, of its native land.
But it had its own unique accomplishment as well as its own pecu-
liar apologists, as in several important treatises on the theory
and practice of the stage.

The accomplishment is so unlike any to be found in the West,
that at least perceptible aid is supplied for Western readers when
passages in some degree related to the philosophy of the Hindu
theatre are recalled from important religious, philosophical, and
speculative writings. From their native culture the dramatists
naturally picked up valuable threads that must profitably be
associated with them. The myths, largely derived from the M ahii-
bhiirata and the Ramayana, are reworked until they assume quite
new aspects, much as Shakespeare reworked his sources in Plutarch
and Holinshed. The religious and philosophical statements are
more explicit in their bearing on the theory of equilibrium than
are the stories; a few of the former suggesting this theory may
be recalled.

The conception is approached in the Isa Upanishad .’

Unmoving, the One is swifter than the mind,
The sense-powers reaching not It, speeding on before.
Past others running, This goes standing.
In it Matarisvan places action.

It moves. It moves not.
It is far, and It is near.

The Classical Drama of India

It is within all this,
And It is outside of all this . …

Into blind darkness enter they
That worship ignorance;
Into darkness greater than that, as it were, they
That delight in knowledge.

Knowledge and non-knowledge-
He who this pair conjointly knows,
With non-knowledge passing over death,
With knowledge wins the immortal.

Into blind darkness enter they
Who worship non-becoming.
Into darkness greater than that, as it were, they
Who delight in becoming ….

Becoming and destruction-
He who this pair conjointly knows,
With destruction passing over death,
With becoming wins the immortal.

That most seminal work, the Bhagvad Gita, contains these
statements:

He whom the world fears, who fears not the world, free from
exaltation, anguish, fear , disquiet, such a one is beloved of Me.

Who exults not nor hates, nor grieves nor longs, renouncing
fortune and misfortune, who is thus full of love is beloved of Me.

Equal to foe and friend , equal in honor and dishonor, equal in
cold and heat, weal and woe, from attachment altogether free.

Balanced in blame and praise, full of silence, content with
whatever may befall, seeking no home here, steadfast-minded,
full of love, this man is beloved of Me.

The Majjhima-Nikaya (Sutta 63) contains this suggestive passage:

I have not elucidated, Maluiikyaputta, that the world is eternal;
I have not elucidated that the world is not eternal; I have not
elucidated that the world is finite; I have not elucidated that
the world is infinite; I have not elucidated that the soul and

Sanskrit Drama and I ndian Thought

body are identical; I have not elucidated that the soul is one
thing and the body another; I have not elucidated that the saint
exists after death; I have not elucidated that the saint does not
exist after death; I have not elucidated that the saint neither
exists nor does not exist after death.

In a famous passage of the Samyutta-Nikaya concerning “the
Middle Doctrine” we read:

That things have being, 0 Kaccana, constitutes one extreme of
doctrine; that things have no being is the other extreme. These
extremes, 0 Kaccana, have been avoided by the Tathagata, and
it is a middle doctrine he teaches:

On ignorance depends karma;
On Karma depends consciousness;
On consciousness depend name and form ;
On name and form depend the six organs of sense ;
On the six organs of sense depends contact;
On contact depends attachment;
On attachment depends existence;
On existence depends birth;
On birth depend old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, misery,

grief, and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation of
misery arise.

But on the complete fading out of cessation of ignorance ceases
karma:

On the cessation of karma ceases consciousness;
On the cessation of consciousness cease name and form· ,
On the cessation of name and form cease the six organs of sense;
On the cessation of the six organs of sense ceases contact;
On the cessation of contact ceases sensation;
On the cessation of sensation ceases attachment;
On the cessation of attachment ceases existence;
On the cessation of existence ceases birth;
On the cessation of birth cease old age and death, lamentation,

misery, grief, and despair. Thus does this entire aggregation
of misery cease.

The Classical Drama of India

Such passages as these , and there are many, indicate both the
spirit and essential form and rhetoric of the Sanskrit theatre.

The surprise which may at first be felt on realizing how much in
Sanskrit drama is elucidated by the theory of equilibrium and yet
how little it is discussed in the extensive and highly sophisticated
critical works produced in India itself should not embarrass the
validity of the view. Two civilizations differ in ways that neither
realizes fully until they have existed for a considerable time side
by side. Moreover, in any culture there is always much that is so
completely native as to be taken almost entirely for granted. The
Greeks scarcely realized the uniqueness of their emphasis upon
logical thinking nor the Greek dramatists their further emphasis
upon emotional tension strung lengthwise on the coordinate of time.
The Sanskrit dramatists, it seems, hardly realized to what a pro-
nounced degree they relied upon precisely the opposite outlooks,
discovering spiritual integration between apparent and logical
antinomies, and finding peace that flows from contemplation to
be the unifying element even in their narrative and dramatic art.
The dynamics of the Western stage draw the breath in, creating
the tension of flexed muscles; the dynamics of the Indian stage let
the breath out, creating relaxation and repose. The idealism
of the one is heroic, that of the other, contemplative. In each case
the work of art is organic, developed from a single seed; in each
case we are confronted with the spectacle of opposing forces. The
organisms themselves, however, differ as widely as day from night.
Each presumes its own way of thinking and feeling. In each culture
the critics justify the outlook known to them and define that tech-
nique as the best which most fully realizes the native ideals. But
it is the technique that is clearly stated rather than the outlook,
as the aesthetics of Aristotle or Cicero, of Bharata or Sagaranandin,
clearly show. It is only when one system is confronted with the
other that certain of the most deeply ingrained properties of each
become clearly apparent.

Although the purpose of this brief chapter is to state the principle
of equilibrium, not to trace its application at large or to describe the
multiplicity of its manifestations, a few examples showing its
application will naturally be demanded. The circular motion of
separation and return must, however, be conspicuous on even
a rapid inspection of the most celebrated Sanskrit plays. To begin
with the earliest playwright to whom any considerable number

Sanskrit Drama and Indian Thought

of works has been ascribed, Bhasa’s masterpiece, The Vision of
Viisavadattii, describes the supposed death of a beloved queen
and her final recovery of the husband convinced that he has lost her.
The Minister’s Vows, another of Bhasa’s notable plays, repeats
much the same theme. The “happy ending” of almost all Sanskrit
plays operates in this behalf, for where a story falls within the mould
of tragicomedy, the action will naturally pass from felicity to
misfortune and back to felicity again. Sanskrit criticism itself
states that the end of the play should in some way recapitulate its
beginning. Bhasa treats the epics that have the same patterns, as
the Riimiiyana so conspicuously shows. Rama loses Sit a twice,
first when she is abducted by Ravana and second when she is exiled
by Rama himself at the malicious instigation of “the populace”.
On each occasion she is, of course, recovered. These are themes in
four outstanding plays, two by Bhasa, two, considerably more
powerful, by Bhavabhiiti.

Shakuntala and her lover are first happy and devoted to each
other, then the dark eclipse of forgetfulness sets in, and at last
their reunion is achieved. Puriiravas loses Urvad, only to find her
once more. In Barsa’s Niigiinanda the lovers are separated by a
gulf deep as death itself, only to be united, proving, to cite an apho-
rism in another play, Riima’s Later History, that misery and joy are
encompassed within the same dominion. What is most remarkable,
even in a political play, as M1tdriiriiksasa, where the estrangement
is not between two lovers but between two ministers of state, the
end of the play depicts their reconciliation, peace being restored by
public unity.

The larger part of the significance of the theory of equilibrium
cannot, however, be realized until the detailed working out of a
single play is examined. This is most clearly seen in the most
gigantic of Sanskrit dramas, The Little Clay Cart, a work of trans-
cendent virtuosity and choreography. Here every item has its
counterpart, though the themes are themselves frequently so
complex and subtly interwoven as to escape instantaneous recogni-
tion. We presumably experience the integrity of the form before
realizing its causes and in fact the symmetry will exhaust the most
intense scrutiny. Scene balances scene, as the two perigrinations
of Vasantasena through the streets, once when pursued by the
villain, once when a thunderstorm pursues her as she is in quest of
her lover, on each occasion be5ng accompanied by a vita. On each

The Classical Drama of India

occasion, too, there is a trio of voices speaking with dialectical
peculiarities. The balance of flesh and spirit is evoked in .the single
role of the gambler turned ascetic. The theme of the unlucky but
faithful servant, itself a foil to the ultimately lucky Charudatta,
is developed in the story of an impotent but valiant servant who
is twice beaten because of loyalty, first to the heroine, second to
the hero; on each occasion he declares that he has done all he pos-
sibly can. In the important character of Sarvilaka, thievery and
idealism are contrasted with exquisite humor. Charudatta’s
poverty is contrasted with Vasantasena’s opulence, his dilapida-
ted house with her thriving palace. One gharri is set off against
another, a clay cart is the foil to a golden cart, every incident
and almost every speech is a foil to another. The repetition of
$tanzas under the varying circumstances, the balance of design, for
example, in the processional scenes at the four gates of the city,
the near-deaths of hero and heroine, each invoking the name of the
other, all, even in point of the most minute verbal parallels, support
the underlying theory of equipoise. Charudatta was once rich;
he falls into poverty; he recovers his riches with interest. In the
language of William Blake, who alone among English poets reite-
rates all the essentials in the cyclic pattern of Hindu thought, even
Vasantasena was doubtless both virginal and sexually honest once
and is in the end elevated to what is deemed the highest moral
honour of woman, matrimony. In short, The Little Clay Cart
preserves the cyclic theme common to almost all serious Sanskrit
drama but does so less spectacularly than in the unsurpassed subtlety
and consistency with which it develops the factor of equilibrium
within the multiple threads weaving its garment as a whole.

The Tamil drama,Arichandra, the Tibetan drama, Tchrimekundan,
are both, like The Book of Job, stories of tribulation surrounded by
happiness. The hero in each case falls from his splendor only to be
restored to it. With much less subtlety than the Sanskrit plays
themselves and more indebtedness to the bare increment of folklore,
these justly illustrious works follow the same basic pattern as the
main stem of the serious Indian theatre.

Equilibrium, as the Indian drama reveals it, is exemplified, then,
both in the conception of the plots and, what is considerably more
important, in the execution of detail. It is followed, in other words,
in the dramatic narratives and in the details of style and execution.
5agaranandin declares the highest type of play to be that employing

Sanskrit Drama and Indian Thought

the maximum number of dialects and styles practically available,.
that is, the play containing the largest number of conflicting elements-
to be reconciled, for Sagaranandin himself uses the image of the
whole work as developed from a single seed. The conflicts, as
analysis reveals, are harmonized by playing opposites off against
each other, as summer-winter, light-dark, right-left, war-peace,
or whatever the most available contrasts may be. The essence
of aesthetic success is conceived as the poise between opposites,
somewhat, it may be observed, as in the paradoxes of Kier-
kigaard. This is at once the fonn of art and the fonnula of life,
according with the choreography of man’s world and that of the
stars. For this reason, too, the plays are so vital. Their fonn and
meaning, body and soul, are one. Art has seldom served an ideal
purpose more fully. Yet the morality is fundamentally aesthetic.
Morality may well be in the subject-matter of the plays but their
delightfulness springs directly from their fonn as art.

f
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The Classical Drama
of India

Studies in its Values for the

Literature and Theatre of the World

HENRY W. WELLS

Issued under the auspices of

THE LITERARY lfALF-YEARLY

ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE

BOMBAY· CALCUTTA· MADRAS· NEW DELHI

LUCKNOW . LONDON · NEW YORK

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PRIN TED IN INDIA

BY Z. T. BANDUKWALA AT LEADERS PRESS
PRIVATE LIMITED, BOMBAY AND PUBLISHED BY F. S.
JAYASINGHE , ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, BOMBAY

1111 1111 1111111 11 11111 11 111 11 11 11 11111 11 1111111 11 111 11111 1111111
1r’ To 3 9091 00918099 7

KAPILA VATSYAYANA

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/ Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 . POETIC DRAMA IN ENGLAND AND INDIA 6

,I( 3 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND THE WORLD STAGE

4 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND THE MODERN STAGE 31

5 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND INDIAN THOUGHT

6 ACHIEVEMENT IN EQUILIBRIUM 52

7 SACRED DRAMA 71

8 DEFICIENCIES 81

9 THE ART OF. SWOONIN G 90
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;( 10 THEATRICAL TECHNIQUE ON THE SANSKRIT

STAGE 99

II SANSKRIT DRAMATIC STYLE II5

12 A PRAKARANA: THE LITTLE CLAY CART 131

13 A NAT AKA : RAMA’S LATER HISTORY

Index 193

‘] / Sanskrit Dram a and the World Stage

ONE OF the most remarkable of dramatic literatures has for nearly
a thousand years been wrapped in a cloud tlrrough which, it may
fairly be said, only occasional beams of light have emerged. Such
is the drama of ancient India, never adequately interpreted by
criticism since the period of its flourishing shortly after the begin-
ning of the Christian era to a little before the completion of the
first Christian millennium. We know it as arising largely under
the stimulus of the brilliant court cultures once distributed through-
out India and as gradually becoming extinct as a creative force
during years when the Islamic invasions materially altered the
face of the Asian sub-continent. Many of the legends forming its
plots survived all changes and do survive even to the present day.
I ts influences, as well-known, are still felt . in the presentational
arts-drama, puppetry, symbolic dance-extending even from as far
as Tibet to Bali. But the languages in which the plays were written
have become almost as divorced from world-currency as Anglo-
Saxon from the average American or modern Englishman. More-
over, it must be acknowledged that the acting styles are nearly
as far removed as the original languages. Although Indian dramatic
traditions are older and probably more important in a comparative
View than those of the Far East, the Indian heritage has been less
well preserved than that in Japan or even in China. Nor have the
vicissitudes of this heritage in its native land been relieved by
any consistent efforts abroad. Many surviving plays have, to be
sure, been translated into the European languages, especially into
English. It is well-known that they have at times been much
praised as dramatic poetry and their original force as pieces for
the theatre has been at least acknowledged by scholars. Most of

Sanskrit Drama and the W orld Stage

the translations, however, were made from fifty to a hundred
years ago; many are either stylistically out of date or were origin-
ally intended merely as aids to linguistic study, not contributions
to dramatic literature. But changes are now visible. Under the
spell of an increasing national pride in India since the Second World
War there have been a fair number of productions in Sanskrit,
given as a rule under academic auspices, the learned character of
the languages promoting such presentation. Elsewhere two of the
plays, Kalidasa’s Shakuntalii, and Siidraka’s The Little Clay Cart,
have been seen at widely spaced intervals, usually given by ama-
teurs, and generally with a sentiment of esotericism, in versions
greatly altered and abridged, colored by strong incursions of
Western romantic sentiment.

The prospect that the unfavorable conditions will be materially
relieved derives from the persistent view that the plays are of high
intrinsic value and the fact that they are gradually becoming better
understood and more effectively reinterpreted. In India itself the
dramas seem destined to be increasingly performed both in the
original languages and even in translations addressing a wider
audience than these tongues can ever be expected to reach. Outside
India the prospect brightens perceptibly. New and more useable
translations are becoming available, while the restive departure
of Western stages from nineteenth-century realism or naturalism
encourages the cultivation of this supremely imaginative drama.
Its myths have persistent value; its poetry is much closer to the
mind of the West than is the poetry of the Far East; its sheer
theatricality and continuity in pantomime elevate it far above a
merely provincial theatre. To the greater part of the world, Sans-
krit may be a “dead language,” but both the poetry and theatric-
ality of Kalidasa, Bhavabhiiti, Bhasa, Siidraka and others still
prove eminently alive. Their plays must always .have much to teach
us regarding the arts of acting and playwriting as well as of poetry
itself and offer inexhaustible treasures of psychological, religious,
and spiritual insight. Ranging from the comparatively naive to
the superlatively sophisticated, they serve many purposes and
many different audiences.

A discussion of the problem calls for a brief introductory state-
ment regarding its scope, though the circumstances are, naturally,
well-known to scholars. The full extent of the early Indian dramatic
literature cannot be computed. To begin with, the chronology

The Classical Drama of India

presents insuperable difficulties. Fragments of early works exist
and the tradition merely peters out around 1000 A.D. with a gradual
decline in force that can neither be strictly dated nor defined.

. Plays that have survived are of many sorts and in several languages.
Although their key-language is Sanskrit, scarcely a single important
play is wholly in that tongue. Sanskrit is, of course, used in con-
junction with one or more dialects, the former serving almost as a
liturgical language, for the chief characters or scenes, and the
popular dialects for the less exalted roles. The most important
features of Sanskrit drama extend to the Tibetan stage and to
drama entirely in other tongues, especially the Tamil of Southern
India. It must be frankly acknowledged that many plays are of
small value, indeed of almost no value whatsoever as surviving
works for the modern theatre either in or outside India. Some of
these inferior works are erotic trifles, others, wooden. allegories, the
one, too slight, the other, too rhetorical and pretentious to rise
to imaginative or lasting power. Probably some fine pieces still
remain to be unearthed. It will be remembered that less than fifty
years ago thirteen plays, several of high worth, were discovered
in a single manuscript collection ascribed to Bhasa. From the
total deposit at the present time at least fifteen representative
plays lie within range of successful production in virtually any
quarter of the civilized world. This chapter is in substance a defense
of this statement.

The putting on of the plays calls for a strenuous !hough by no
means an impossible exercise of thought, patience, imagination, and
research. None is easy. But their production rests potentially
within the grasp of any actors reasonably acquainted with poetic
drama and stylized acting. Though large audiences cannot be
expected for long runs, the plays are within the reach of good
repertory companies. University theatres and groups with some
training in dancing or in poetic speech enjoy an advantage. A few
plays are metaphysical, a few appeal to children; several are dis-
tinctly urbane and witty in the connotation of these words imply-
ing high sophistication. Almost all encourage spectacular presen-
tation, researches in pantomime, the aesthetic use of costume and
stage-properties, and artful elocution. Though no play is according
to Western terms completely secular or religious, the range extends
from works predominantly secular to those predominantly religious.
Our view begins with consideration of the more secular as possibly,

Sanskrit Drama and the World Stage

though by no means certainly, the more readily serviceable today.
It is regrettable that Shakuntalii has been more often read and

seen abroad than The Little Clay Cart, for the former has leant
itself to much sad dilution , to sentimental, rom antic interpretation,
leaving Kalidasa’s sterner and more religious conceptions un-
realized. The Little Clay Cart is, on the contrary, theoretically
at least more ingratiating and rewarding for contemporary actors.
/fo be sure, it is very long. In fact, it is the length of two plays
and was presumably compounded of two. But abridgment to
proportions which seem reasonable to modern playgoers is at least
possible and the separate acts, ten in number, may occasionally
be given with far more success than implied merely in theatrical
exercises. Sudraka’s words all but define an inspired stylized acting;
pantomime is wedded to language with a firmness hardly dupli-
cated in the entire scope of world drama. The detailed picture of
customs and manners of a medieval Indian city-life notwithstanding,
the play remains astonishingly fresh and universal. Both the
pathos and the humor, the emotional depth and the intellectual
acuteness, are wonderfully sustained and clearly intelligible. It is
probably an easier work for an intelligent modern reader or actor
to understand than any by Aristophanes cr even by Plautus.
Although Indian critics, as a rule devoted to a more metaphysical
stage, do not regard it as their chief drama, it is potentially by
far their best dramatic export. Both Shakuntalii and The Little
Cl-ay Cart have been sadly diluted but Sudraka’s play has never
been dissipated and perverted as Kalidasa’s has been. A school of
acting anywhere in the world can hardly find a work from which
more can readily be learned. Especially for theatrical purposes,

. the best recent translation is that by Revilo Pendleton Oliver.
An erotic element is conspicuous in most Hindu dramas, as in

most Hindu art. But there are a few outstanding exceptions in
the theatre and, incidentally, where the relations of men and women
are not in question, sex is seldom conspicuous, partly because
where friendship is regarded as ethically quite as important as
love between the sexes and second in ethical value only to family
life, homosexuality has nothing remotely as conspicuous a place in
Hindu thought as in that of Greece, Rome, or even modern Europe.
The concept “plotting” suggested to the Hindu mind plots both
of statecraft and of drama. Thus, the central figure in a few plays
is a witty and idealized prime minister, utterly devoted to his

The Classical Drama of India

sovereign and resorting to fantastic devices to achieve political
ends. Two such statesmen are at times pitted against each other.
These features govern the story of a notable play by Visakhadatta,
Mudriiriiksasa. The conduct and quality of this work seem only
superficially removed from us in time. It is a tense drama, clear,
sustained, and consistent from beginning to end, artistically effec-
tive and realistically convincing. Though lacking the poetic and
religious profundity of possibly more important and representative
Sanskrit plays, it shares with them great driving force and is, in
fact, one of the most concentrated of all in its effect. It could
easily prove gratifying to a modern audience.

Less austere in sentiment and more lightened by humor and fan-
tasy is Bha.sa’s The Minister’s Vows, which also centers attention
on intriguing ministers. A love story is implied but not presented in
action. Thus, two major figures in the plot, the king, Udayana,
and his destined bride, Vasavadatta, are both bypassed with extra-
ordinary ingenuity. In almost every scene they are the chief subjects
of discussion yet nowhere appear. Nevertheless action remains
lively. By analogy, several elephants, all named, are important in
the action yet they, too, are not represented on the stage. The
scenes are animated and the story easy to follow. The action grips
attention. Suspense is handled theatrically. The whole is a political
fable, lacking deep poetic significance but with the bright sparkle of
a truly ingratiating poetry. It has long been and will long continue
to be notable dramatic entertainment. The audience fairly smacks

_ its lips in gusto at the contention of the rival ministers.
These two plays, though of good quality, are in a distinct minority,

political plays being less popular and amorous themes, whether in
secular, mythological, or religious drama, taking the ascendency.
Two amorous romances of superior merit, Bhasa’s Vision of Viisava-
datta, and Kalidasa’s Miilavikiignimitra, have collected astonishingly
little dust through the centuries. The former contains mu~h the
same element of political intrigue as found in The Minister’s Vows,
but is far more inspired in its passages of romantic sentiment
depicting a kingly lover and two rival queens. In its theme Bhasa’s
play is remarkably modern, for it deals in Proustian fashion with
the rival claims of imminence and memory, and in virtually an
Expressionist fasJ:lion with the similar demands of reality and illu-
sion, actuality and dream. Not a word is wasted in a succinct and
almost perfect work of art. In its fantasy it resem bles Twelfth Night,

Sanskrit Drama and the World Stage

yet is in some ways more poetic, for it dispenses with the hard,
Plautan core of Shakespeare’s play, which, all its Elizabethan
fecundity notwithstanding, rests on a Latin foundation. There is
great emotional warmth in Bhasa’s romance, resembling in this
respect the finest scenes in Beaumont and Fletcher’s tragicomedies.

Miilavikiignimitra has suffered unjustly from some blunt compari-
sons with Kalidasa’s two other plays, which obviously stand on a
higher plain of poetic achievement, not to mention enthusiasm.
The lesser play looks like deft craftsmanship in work done on
commission, the two others appear as spontaneous art. Yet as
contribution to a Spring Festival this light and graceful comedy
proves highly gratifying. Though not as rich a drama as A Mid-
summer-Nighfs Dream, it occupies a place in Kalidasa’s trilogy
of plays comparable, perhaps, to Shakespeare’s “Dream” among
his more than thirty works. One is reminded, too, of the light com-
edies by John Lyly with mythological themes presented at Queen
Elizabeth’s court, as Endimion, and The Woman in the Moon.
Apart from the extraordinary delicacy and sophistication of the
Sanskrit play on intrigues within a Hindu harem there is little
to perplex a modern audience. The mythology itself is inescapably
channing and acted before us, not left in the obscurity of allusion
to a faded Pantheon. For example, that so young and sprightly a
heroine as we have here will cause a spring-time tree to blossom
at the touch of her foot may offend science but seems crystal clear
to poetry. Unquestionably the play was often given in India
out-of-doors. A more attractive comedy for an out-of-door summer
theatre today would be hard to discover. It is light but by no means
slight, for such precision of footing is rare.

Unlike Miilavikiignimitra , the majority of Sanskrit plays surviving
as potential theatre do more than introduce myth incidentally;
they rely upon it as the major element in their story. And this
finn basis in myth goes a considerable distance to accounting for
their survival, or, in other words, for their nearly timeless, or
universal, appeal. The plots are based largely, though not exclusive-
ly, on the two great classical epics of India, the Miihabhiirata, and
the Riimiiyana. For many centuries these massive poems stood
behind a large part of Indian presentational art , their fertility in
inspiring at least the folk-arts extending even to the present. Their
force was most powerful in the earlier periods of the literary drama.
The majority of Bhasa’s plays, the earliest important body of drama

The Classical Drama of India

known to us, treat these epic themes, as a rule to much advantage.
There are, to be sure, relatively poor plays based on the epics .
Thus Bhasa’s The Coronation reads more like a hastily composed,
rapid-fire scenario than a dramatic poem. His Statue Play, on the
contrary, is a highly sensitive and well composed poetic drama on a
major episode in the Riimiiyana. Especially after its opening scene,
action progresses with the utmost clarity, Rama’s story told almost
as directly as Shakespeare tells Othello’s. The many verbal indirec-
tions and understatements are as a rule thoroughly perspicuous to a
reasonably appreciative audience familiar with the best idiom of
dramatic poetry. Bhasa’s Karna’s Task, deserving unqualified
praise, is one of the most moving of all one-act plays, in some ways
not unlike the late, verse dramas by William Butler Yeats. Played
with the high seriousness which it demands, it should deeply impress
any spectator favoured with a moderate degree of spiritual insight.
In substance it dramatizes the Bhagvad-Gitii, the most spiritually
elevated section of the Miihabhiirata. Doubtless the original audi-
ence experienced the force of this profound drama more deeply than
could be expected of a modern audience; yet even without a philo-
sophical understanding of the Bhagvad-Gitii, and even in translation,
this succinct little tragedy becomes almost unspeakably moving.
Bhasa’s play will always be a reflective and spiritual drama of the
highest magnitude, all the better artistically because the predo-
minantly didactic poem that stands behind it is so thoroughly
translated into the action of an enthralling drama.

Many pages of the Indian epics are, indeed, far removed from
meditations such as the Bhagvad-Gitii. Some will seem to modern
readers more like the saga mythology of Scandinavia or to resemble
the early and relatively savage mythology of pre-Homeric Greece.
This violent, primitive, and brutal action at times transfers itself
into impressive drama. Venisamhiira, by Bhatta Narayana, possess-
es these qualities. To be successfully produced it must, accordingly,
be played in a very different manner from any style required by
other plays mentioned in this discussion. But it is a moving story,
firmly of a piece, full of pain, trouble, tragedy, and despair. Though
possessing little of the grace or luminosity found in the works of
the more famous Sanskrit dramatists, it comes close to expression
which the violent West has long known and knows only too well
today. It may remind us of The Song of Roland, or even of stark
dramas based on heroic incidents of the latest war. Potentially,

Sanskrit Drama and the World Stage

at least, the play has by no means passed out of the repertory of
world drama.

Kalidasa is exceptional, for he possesses a suavity and dignity,
a poetic richness and containment, matched seldom and possibly
most closely by Sophocles. Both his two masterpieces are myths
for the stage and must be so understood and presented if they are
to yield their true meaning. The heroine, Shakuntala, in other
words, must not be made to resemble Goethe’s Dorothea, no matter
how well the producer recalls Goethe’s praise of Kalidasa’s work.
Her play is not a romantic drama but a sacred drama. The same
holds even more clearly for Vikramorvaci, a less elaborated work,
though a little more difficult for modern actors to present, especially
because of the climax of its poetry, the long soliloquy comprising
the greater part of Act Four. The hero, to be sure, vehemently
addresses many living forms of nature. But for most of the scene
no response follows, unless a barren echo be held an exception.
Yet without question, save for minor reservations, Vikramorvaci
clearly comes within the potential of outstanding dramatic per-
formance today, though still one of the most intensely Indian of
all plays.

Although popular India has devotedly cherished the Shakuntala
legend, Indian scholars have expressed scarcely less esteem for
Bhavabhiiti’s masterpiece based on epic sources, Riima’s Later
History, than for Kalidasa’s ShakuntaUi. Bhavabhiiti’s work is a
treasure for the theatrically elite, one of the most intense and stirring
of all Sanskrit plays and marking in many ways the high-point of the
great mountain range of serious dramas on Hindu epic themes.
Action is at a minimum. There is virtually no plot, no intrigue, no
antagonist, no comic relief. Yet as lyric drama profoundly adapted
to stage performance this work has few rivals. Its theatrical qualit-
ies, no less than its psychological, moral, and philosophical pro-
perties, make it typical of the Indian theatre at its best. A major
dramatic poem, indeed almost a miracle of virtuosity, it offers a
supreme opportunity for the producer. Little in the play clouds
it from modern eyes if only it be performed with a fair degree of
imagination and skill. The theme is at heart simply the disinte-
gration and reintegration of family life, revealed in a myth on
nature’s fertility, the loves of earth and sun. Whereas The Little
Clay Cart is the most practicable of Sanskrit plays throughout the
world, Riima’s Later History is the most challenging.

The Classical Drama of India

A final instance of myth in a play that strikes one first of all as
secular and mythological rather than as religious is Bhasa’s The
Adventures of the Boy Krishna. This apparently was originally
performed, as it must be performed today, with a spirit of naivete,
conscious and sophisticated, perhaps, but none the less frankly
naive, as though directed, Blake-like, to the child-mind. It is
Krishna at play. It relates the miraculous adventures of its hero as
a child, one of the symbolic themes most deeply beloved in Hindu
art. Much singing and dancing is called for. The conception is
that of a pastoral but of a pastoral, like A Midsummer-Night’s
Dream, whose plot is propelled by Puck, vastly enlivened and
invigorated by folkore, a play not so close to the decadent,
Hellenistic, purely literary pastoral of ancient Sicily as to the folk-
dramas of medieval, rural England. The Indian fantasy retains
complete freshness and captivating charm. It can best be given
today in the Western World before an audience in which there
are many children, probably as a production primarily for children,
possibly even by children. This is the type of play which every-
where successful directors of theatres for the young, as the inspired
and cosmopolitan-minded leader of the famous theatre for children
in Antwerp, Cory Lievens, have consistently found popular. Exotic
as the play’s imagery or fable is to the world at large, its heart is
native everywhere and always. For successful performance it
calls, of course, for good dancing, good music, and bright spectacle.

Though all the plays dealing with myth partake generously of
religious feeling, those just considered do so with some degree of
indirection and we naturally think of them first of all as poetic
mythology, not religious propaganda. But there are several deeply
religious plays explicitly pious and even more fit, it would seem, for
the temple than for the court and proclaiming the ascetic virtues of
sacrifice, rectitude, non-resistance and contemplation. Their auster-
ities may not be generally put into practice but even today are still
powerful and in some respects more compelling to man’s conscience
than ever. Conspicuous among works that contain such idealism and
retain high theatrical potency are Harsa’s Niigananda, and two
lyrical dramas a little outside the pale of Sanskrit literature but
clearly a part of the great Indian dramatic tradition, the celebrated
Tamil play, Arichandra, ascribed to Renga Pillai, and the Tibetan
buddhistic drama, Tchrimekundan , ascribed to the Talelama,
Tsongs-Dbyangsrgyamthso. These are very eloquent works, quite

Sanskrit Drama and the World Stage

capable of presentation today on a poetic stage. The story of the
Tamil masterpiece is basically that of The Book of Job, with the
considerable differences occasioned respectively by their Hindu
and Semitic origins. Arichandra gives relatively much more
attention to the wife and offspring, revealing the central place of
family life in Indian thought. The Tibetan drama further presents
a contrast between power and mercy.

Nagananda requires little or no cutting or arrangement. The
two other works, long and episodic, resemble novels in dramatic
form. Nevertheless, where both content and theatrical inspiration
are initially so strong, adaptation even to the modern stage is by no
means difficult or embarrassing. In fact, there is no really authorit-
ative text for either of these dramas, which, like the Western Every-

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man, have persisted from century to century with extensive accre-
tions, deletions, and adulterations. Their initial impulse is powerful
and unmistakable, their poetic and theatrical energy no less vigor-
ous. Here are two rich mines, one in the loftiest Himalayas, the
other in the tropical lowlands of Southern India, from which theatri-
cal gold may still .be extracted. Such plays may be successfully
produced in an essentially secular theatre but are possibly best
suited for production by actors under sponsorship of a religious
institution, for they reach the very core of religious consciousness
itself, where all distinctions between sects and creeds vanish before
the disclosure of the religious heart of univer-sal man.

All fifteen dramas described in this chapter are of value in chal-
lenging the skill and inventiveness of the performers. Hardly any
artifice or convention known anywhere to the world’s stage is
missing in this most synthetic dramatic literature. Soliloquies,
asides, the pantomimic creation of scene and stage properties,
imaginative choreography, musical embellishment, simultaneous
speaking, simultaneous action of two or more scenes, elaborate
montage , stylized acting, naturalistic acting, poetical expression,
realistic and colloquial expression, impressionism, expressionism ,
the physical and the metaphysical, the secular and the divine,
ritual, humor, emotional intensity, farce, parody, and fantasy-
all are carried to advanced stages of development. True, the Hindu
drama lacks much that exists in the Western drama, just as it
achieves much that the Western drama does not achieve. Character
delineation, an expression of uncompromising will power, tragic
purgation, satirical sharpness, logical or dialectical thinking, are

The Classical Drama of I n di a

not carried into their more advanced phases. The emotions implied
are much more violent than in most European drama but in sym-
pathetic production are intimated rather than n aturalistically
expressed, the aesthetic demand for form and control surpassing the
indulgence given to (lirect projection of feeling. The basic theme of
all Indian dram a is spiritual equilibrium, poise bet ween opposites,
rest and fulfillment at the center of violent motion. Sanskrit drama
is from the Western point of view th at ultimate paradox, a successful
contemplative drama. In the acute theoretical criticism of their
dramatic art Indian actors are enjoined to stand above the emotions
expressed, no matter how violent; both they and the audience are
charged to maintain with a severe and spiritual discipline the con-
templative view of life. This is a highly convincing aesthetic and
the modern world has similarly discovered it to signify an ingra-
tiating outlook in philosophy and religion. Sanskrit plays commence
and conclude with prayers to the god of dancing and art, Siva,
destroyer and creator. Surely, much is to be gained, whether in the
theatre or in life itself, by propitiation of such a profoundly meditated
divinity.

4 / Sanskrit Drama and the Modern Stage

A MOVEMENT in drama or any other art has two distinct values,
namely, the absolute value, or pleasure, which its works afford in
direct experience, and the relative value , or degree to which they
stimulate fresh activity. Of course these two aspects of a classic as
seen in perspective are far from being mutually exclusive . Whatever
stirs and delights us must influence our own mental and possibly
even our social activity. But at least in terms of an alysis, the two
aspects must always stand apart. A classic pleases us in itself and
contributes to the forces that fashion our own creations. Whenever
it is really alive to us, or, in other words, when it answers the de-
finition of a classic, it performs both functions. It is remembered
for having distinctive qualities that works of no other school pos-
sess, whether reference is made to either time or locality, and yet
at the same time it is endowed with the potency to enter into the
circulation of our own blood.

Although the conclusion of earlier chapters has been that the
best Sanskrit plays are capable at the present time of giving warm
enjoyment , they have been considered rather in r espect to them-
selves and our own more general standards of value than in relation
to specific movements or works of twentieth-century origin. More
comparison has been made between Sanskrit works on the one hand
and the Greek or Elizabethan on the other than between the Indian
stage and specimens of current movements in the the atre. The
contention has been that the Sanskrit masterpieces resemble planets
circulating about a central sun; that they are present to stay ;
that they have the power to delight not only our own century but ,
in somewhat different terms, any civilization of which we can
ourselves at the present time dream . We have been concerned with

f
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The Classical Drama
of India

Studies in its Values for the

Literature and Theatre of the World

HENRY W. WELLS

Issued under the auspices of

THE LITERARY lfALF-YEARLY

ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE

BOMBAY· CALCUTTA· MADRAS· NEW DELHI

LUCKNOW . LONDON · NEW YORK

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PRIN TED IN INDIA

BY Z. T. BANDUKWALA AT LEADERS PRESS
PRIVATE LIMITED, BOMBAY AND PUBLISHED BY F. S.
JAYASINGHE , ASIA PUBLISHING HOUSE, BOMBAY

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1r’ To 3 9091 00918099 7

KAPILA VATSYAYANA

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/ Contents

1 INTRODUCTION 1

2 . POETIC DRAMA IN ENGLAND AND INDIA 6

,I( 3 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND THE WORLD STAGE 20

4 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND THE MODERN STAGE

5 SANSKRIT DRAMA AND INDIAN THOUGHT

6 ACHIEVEMENT IN EQUILIBRIUM 52

7 SACRED DRAMA 71

8 DEFICIENCIES 81

9 THE ART OF. SWOONIN G 90
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;( 10 THEATRICAL TECHNIQUE ON THE SANSKRIT

STAGE 99

II SANSKRIT DRAMATIC STYLE II5

12 A PRAKARANA: THE LITTLE CLAY CART 131

13 A NAT AKA : RAMA’S LATER HISTORY

Index 193

The Classical Drama of I ndia

not carried into their more advanced phases. The emotions implied
are much more violent than in most European drama but in sym-
pathetic production are intimated rather than naturalistically
expressed, the aesthetic demand for form and control surpassing the
indulgence given to direct projection of feeling. The basic theme of
all Indian drama is spiritual equilibrium, poise between opposites,
rest and fulfillment at the center of violent motion. Sanskrit drama
is from the Western point of view that ultimate paradox, a successful
contemplative drama. In the acute theoretical criticism of their
dramatic art Indian actors are enjoined to stand above the emotions
expressed, no matter how violent; both they and the audience are
charged to maintain with a severe and spiritual discipline the con-
templative view of life. This is a highly convincing aesthetic and
the modern world has similarly discovered it to signify an ingra-
tiating outlook in philosophy and religion. Sanskrit plays commence
and conclude with prayers to the god of dancing and art, Siva,
destroyer and creator. Surely, much is to be gained, whether in the
theatre or in life itself, by propitiation of such a profoundly meditated
divinity.

/ 5 anskrit Drama and the Modern 5 tage 4

A MOVEMENT in drama or any other art has two distinct values ,
namely, the absolute value, or pleasure, which its works afford in
direct experience, and the relative value, or degree to which they
stimulate fresh activity. Of course these two aspects of a classic as
seen in perspective are far from being mutually exclusive. Whatever
stirs and delights us must influence our own mental and possibly
even our social activity. But at least in terms of analysis, the two
aspects must always stand apart. A classic pleases us in itself and
contributes to the forces that fashion our own creations. Whenever
it is really alive to us, or, in other words, when it answers the de-
finition of a classic, it performs both functions. It is remembered
for having distinctive qualities that wo~ks of no other school pos-
sess, whether reference is made to either time or locality, and yet
at the same time it is endowed with the potency to enter into the
circulation of our own blood .

Although the conclusion of earlier chapters has been that the
best Sanskrit plays are capable at the present time of giving warm
enjoyment, they have been considered rather in respect to them-
selves and our own more general standards of value than in relation
to specific movements or works of twentieth-century origin. More
comparison has been made between Sanskrit works on the one hand
and the Greek or Elizabethan on the other than between the Indian
stage and specimens of current movements in the theatre. The
contention has been that the Sanskrit masterpieces resemble planets
circulating about a central sun; that they are present to stay;
that they have the power to delight not only our own century but,
in somewhat different terms, any civilization of which we can
ourselves at the present time dream. We have been concerned with

The Classical Drama of India

their value indiscriminately in relation to time. But they have,
of course, a particular relevance for our own time and, as it seems,
a relevance of more than usual potency. Not only are they in a
broad sense of the word timeless; they are especially timely in terms
of recent trends of thought and taste. In grasping for a metaphor,
one thinks of the view of Mount Fugi from various areas of Japan.
The mountain is always there, at many times veiled or actually
hidden, at certain hours with exceptional clearness in the atmos-
phere becoming preternaturally vivid, approaching the spectator
as though it has been violently dislodged. Our own times constitute
one of the moments in cultural history when the Sanskrit drama
looms in vivid proximity.

For a score of centuries, drama in the Western world has, even in
advance of other art forms, favored an objective view of experience.
It has in general depicted life in social terms and at times analyzed
it in intelleGtual terms. Its address has been to the social consci-
ousness or to the mind of the audience. It has not, except in cer-
tain cases of the religious drama, addressed itself directly to the
soul of the individual spectator. Its form has been narratory; it has
favored direct projection of action and has emphasized the difference
between persons, the contentions arising from these differences
being found the very essence of drama itself. Western drama, in
short, has depicted the clash of personalities, stressing the view
that different men ‘ wear different masks. Its conception has been
antithetical, for example, to the lyric of self-expression. Criticism
has contended that each major playwright, to be sure, stamps his
works with the mark of his own personality but maintained that
their basic meaning is objective rather than autobiographical.

While the Western drama delights in surprises and looks outward,
Sanskrit drama takes the opposite course. In content it is psycholo-

A
‘cal and spiritual rather than social, ethical, or intellectual; it aims

to establish the felicity of eqUilibrium in the soul of each spectator.
It stresses the likenesses, not the dissimilarities, of men, depicting
them as different only insofar as the exigencies of its myths demand.
Its final goal is to proclaim the unity within the universe itself and
thus to r efute what might be called the multiverse assumed in the
secular drama of the West. It depicts the soul in repose, not in
action; its image is the seated Buddha, not the javelin-throwing
Zeus, or at least the god Siva dancing within the circle of his own
sovereignty, not the charioteer urging his horses through tempestu-

Sanskrit Drama and the Modern Stage

ous waves. Its ideal form is neither narratory, dynamic, nor centri-
fugal but, metaphorically speaking, musical, plateresque, and
magnetic. In its structure all lines lead inward as if to the center
of a circle, to the navel of the body or the chalice of the flower.
This form may at first seem to defy the very principles of drama
themselves and indeed if drama be as Aristotle declared it, the most
celebrated of Sanskrit playwrights are among the least of dramatic
poets. But the modern mind is strongly tempted to pass beyond
the Greeks. Clearly, within our own century much of the most
admired dramatic poetry has moved with an ever increasing volume
in the direction of the Sanskrit.

To begin with a view of British and American drama one may con-
sider Dylan Thomas’s remarkable poetic play, Under Milk Wood,
conceived, to be sure, as a poem for radio recitation but more than
once seen in versions more or less overtly theatrical. The work
complies with almost all the characteristics outlined in preceding
descriptions of Sanskrit drama except, possibly, in its extreme use
of local color, which may well lead the spectator to feel, here lies a
Welsh village, not the City of Man’s Soul. The satirist intrudes
upon the role of the idealist or dreamer. Much the same holds true
for the plays of Samuel Beckett. Here the pessimism, to be sure,
is extreme; but pessimism is by no means absent from oriental
religious thought, though Sanskrit drama on the whole outwardly
stresses a more cheerful view of existence. Waiting for Codot is
not a play about an action . It is precisely a play about no action,
as its title suggests. It ends as it begins. Its remarkably theatrical
qualities lie in the style, not in the action; or, to express the thought
differently, in the pantomime or “business,” not in a story which
simply does not exist .

Chiefly through music-drama and the irresistible tendency of
man to unite music and the theatre a half-oriental form makes
itself felt and all imperatives of the Aristotelian form are dismissed.
The Gertrude Stein-Virgil Thompson, Four Saints in Three Acts
illustrates this. It is more a pageant than a play and more a shifting
of tableaux than a pageant. Above all it is a symphony made visible
or a dance with elaborate music and spectacle. E ach act has its
own mood (the Sanskrit ” rasa”, the European ” movement”).
In its inspired initial production this was widely recognized as
providing a thoroughly gratifying theatrical experience. The new
school of metaphysical poets has clearly contributed the most to

The Classical Drama of India

this departure from orthodox Western drama. In this category few
writers are more typical than Conrad Aiken. His notable play,
Dr. Arcularis. is, to be sure, in one of its phases merely a detective
story, a type of art essentially melodramatic and overwhelmingly
Western. Sherlock Holmes was no Bodhisattva. But insofar as the
entire play is conceived as a dream or vision at the point of death
as experienced by a fairly representative man and as symbolical
meditation upon the cardinal conditions of human life, it resembles
the meditative theatre of India. The heart of Aiken’s play is
spiritual and non-objective.

Aiken, to be sure. shows a penchant for autobiography and
autobiography is a type of expression distinctly foreign to the
impersonal impulses of the Sanskrit stage. The personal confession
of both Catholic and Protestant, the one leading to verbal confession
to a priest, the other, to written confession to edify a reading public,
alike belong to a civilization built upon self-consciousness, antitheti-
cal to the mystical cultures of the East aspiring to super-consci-
ousness. Hence the leading dramatists of relatively modern times
using the stage for autobiography at once approach and diverge
from the oriental stage. Insofar as they become to a large degree
non-objective, they approach the Oriental; insofar as they tend to
magnify rather than to nullify individuality, they prove violently
occidental. Strindberg is here the supreme case in point; his expres-
sionist plays violently wrench Western drama from its traditional
position. But one is never quite sure how far To Damascus and
The Dream Play are intended as autobiography of a distressed Chris-
tian or as outlines of universal man. These elusive plays might
be collected under the ambiguous title, “Strindberg or Everyman”.
Both of Strindberg’s two revolutionary tendencies in the theatre,
one toward self-expression in the theatre and the other toward
symbolism, announced a revolution. The first merely divorced
his plays from the outlook of the Renaissance. The second pointed
clearly in the direction of the East. His essentially poetic vision
weaned him from the naturalistic theatre and cast his thoughts
toward music. Avowedly he conceived many of his mature plays in
relation to musical sentiment and form. Easter is a progression of
scenes based upon the marvellous passion music of H aydn, The
Ghost Sonata, a similar work indebted to Beethoven. In both
cases inspiration moves also toward the Orient,

Another great European playwright moved, as he became in-

Sanskrit Drama and the Modern Stage

creasingly the poet of the theatre, in a similar direction. Pirandello
was passionately devoted to music and for a considerable period in
his life attempted to work out a film projection of the Beethoven
symphonies. That this project in course of time passed largely
into the unscrupulous hands of Hollywood, with Walt Disney
and Stokowski as its servants, in no way diminishes its aesthetic
importance. Pirandello’s own last work, his incomplete Mountain
Giants, is his own unfinished symphony. It calls for considerable
musical accompaniment and betrays much of the oriental concern
for “rasa”. The acts are movements, each with its own emotional
tone. This is not “straight” Western theatre. It is a theatre in-
creasingly bent in an Easterly direction.

The preoccupation with a form capable of being abstracted and
stated in more or less musical terms, as variations upon certain
themes, is conspicuous in Eugene O’Neill’s most revolutionary
play, The Iceman Cometh. There is a sense in which here little or
nothing happens. Or, to put it differently, the most ‘ dramatic
changes lie in the lighting, not in the action. At the end all but
two of the chief characters are seated on the stage just as at the
beginning, though the illumination is dimmer than ever. The
characters sit exactly as musicians in a chamber orchestra. One
man, weaker, or possibly stronger than the rest, has committed
suicide. Another has come and gone, distinguished from the rest
chiefly by his superior power to personify their common predica-
ment. He is the deus ex machina of a machine that from the humani-
tarian point of view conspicuously fails to work. The movements
(one cannot properly speak of the “action”) are cyclical. There is
no “intrigue” or “plot”. Only O’Neill’s violent pessimism, relieved,
to be sure, by some finely humorous, cynical irony, conceals from
even the most superficial glance the playwright’s marked approxi-
mation to the form and spirit of the Sanskrit stage.

Before entering upon the later and more definitive parts ‘ of this
exposition, it will be well to remark that in the present chapter
observations on the Sanskrit theatre itself made in earlier sections
of this book, especially as to its thematic structure, will be assumed
and attention turned chiefly toward revealing analogies in the
theatre of the West. Yet it may be wise to re-examine at least
briefly certain formal devices in construction of the typical
act of the Sanskrit play which distinguish it from act-construction
in Western drama. In a word, the act division has considerably

The Classical Drama of India

more significance in the East than in the West. That each act
has its prevailing rasa, or mood, that it requires the use of special
formulas for its introduction and only to a less degree for its conclu-
sion, are conspicuous features. vEach act is required to develop
certain themes belonging to the playas a whole, to recapitulate
in its beginning what has already occurred on the stage, or, more
often, what has occurred in an intermediate time off the stage.
No Sanskrit play is. merely a sequence of one-act plays, although
several of Bhasa’s short works were quite possibly given as parts
of a longer entertainment. But despite this articulation, the act
in the typical play has all the completeness of an ideal movement
in a musical composition. It may well be that ‘Western music
in the last three hundred years has achieved a sophistication in
form comparable to that of the Sanskrit stage and that the Indian
theatre itself in this regard actually forged ahead of Indian music.
In any event, the Westerner seeking an intimacy with the Sanskrit
theatre discovers that Western drama provides him with less
fundamental aid than Western music. To look to Shakuntalii
for what the West regards as basically musical qualities rather
than essentially dramatic qualities is no poor strategy nor in the
end a derogatory comment on Kalidasa as a playwright.

The Western dramatist and poet ,closest to the spirit of the
Eastern art is, presumably, Federico Garcia-Lorca, especially if
attention is focused on his longest play, If Five Years Pass. The
emotional violence of his three tragedies on Andelusian women is
indeed far from Eastern practice and more nearly approaches that
most typical of Western dramatic forms , melodrama. An underlying
primitivism in Spanish thought, whose most conspicuous out-
cropping in recent years is in the art of Picasso, seems indeed far from
the gentle sophistication of the Sanskrit nataka, although farce is
much the same the world over, whether in Lorca’s puppet-plays
or in the bawdy trifles delighting popular audiences in ancient
India. As the most highly conventionalized and impersonal type
of theatre, the commedia dell’ arte, which Lorca closely approaches
in his light and witty entertainments, The Shoemaker’.) Prodigious
Wife, and The Love of Don Perlimplin and Belisa in the Garden,
the most nearly approximates the abstraction of the Indian stage.
But it is not in this respect that the most revealing analogies are
to be found. The plateresque quality of his form and its musical
structure and spirit are the qualities chiefly apparent in If Five

Sanskrit Drama and the Modern Stage

Years Pass and are so firmly based on his thought and work as a
whole that a few comments on his life and non-dramatic poems are
useful as introduction to the analysis of his powerful “surrealist”
play.

Lorca knew how to write plays of the most varied sorts and how
to follow patterns developed on various stages of the Western drama.
The narrative elements conspicuous in the “Andelusian” tragedies
rest on the firmest basis of Western tradition. Influence of the
golden age of Spanish drama, with Lope de Vega and Calderon at
its head, appear in the relatively tame, early and derivative piece,
Mariana Pineda. He was skilled in almost pure commedia dell’arte.
Never, of course, does he stray into the fertile field of the comedy
of manners nor into the stony area of the problem play in the
accepted sense of those words. Nor does he write strictly neo-
classical drama, though the choral elements in two of the Andelu-
sian plays and the two levels of style reflected by the alternation of
verse and prose suggest in turn the Greek and the Elizabethan
manner. No matter how he writes, however, he is even within each
individual work highly versatile and always the poet; thus in two
very general respects comparable to the Sanskrit dramatists. His
radical experiment with form in If Five Years Pass , where he boldly
deserts orthodox European practice and turns toward the East,
is most strongly revelatory of a mind steeped in the very essence of
music.

Lorca was a gifted pianist, an amateur composer, a favorite
pupil of Da Falla, a sponsor of musical performances and research,
and equally devoted to popular and sacred music, to the music of the
flamenco dance and of the Catholic mass. Whatever he wrote,
showed the impact of music upon him, whether the essay, the
short poem, the longer poem, or the play. He delighted in musical
accompaniment for the reading of poetry, sharing with his country-
men as a whole, a fondness for that best of accompanying instru-
ments, the guitar. Though poetry, drama, and play-directing were
his professions, he was in a sense a professional in nothing and an
amateur in everything, during his brief life reaching considerable
dexterity and skill in all the arts, including painting. Better than
any other figure of his times he exemplifies the tendency of the age
to a synthesis of the arts. He wrote in color and painted in caricature.
His colors sing; he can write a narrative ballad inspired by the color
green. White and black are passions to him. Whereas Michelangelo

The Classical Drama of India

declared that a single majesty inspires all the arts, Lorca takes a less
platonic and a more pragmatic position. He finds practical relations
between the arts and thus achieves the total theatre of movement,
speech, color, form , dance . and music, both vocal and instrumental.
No art as he employs it is ever out of sight of its sister arts. His
conception of the theatre in these respects, he seems never to have
formulated for print but its significance in terms of inter-continental
culture remains clear. The Granada of his birth is historically the
link between the European peninsula that is Spain and the African-
Asian world symbolized by the Alhambra. Lorca idolized the Isla-
mic tradition. In so doing he presumably never realized that he was
also in his own terms effecting a passage to ancient India, where
the synthesis of the arts, both in theory and in practice, was achieved
more firmly than at any time in the West.

Music, then. was merely one, though presumably the chief, of the
arts whose influence swayed the course of his writing and at least in
his own eyes operated greatly to its advantage. He was wholly
accustomed to think of such relationships and even to act upon them
quite unconsciously, as part of his birthright. A large proportion
of his minor poems have received musical settings; all his more
popular plays have received operatic settings, a few of them several
times over; successful dances have been composed on the inspira-
tion of both his poems and plays. The latter have been the special
delight of stagedesigners and producers . Like Kalidasa, Lorca
thought in the most comprehensive of aesthetic terms. He thought
also in terms of relatively intense and short-winded literary and
dramatic units, in this regard again suggesting the influence of
musical compositions. It is almost as though his strong lyrical
sense tempted him to accept Poe’s celebrated dictum on the impos-
sibility of the long poem . Most of his poems are brief. His plays are
also brief and sharply divided into acts. The chief of his non-dra-
matic poems, his Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias, is in strict
sonata form, the first movement dominated by the harsh theme,
“at five in the afternoon,” the second, by the bitter theme, “I will
not see it,” the third, by the heavy oppression of allusions to stone,
the last, by exhilarating themes of revival, announcing that the
stone has been rolled away from the door of the sepulchre. That
this is one of the most ·profundly musical of modern poems is obvi-
ous to any sympathetic reader but the condition is still further
manifest when, as on certain phonographic recordings, it is chanted

San skrit Drama and the Modern Stage

by a fine Spanish voice and with the accompaniment of an elegiac
guitar.

If In Five Years proceeds from the same hand and mind that
fashioned the great chant for the dead bullfighter, though the play
is, of course, less essentially tragic and more bitterly ironic, never
passing in its mood beyond the astringency of the poem’s second
movement. There is really no narrative. In the first of its three
acts A loves B, while B is cold; in the third and last act B loves A,
while A is cold. These are the two major figures . Both are sensitive
beings caught in the trap of time. In Act Two a pair of vulgar and
insensitive beings wear themselves out in their own animalistic
passion, the girl meanwhile deserting A, hitherto her unrewarding
lover. Every figure represents a new inflection of the unifying
idea, the invidiousness of time, not so much because all things are
time’s victims through death-though this thought supplies a
minor level for the action and a symbolical character or two-as
because time decrees that there is no stability for either the human
heart or mind. One character lives on memory, another on anti-
cipation; another, a vulgar sensualist, on attempts to snatch the
passing moment. Still another, the “Old Man,” a slightly more
sympathetic character than the rest, is un convincingly resigned to
the luxuries of retrospection and the unrealized surprises of a future
as yet unthinkable. The symbolic figures associated with death
express time’s ultimate irony. These are, in Act One, a dead cat
and a dead child, in Act Three, a clown wearing a death’s-head
and a harlequin, who plays a “violin” with two strings while chant-
ing repeatedly certain theme lines in verse. An imposing but
brittle department-store mannikin that can neither live nor properly
die supplies the secondary theme of supernaturalism in Act Two.
The play is all a very conscious artifact yet by no means dry or
concocted. Emotions are strong and tender. No character bears a
personal name. All are treated as musical motifs. And all breathe
the impassioned life of music itself. The form is scarcely known to
Western literature outside the twentieth century. It approximates
the most nearly to Western music and to the Sanskrit stage.

As already indicated, the treatment of the individual acts strongly
supports the analogy to music, just as the treatment of the four parts
in the great Lament. Act One is pensive and melancholy; Act
Two, bitter and satirical; Act Three, supernatural and tragic.
Gestures are repeated, always with a difference. Words and phrases

The Classical Drama of India

are echoed; at times the words are inverted, exchanged between
different characters, or subtly turned around upon themselves.
The first few lines of the play are a quiet crescendo, or montage,
the last few lines, in a corresponding but inverse form , a quiet
diminuendo. Every page and line of the dialogue is alive with
musical sentiment, as all actions and gestures proceed with rigid
but not too rigid musical precision to the swift conclusion.

This play, written largely, it appears, in 1929, seems in some
ways to have been fifty years ahead of its times. Lorca himself
withdrew it from rehearsal not on the ground that it required
rewriting but that with the actors, facilities and means at his dispo-
sal it could not be produced to his liking at the time. He also
gravely doubted that it would be popularly applauded in aestheti-
cally conservative Madrid. Moreover, he well knew that plays on
Andelusian themes, with their strong coloration in terms of local
folkways, would be warmly received. Subsequently he wrote three
powerful plays less conspicuously inspired by music and less strong-
ly symbolic, Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda
Alba, together with the patently musically inspired but far less
elaborate Dona Rosita, the Spinster, or The Language of Flowers.
Abruptly his life came to a violent end. The surrealist play was
only posthumously published and has never received a truly analytic-
al appreciation from its critics nor an adequate representation on
the stage. Nevertheless it is perhaps the best of all fantastic dramas
of our century, at least the equal in moving force and artistic ex-
cellence of any expressionist play from the North of Europe or any
surrealist play from the South. The most musically profound of
all Lorca’s plays, it is almost alone among them in not having
received some successful transposition into a musical or choreogra-
phic form. But such is the history of Federico Garcia-Lorca’s works
and no comment on comparative literature, aesthetics, or dramatic
art. In its disillusioned tone the play differs greatly from Sanskrit
drama and approaches O’Neill or the early T. S. Eliot. It is also
clearly a tour de force, a prodigious effort of a somewhat isolated
genius in Madrid working against the main current still flowing
through his time and place of living. Yet it is conspicuously modern
in the sense that European abstract art is modern, that expression-
ism, impressionism, subjectivism, surrealism, and neo-metaphysical
poetry, and the music of Stravinsky are modern. It seems still
proEhetic of things to come. It, is also reactionary in that it har-

Sanskrit Drama and the Modern Stage

monizes with the fundamental qualities of Sanskrit drama as these
were unfolded over a thousand years before and many thousand
miles from Lorca’s homeland. The play, like the character of its
“Old Man,” looks both forward and backward in time. It is both
rear guard and avant-garde. Although the significance of this
particular work has, owing to the fantastic inadequacy of criticism,
never been widely recognized, it epitomizes I believe, better than
any other both those tendencies in our artistic life rightly declared
“modern” and those which look backward to a possibly still richer
flowering in the gardens of the Sanskrit stage. It would be too tame
a description to call it a passage to India. For the careful reader it
affords a firm bridge.

The Sacred and the Secular
–In

India’s Performing Arts–
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Centenary Essays

Edited by Prof. v. Subramaniam

ASHISH PUBLISHING HOUSE
NEW DELHI-110027

published by :
Shri S.B. Nangia,

for ASHISH PUBLISHING HOUSE: CONTENTS
H-12, Rajouri Garden,

New Delhi-l10027.. PART I

1980

@ With the Contributors

Printed at :

National Printers, West Patel Nagar, New Delhi-l 10008

Phone: 582828

I. The Sacred and the Secular: Symbiosis
and Synthesis

-Prof. V. Subramaniam

II. Religion as a Bridge between Classical . \.
and Folk Art

-Prof. V. Subramaniam , ..

III. The King-God Concept and the Arts
-Prof. V. Subramaniam

IV. The Rasa Theory: Theology or Aesthe-
tics

-Prof. V.K. Chari

V. The Place of Indian Classical Dance in

Traditional Indian Culture

-Anne-Marie Gaston

VI. Secularism in Yakshagana
– Martha B. Ashton

PART II

VII. Bharata Nat yam
-Dr. T. Balasaraswati

VIII. The History and the Origin of the

Thumri with Special Reference to
Gharanas and Style

-Premlata Sharma

IX. The Evolution of the Thumri
-Jaideva Singh

… 11

… 19

… 47

… 62

… 86

… 98

… 109

•. .124

( iv )

X. The Musical Evolution of the Gazal
-Ashok Ranade .

XI. Kootiyattam
(A General Survey)

-K. Kunjunni Raja

XU. The Yakshagana of Karnataka
-K. Shivram Karanth

Appendix

The Editor’s Postscript

. .. 133

… 138

… 151

… 163

… 18l

A NOTE ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Prof. V. Subramaniam, the editor is Professor of Politi-
cal Science at Carleton University ; Ottawa and a classical
composer of acknowledged merit. In the last few years,
he has done considerable work on cultural sociology and
history of which his recent book Cultural Integration in India
(Ashish Publishing House) is a good example. For more
background information see the dust jacket.

Prof. V.K. Chari, is a Profe ssor of English Literature at
Carleton University and has done much work on Sanskrit
poetics and aesthetics. He is also an accomplished Katha-
kali dancer.

Anne-Marie Gaston (Anjali) recently completed her
B. Phil. Thesis at Oxford-from which the present chapter is
taken . She is a professional Bharata Nat yam and Odissi
dancer of repute with considerable knowledge of Kuchipudi
and Kathakali.

Dr. Martha Ashton is a cultural anthropologist who has
worked in Karnataka on folk culture. She is also an ac-
complished Yakshagana dancer.

Dr. Balasaraswati is the doyen of Bharata Nat yam
dancers and one who played an important part in the revival
of this ancient art. She is the grand daughter of the legen-
dary genius of the Veena, Dhanammal and has taught in
Universities in India and the West.

Dr. Premlata Sharma is Reader, Theory and Research
College of Music and Fine Arts, Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi.

Dr. Jaideva Singh, musicologist and authority on Hin-
dustani music lives in, D 61/26 F, Vishram Kuti, Siddhagiri

. Bagb, Varanasi.

( vi )

Dr. Ashok Ranade is the Head, University Music Centre,
University of Bombay, Dnyandevi Sahitya Sahawas, Bandra
(East), Bombay-400051.

Dr. K. Kunjunne Raja is Professor of Sanskrit, Depart-
ment of Sanskrit, University of Madras, Chepauk, Triplicane-
p.d., Madras-600005.

Dr. K. Shivram Karanth, Like a many-splendoured god
from a Yakshagana play Shivram Karanth towers over
the world of Kannada letters and art. This renowned
novelist, play-wright, educationist and, above all, the man
who revived the ancient art of Yakshagana Bayalata was
recently honoured with the prestigious Jnanpith Award.

His name is synonymous with Yakshagana, the cen-
turies-old folk theatre of Karnataka. But almost all his
iIlllovations, such as doing away with the dialogue, have
been widely questioned.

He is living in Suhasa, Saligrama P.O., Udipi Taluk.
South Kanara, Karnataka State-576225.

‘. ‘

KamiJIabhupa and. his ‘da:ughteii Rati

CHAPTER XII

THE YAKSHAGANA OF KARNATAKA

-K. Sbivram Karanlh

The Kannad a-speak)ng area of India, usually called
Karnataka, has a rich theatre form known as ‘Yakshagana.’
In earlier times it used to be called ‘Bhagavatara ata,’
“Dashavatara at a,’ or simply ‘Bayalata.’ In Kannada ‘ata’
mean s a play . Originally this form of theatre used to deal
with the tales of Bhagavan Krishna and hence the name
‘Bhagavatara ata.’ Later on, it began to depict tales of the ten
jncarnations of Lord Vishnu; hence the name ‘Dashavatara
.ata.’ Being an open-air theatre, it came to be called
·’Bayalata.’ The nomenclature ‘Yakshagana’ came from a
special style of music which accompanies these plays. It is
.a very ancient style, for there is mention of this style in
Kannada literature of the tenth and twelfth centuries. The
Chandraprabha Purana (1189) makes mention of the form.
Nagachandra’s Mallinatha Purana (1105) refers to Yaksha-
:gaDa as “pleasing to Laksmi who stands in the lotus.” In
the sixteenth century Kavi Ratnakar Varni speaks of
Yakkalagana in his Bharateshavaibhava. Since he belongs
to the region of South Kanara, it may be surmised that the
Yakshagana form was widespread by that time.

Yak shagana embraced in earlier times a form of music
played before royal personages. Later on, owing to the

1.52

advent of more evolved styles of music like Hindustani and
Karnatic music, Yakshagana receded very much into the’
background. We would have totally lost this form, but for
the fact that opera-like plays began to be written in this style
and their stage success contributed to its survival right to·
this day. In the Kannada country we have over three’
hundred Yakshagana plays, written by a number of writers ..
from at least the period of the sixteenth century. The tradi-

tion of staging such plays has continued over the past few’
centuries, evolving its own peculiar stage techniques .

An essential feature of these plays is that the play is·
conceived as a fantasy dealing with heroes, gods and demons;:
the material chosen for depiction comes from our myths and

– legends. Such stories are moralistic in outlook and often
portray the victory of good over evil. Most of our traditional
drama leans heavily on such legendary lore. The special
distinction of Yakshagana consists in its presentation of the’
story through the medium of music, dance and literature.

The very backbone of Yakshagana is its operatic nature;
songs and verses are employed for the narration of its.
themes. This is done sometimes in the third person, and
often in the first and second persons. The songs consist of
many musical patterns, composed to express every type of
emotion contained in the puranic stories. The language is
simple and direct, and can easily be understood by lay
audiences. The Bhagavathar, or conductor of the play, has.
to sing all those songs (in addition to many narrative verses)
to the accompaniment of cymbals and drums.

The purva ranga of the performance is known as Sabha-
lakshana. It begins with a prayer to Ganesha, Skanda and
other deities. The Bhaga vathar is, of course, the leader.
Next to him in importance is the character who plays heroic
or serious roles. Tho se who perform the parts of demons
are known as bannada vesha. (Colour is banna (varna) in
Kannada). The stree-vesha is lower down in the scale. The

153-

Bhagavathar is at the apex. The two accompanying instru-
ments, the cl1ande and the madda/e, are an aid, but it is he
who controls the rhythm and the pace. The Bhagavathar
introduces each character; when a character is alone on the
stage and seeks to express his feelings, it is the Bhagavathar
who listens to his problems. The shruti determines the note
of the Bhagavathar and the shruti box is by his side through-·
out the performance. Even when the music is silent, the-
dialogue continues to be based on this particular note and
has its own mode of presentation. The din of the chande
becomes more pronounced during a war sequence or in~
moments of elation or vigorous movement.

Another feature of the earlier part of the performance is .
the Balagopala (Krishna-Balarama) dance. Then there is
always a comic interlude. Hanumanayaka comes with his .
band of urchins. These young monkeys are the kodangi and
their nayaka (leader) is Hanuman. Even as the Bhagavatha r
sings the praises of Ganesha, Hanumanayaka and his follo-
wers forge ahead with their own brand of humour. They’
repeat the pattern during the moments when Skanda and
Shiva·Parvati are praised. Then the stree -vesha enter; they
dance and sing, concentrating on the shringara rasa.

The Sabha-Iakshana terminates and the Prasanga proper
begin s. It is introduced by the vaddolaga. The character,
who is about to enter, stands behind a curtain arid he is
presented to the spectators. If a Mahabharata story is
to be enacted, the Pandavas are presented through the
vaddolaga. For example, Hanumanayaka speaks the birudavali
of Dharmaraja. He hails him thus: Shrikrishnasuprita,
Duritavamshavidhata, Trailokyavikhyata, Sakalavaninatha,
Sharanasankuladhata, Kamakrodhavidhata, Ajatashatruavadata
Sarvashastradhita Saddharma Pariputa, Shrimaclrajakula-
kulalimandita, Padpadmaradantha, Dharmaraja Maharaja.
There are traditional songs associ ated with a vaddolaga. For
instance, Krishna’s vaddolaga begins with a Sanskrit shloka
and is followed by a song in raga Sankarabharana, tala Adi.

] 54

‘The vaddolaga of the demons is a more spectacular affair;
the dance is more slow and is punctuated by roars and cries.
Popular prasangas like the Karna-Arjuna Yuddha are

· eagerly awaited by the audience.

Kannada works based on Sanskrit compositIOns form
the source of these prasangas. These include Kumar Vyasa’s
Bizarata, Torwe Narhari’s Ramay ana and Battaleshwara’s
Kau~hik Ramayana and Bhagvata Katlta. It is through them
that village audiences make their earliest acquaintance with

· our epic forms. The neroic prasangas which feature battles
have the word kalga incorporated into their titles. They
include Babltruvahana Kalga, Sudhanvana Ka/ga, Marimukha
Kalga and other ka/gas. Those that end in marital bliss
have the word Kalyana or Parinaya inserted in the title. For

· example, Subhadra Parinaya or Kanakangi Parinaya. Of
course, the humorous element of a performance is wholly
monopolised by Hanumanayaka. The Sabha-lnkhana intro-

· duces us to the choreography of the Balagopala and stree-
vesha sequences. The vaddo/aga includes excellent group

formations in its dance.

Various metres fulfil a particular function. For instance,
·the Kannada metre Kanda, based on the Sanskrit Arya,
helps to speed up the pace of a narrative. Vritta is used when

· deities are praised. Dvipadi and Bhamini Shat padi are
employed for telling a story. Yakshagana is never too ornate

· and some of the songs like those in the Shrikrishna Balalila
borrow heavily from folk songs . The famous prasanga of
ChandravaJi composed by Kavi Nagappaya of Dhwajapura
has elements of love and pathos, and a touching simplicity

·of mood . The Bhagavathar resorts to prose particularly
when something exciting is expected to happen.

Yakshagana music at one time employed as many as
·one hundred and fifty ragas and about seven talas in its
musical patterns (Dhatis) . Today’s Bhagavathars has forgot-
ten most of these ragas; even so the musical patterns that
have survived are numerous enough to depict forcefully the

155

many different moods of these plays. If all the earlier ragas
·could be revived now, we would experience again the opera-
tic excellence of thi s form. There is a richness and potency
in the ragas and talas used; they are able to convey various
‘shades of thought a nd feeling. In classical music, both
Hindustani and Karnatic, we have numerous ragas, but their
thought content is generally devotional or sad in its nature.
It embraces the wail of a devotee, self-castigation or praise

·of one’s personal deity. Even in the aspect of love, it is the
viraha element (the pangs of separation and the yearning for
the presence of the lover who has vanished from sight) that
predominates. A drama cannot restrict itself to these
·emotions alone. It has to deal with other human feelings
‘like anger, jealousy, rage or joy. It cannot limit its emo-
tional ~ore to pathos , devotion or praise. The Yakshagana
-composer, therefore, found greater opportunities for compo-
sing expressive patterns which could also lend themselves to
‘rhythmical dance expression.

In Yakshagana some of the ragas have Karnatic names
(Gaula, for instance). Others have a wholly Kannada

‘flavour-Koravi, Mechali or Gopanite. The Koravi is close
1 0 the Kurunji of Karnatic music. Dvijavanti is like the
Hindustani Jaijaiwanti; Pahadi is like Pahadi . Assembling
‘some of our traditional Bhagavathars and with the help of
·classical scholars (in both the Karnatic and Hindustani
styles), I was able to discover more than sixty ragas, whose
‘patterns our Bhagavathars can recollect still, but whose

names they have forgotten . Not being sure of their scales,
they often migrate from raga to raga; at times they tend to
be monotonous. We realized that whenever an old compo-

sition (set in a particular raga) was wittingly or unwittingly
·changed, its expres si ve power seemed to wane. It is quite
-clear that in former time 3 composers were exp l:) rts in their
musical style; whereas most of our present day ‘Bhagavathars
a ppear to have lost their moorings .

The importing of gamaka (style of modulation) from the

156

Hindustani and Karnatic schools has also had an adverse:
effect on Yakshagana. This factor differentiated it from the
other two schools. The tendency of the Bhagavathar to,
imitate Marathi stage music and the devotional songs or-
saints like Purandaradasa has also modified the originaL

style and impaired its purity.

There is one element in Yakshagana which has suffered’
a good deal at the hands of the present-day Bhagavathar and’
his accompanists. The Bhagavathar tends to ignore the-
language· content of his song. and to concentrate for the-
main part on its style and tala. The accompanists are mainly
absorbed in playing the maddale and chande. The sound of’
these drums drowns all the words of the song. The musi-
cians pay little attention to thought content. The pitch of’
the voice and the accompanying cymbal and drum beats are-
shrill and piercing. The dancer necessarily follows them.
Subtler feelings, the lines of demarcation between one erno-‘
tion and another are wiped out in the process, Earnest-
attention to these aspects of music can help us to exploit.
the richness of Yakshagana. For a dancer it offers wonderful.
opportunities for expression; many of the songs portray a-.
wide range of emotions, calling for quick changes in mood,
and utmost subtlety in projection.

The characters speak out their words in dignified prose ‘
after each song; this art has to be cultivated over long years .
of experience. The prose passages cannot be learnt by rote ..
A speech is delivered extempore and often improvised on ·
the spur of the moment after the Bhagavathar has sung one ‘
stanza after the other during the course of the play. Two ,
opposing characters, or a courting couple, can thus develop ·
a fascinating dialogue between themselves; this is often·
handled with dexterity by veterans of the Yakshagana stage ..

Kathakali, with its strong accent on music and the lan–
guage of gesture, allows for no dialogue spoken by actors ..
In Yakshagana the dance element is not predominant. The-
story unfolds itself through the words spoken by the actors •.

157

Jhe dance is supported by the rhythm of the chande and
.maddale ano the pace of the Bhagavathar. The simple metre
of the Bhamini Shatpadi provides the dancer with the right
‘tempo. The s/ree-veJha concentrate on the lasya element
·of the dance. The male characters display valour and fury.
Hanumanayaka’s movements embrace humour and joy. The
·dances do not depict so much of delicate emotions as the
predominant mood of a sequence. They offer the rhythmic
background to its delineation. Thus dance (except for the
few occasions when travel, battle and valour are depicted)
.serves as no more than an embellishment to an otherwise
prose drama. The spoken word is the main ingredient and
the audiences remain passive observers of the drama en-
.acted in front of them.

The important problem in Yakshagana is that of libe-
rating dance from the medium of prose. Dance with music
.can by itself suggest quite significantly many aspects of a

and poses. The rhythms of songs had fo evoke correspon-
·ding reflections in a dancer’s movements. Years of study
.and exercise led me to the conclusion that our Indian dance
has a lot to gain by accepting the fact that one medium
“hardly enriches itself by imitating another. Skill alone is

158

neither art nor shastra; acrobatics in raga and tala cannot
serve the needs of dance or musical expression.

The potential in this form can be exploited to the fun
and its canvas enlarged. For example, tradition has given
Hanumanayaka full liberty of speech and action. He assu-
mes light roles like those of servant, courier or messenger.
He provides the element of humour in the d ance. Dance
developed to suit such a mood can enrich the possibilities
latent in his role. Yakshagana ha s a few basic dance pat-
terns but they are restricted to the performances of the main
characters during the battle and travel sequences. They
can be employed to embrace other situations, too.

Yakshagana surpasses many Indian theatre forms in
one particular field, that is in the matter of costumes and
make-up. These plays were originally conceived as fantasies
and practioners of the form evolved a rich variety of cos-
tumes. Their design was not in spired by ancient paintings
or sculpture; it is ba sed on the essential nature of the cha-
racters. To the first category belong heroes like Karna and
Arjuna or A vat ara purusha like Rama or Krishna. The se-
seco nd type consists of characters of heroic mould who are
a tr ifle too proud of their prowess and consequently slightly
imm ature . To thi s class belongs Indra or Gaya (Gandhar-
va) . The third group includes those like Kirata who are
fearless , yet somewhat uncultured a nd even stupid. Then
there are demons ‘like Ravana and Kumbhakarna wh o are
brave in their own-right but, on the whole, quite destructive
in their ways, Another group includ es those who are born
among demons but have a code of ri ght and wrong. Among
thes e are Ravana’s brother Vibh ishana or Ravana’s son
Atikaya . A special ki;d of costume is designed for t~em .
Then there are those deities like Veerabhadra and Naras lmha
who are entrusted with the difficult task of annihilating
demons. A part from the characters of this de va -danava-
manava group, there are others like Hanuman, Bali and,
Jambava. Then there are straight characters, like rishis or

159 ‘

gurus. The stree-vesha includes queens; princesses a nd
attendants.

The Yakshagana performances used to take place at night.
Torches were used to light the arena. The dim, yellowi sh fla-
mes flickered and the dazzling costumes imparted to the at-
mosphere a suggestion of fantasy. In the olden days aradala
(yellow orpiment) was mixed with coconut oil and smeared
over uncovered parts of the body. With the introduction
of petr,omax lamps-a whiter shade, with a slight crimson
colouring, was substituted. The area of the temples near the
eyes is covered with white and outlined with streaks of red.
A white ti/ak is painted on the forehead and a black line is-
drawn in the middle. The stree-vesha has a red tilak on the
forehead. Balagopala, Lava-Kusha, Krishna have no mous-
taches.

The main colour for the rakshasa characters is red,
green and black. The face is multi-coloured. Rice paste
is used to outline the contours and after m any such laye rs,
the face begins to have a solid, three-dimen sional effect.
The fac e look s even larger when it is framed by a strip of
paper, cut into sharp, teeth-like shapes and ti ed behind th e
ears .

Those playing the ro les of rishis or purohits are usu-
ally simply clad. The clothing f01″ all the chara cters is
effective; the ornaments are elaborate and dazzling. Special
type s of beadgear correspond to the nature of the characters
portrayed in the play. Every forei gn student of the theatre
who has witnessed Yakshagana plays, has gone into raptures
ove r its costume and make-up. It can stand compari son
with the best in their Balinese, J avane se or Cambodian
counter-parts . Unfortunately decadence slowly set in in the
matter of costumes, particularly in the style of clothing
worn by female characters. The desire to cater to popul a r
taste resulted in their being presented like fashionable ladies
of the times. Female figures looked like women on the:

160

s treet straying on to the stage from among the crowd. Re-

now become an urgent task and I have sought to introduce
suitable patterns and colours for the sari and other apparel
used by female characters. I have also tried to design a few
ornaments to blend with those of the male characters. A

number of early plays have stopped being performed and

the costumes and make-up of characters like Vali, Hanuman
Jambava, Nandi and Garuda have been totally or partially

forgotten. I am now making an attempt, with the help of
veteran artists, to fill in this gap and introduce improve-
ments in this sphere.

There is an enthusiasm for the ‘new’ and the ‘latest’
and many troupes have made it a point to stage ‘novel and

fenciful plays. But the writers seem to lack talent and
shabby musical structures are produced as a result. They
do not realize that new types of characters need intricate
and well-designed costumes and make-up. Imitating the
professional stage of the cinema will not help matters.

To get a clear picture of what Yakshagana is, all one

has to do is to experience its artistic wealth. This rich va-
riety cannot be expected of every troupe. Every play can-
not fulfil a rigorous standard. Today the aesthetic elements
of this theatre have been renounced by those votaries of the
bizarre who have no sense of colour or harmony. Even so,

there are a few temple troupes which still retain much of
what is best in the old tradition.

The village audiences, who for centuries appreciated
and patronised the traditional Yakshagana, now find it stale;
their patronage has shifted to those cheap and garrulous

productions that profess to be Yakshagana. Lack of aes-
thetic perception has contributed to this state of affairs. In
earlier days, traditions were considered sacred and nobody

dared to tamper with a given form. A more sensible go-

vernment or the existence of discerning patrons could have

161

helped in the task of preserving Yakshagana as a national
:asset. State troupes could have come into existence and

-this heritage (which is now in the hands of commercially- ,

minded individuals and novelty-chasing audiences, who
-regard it as a form of escape) would have thus been conser-

ved in its authentic state,

The Sacred and the Secular
–In

India’s Performing Arts–
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Centenary Essays

Edited by Prof. v. Subramaniam

ASHISH PUBLISHING HOUSE
NEW DELHI-110027

published by :
Shri S.B. Nangia,

for ASHISH PUBLISHING HOUSE: CONTENTS
H-12, Rajouri Garden,

New Delhi-l10027.. PART I

1980

@ With the Contributors

Printed at :

National Printers, West Patel Nagar, New Delhi-l 10008

Phone: 582828

I. The Sacred and the Secular: Symbiosis
and Synthesis

-Prof. V. Subramaniam

II. Religion as a Bridge between Classical . \.
and Folk Art

-Prof. V. Subramaniam , ..

III. The King-God Concept and the Arts
-Prof. V. Subramaniam

IV. The Rasa Theory: Theology or Aesthe-
tics

-Prof. V.K. Chari

V. The Place of Indian Classical Dance in

Traditional Indian Culture

-Anne-Marie Gaston

VI. Secularism in Yakshagana
– Martha B. Ashton

PART II

VII. Bharata Nat yam
-Dr. T. Balasaraswati

VIII. The History and the Origin of the

Thumri with Special Reference to
Gharanas and Style

-Premlata Sharma

IX. The Evolution of the Thumri
-Jaideva Singh

… 11

… 19

… 47

… 62

… 86

… 98

… 109

•. .124

( iv )

X. The Musical Evolution of the Gazal
-Ashok Ranade .

XI. Kootiyattam

(A General Survey)

-K. Kunjunni Raja

XU.

The Yakshagana of Karnataka

-K. Shivram Karanth

Appendix

The Editor’s Postscript

. .. 133

… 138

… 151

… 163

… 18l

A NOTE ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Prof. V.K. Chari, is a Profe ssor of English Literature at
Carleton University and has done much work on Sanskrit
poetics and aesthetics. He is also an accomplished Katha-
kali dancer.

Dr. Martha Ashton is a cultural anthropologist who has
worked in Karnataka on folk culture. She is also an ac-
complished Yakshagana dancer.

Dr. Premlata Sharma is Reader, Theory and Research
College of Music and Fine Arts, Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi.

Dr. Jaideva Singh, musicologist and authority on Hin-
dustani music lives in, D 61/26 F, Vishram Kuti, Siddhagiri

. Bagb, Varanasi.

( vi )

Dr. Ashok Ranade is the Head, University Music Centre,
University of Bombay, Dnyandevi Sahitya Sahawas, Bandra
(East), Bombay-400051.

Dr. K. Kunjunne Raja is Professor of Sanskrit, Depart-
ment of Sanskrit, University of Madras, Chepauk, Triplicane-
p.d., Madras-600005.

His name is synonymous with Yakshagana, the cen-
turies-old folk theatre of Karnataka. But almost all his
iIlllovations, such as doing away with the dialogue, have
been widely questioned.

He is living in Suhasa, Saligrama P.O., Udipi Taluk.
South Kanara, Karnataka State-576225.

‘. ‘

CHAPTER XI

KOOTIY ATT AM

(A General Survey)

-K. Kunjunni R aja

The Kootiyattam1 of Kerala is perhaps the only form of
the ancient Sanskrit drama that survives in performance to-
day. It bas been kept alive in the temple theatres ofKerala
(which are known as Koothampalams) by members of the
Chakyar and Nambyar communities. The Kootiyattam has
a continuous tradition extending for more than a thousand
year s. A close comparative study of the stage practice of
this theatre, with the prescriptions given in detail in
Bharata’s Naty ashastra and the references to the actual sta-
ging of Sanskrit play found in later works like the Kuttani-
mata, reveals that the Kerala tradition of staging Sanskrit
plays follows, on the whole, the procedure adopted in other
parts of India in ancient times. At the same time, it points
to various specia l features mostly developed in Kerala
to suit the taste of the audiences there. A detailed analy sis
of the descriptive and historical aspects of the Kootiyattam,
is, therefore, essential for an understanding of the ancient
.San skrit stage in India.

The history of the Sanskrit stage in Kerala goes back to

139

.at least the tenth century A.D. This is when King Kula-
sehkhara Varman of M aho daya pura, the author of the two
,dramas Subhadradhananjaya and Tapatisam varana, is said to
have reformed the Sanskrit stage with the help of a Brah-
min scholar, who was popularly known as Tolan, and may
‘probably be identified as the author of the Vyangya com-
mentaries on them. King Kulasbekbara Varman’s innova-

tions included the introduction of the Malyalam language by
the Vidushaka to expl ain the Sanskrit and Prakrit passages
on the texts . The Vidushaka often us ed a macaronic Sans-
krit-Malayalam, a mixed language called Manipravala. In
the case of the Prakr it passages recited by him or by athers
in his presence, he used to give the Sanskrit Chaya (rendering)
and then explain its meaning in Malayalam. He also added
his own parodies or Pratishlokas of some of the verses re-
cited by the hero in his presence . He often inserted Chaya-
shlokas or parallel passages , referring to his own condition.

Another innovation was the humorous element which
·consisted of such extraneous matter as the parody on the
Purusharthas. This formed part of the narration of the early
‘life (Nirvahana) of the Vidushaka. The four Purusharthas,
sanctified by tradition, are replaced by the four aims of exis-
tence of a corrupt society . These are described as Asana

.(food), Vinoda (enjoyment of sexual pleasures ), Vanchana
-(deception) and Raja seva (serving a king). The Vidushaka
is the most prominent and the most popular figure in Kooti-
.yattam and Koothu. In course of time he came to over-

.shadow all the other characters in a play.

Didactic and cultural el ements were gradually introduc-
ed; stories from the epics and Puranas were added-and
sometimes even when they were quite irrelevant-so that the
stage was used in an interesting manner as a vehicle for
.adult education and for tbe moral uplift of the people.

Thus in the Mantraka scene of the Pratijnay augandha-
.Tayana of Bhasa the Vidushaka is made to approach the

140

mother of King Udayana and to console her by narrating:
the story of Rama. The Vidushaka expounded Puranic epi-
sodes, lacing the didactic element with humour, and making.
veiled references to contemporary problems. His role in a
play developed as an independent temple art called Koothu;.
it included the exposition of Puranic stories without connec-
ting them in any rigorous manner with a drama. The-
Koothu came to be performed in the temple theatres by the-
Chakyar dressed as the Vidushaka. This type of story-telling.
when it was performed outside the temple precincts by others
came to be called Pathaka. Several Sanskrit texts were writ-
ten by scholars like Melpputtur Narayana Bhatta for such.
expositions of Puranic stories.

The Kootiyattam is a form of art restricted to the tem-
ple; it is performed only in the Koothampalarns or theatres
within the precincts of temples and enacted by members of
the Chakyar and Nambyar communities. The role of the
hero or other male characters can be played only by a
Chakyar. The women of the Chakyar community, who are
called ll/ottamma, have nothing to do with the stage. The

role of the heroine and other female characters is to be
taken by the Nangyar, the women of the Nambyar commu-
nity. The vocal music is also supplied by Nangyars, who·
keep the tala with the Kuzhitala cymbals. The Nambyar
plays on the Mizhavu drum. He also acts as the sutradhara:
for the introductory purappad and narrates in brief (in Mala-
yalam) the story which is to be enacted.

At a time only a single act from a drama is staged. The’
actual staging of a whole act lasts three to five nights; the
introduction of characters (Nirvahana) and the preliminaries
alone often take up twenty to thirty days. Of the popular
scenes, Mantraka (Act Three of Bhasa’s Prutijnayaugandha-
rayana) is the most important and is depicted very elabo-·
rately. Shaktibhadra’s Ascharyachudamani; Subhadradha-

nanjaya and Tapatisamvarana, the two plays of Kulashekhara.
Varman; Mattavilasa prahasana by the Pallava King

141

Mahendravikrama and some more plays ascribed to Bhasa
like Abhisheka, Pratima and SlIapnavasavadatla and Harsha’s
Nagananda are also in the Chakyar’s repertoire. Stage
manuals for BhagavadajjukiJa are available. There is a tra-
dition that Shakuntala used to be staged in former times.

Probably the all-India tradition of staging Sanskrit plays
was revived by the Pallava kings of South India in the sixth
and seventh centuries, and it spread to Kerala from there.
The Kerala tradition says that King Kulashekhara Varman
revived and reformed the Sanskrit Stage. This means that
it must have been in existence even earlier. The terms
Koothu (dance) and Chakaiyan (dancer) are found in the
ancient Tamil classic Cilappatikaram; but it is not certain
whether these had anything to do with the staging Sanskrit
plays.

Koothampalam is the Malayalam name used for the
theatre structures in the precincts of temples in Kerala
where single acts of select Sanskrit plays are staged. It cor-
responds to the natyamandapa of Sanskrit texts. More than
a dozen such theatres are still preserved in various temples;
the present structures of the Koothampalams are not much
older than three hundred years, but the tradition of staging
goes back to much earlier times. The theatre at the Vatak-
kunnatha temple at Trichur is the largest. Most of the
Koothampalams are rectangular; the interior stage structure
within the auditorium is square in shape. Chengannoor had
an oval-shaped theatre, but now only its base is extant.
These theatres do not conform strictly to the directions
found in the Natyashastra, but follow the main rules of
construction laid down in the Sanskrit texts of Kerala like
the Tantrasamucchay a (fifteenth century) of Narayana and
the Shilparatna of Shrikumara (sixteenth century). Kootham-
palams still stand at the Vatakkunnatha temple at Trichur,
the Koodalmanikya temple at Irinjalakkuda, the Shiva tem-
ple at Perumanam (in ruins), the temples at Guruvayur,

Kottappadi, Tiruvegappura, Tirumoozhikkulam, Trippunit-

142

tura, Ettumanoor, Kit a ngur, Arpukkara, Harippad, Neeles-
waram, Talipparamba and Panni yur (in ruins). Inscriptional
evidence is available for the existence in fo rmer t imes of
theatres at Avittathoor a nd Tiruvanchikkulam. Where the
temples did not have a Kooth amp ala m, the Kooti yattam was
allowed to be performed in agrashala halls. At th e Triprayar
R ama temple where there is no Koothampalam, the Anguli-·

yanka scene from Shaktibhadra’s A schary achudamani is stag-
ed in the mukhamandapa right in front of the main shrine .

The Koothampalam is located in front of the shrine on

its right side . It belongs to the cl as s of Prasada structure .
Though the sizes differ, all the structures follow a similar-
pattern. The roof is an enor mous, four-sided structure,
rectangul ar in shape, an d slopes downwards in a steep man-
ner ; it is supported on beams resting on rows of pillars. The
outer roof is either copper-plated or tiled with decorative
flat tiles. At the top there are three finials or tazhikakkudams.

Inside the large auditorium is the raised stage; it is usu-·
ally square shaped. It has a roof of its own, supported by
round pill ar s. The outer edge of the stage which faces the
God of the temple is built in alignment with the middle finial;.

thus the stage projects into the auditorium. In front of the
stage is the special portion reserved for the Brahmins. The
roof covering the stage is an independent structure, not part
of the roof of the auditorium, and helps in the effective pro-
jection of the sound from the stage. At the back of the
stage is the green-room, connected to it by two doors.
Between these two doors are placed two mizhavus or big
drums, with raised seats for the drummers.

The stage is very simple. There are one or two stools
meant as seats and used for other stage business. A curtain
is brought in by two persons at the time of the first entry of
the main characters. During a performance the stage is de-
corated with palm and plantain leaves, red cloth and a cylin-
drical vessel (para) filled with rice. A huge lamp, about four

143

feet high , ma de of bell m et a l is placed in front of the stage; .
it is lighted wit h oil and wick s, t wo wick s fa cing the actor
and one facing the a udience.

Stage manuals

In addition to the continu o us traditi on of the method o f
st aging handed down from generation to generation , there

are actual stage manuals giving choreographic detail s and
el aborate instructions regarding the staging of plays. These
stage manuals are the Kramadipika and Attaprakaram . The

former is written in Sanskrit or Malayalam and explain s the
procedure to be adopted for the staging of pl ays. It d eals
with the songs, dance -step s, ra gas and various stage
directions. The latter indicates acting methods , the
meaning of passages in the text and is in the form of a con-

tinuous, moving story, enabling the actor to expound the
text accurately. Besides , there is ~he text in Malayal a m which
is to be spoken by the Vidushaka; it exp1ain s the meanings or-
the Sanskrit passages spoken by the hero, and contain s th e
matter which is added to produce humour. Some of the
commentaries on Sanskrit dramas also conta in much useful
material for the actors . The story of the scenes which are to

be enacted, is summarised in archaic, MaJayalam sentences;

this part is recited by the Nambyar at the beginning of the
performance and is called Nambyarute Tamil; it is availabl e
for some of the select scenes, usually staged. There is a
Sanskrit text called H aJtaiakshal1a dipika, givi ng the rules of
hand pose s; it is mainly ba sed on Bharat a’s N atyashastra. It
wa s prepared for the use of the Ch ak yars, and is used even
today in the tra ining of K athakali actors. Another interest-
ing work shedding li ght on the Kerala Sa nskrit stage is a
Sanskrit work called Natankusa. This work severely criti-
cises the Kootiyattam for taking liberties with the text and
for adding unnecessary and extraneous matter.

Actors

It is said that formerly there were eighteen Chakyar

144

families; but now there are only about half a dozen families
which preserve the traditiop : (I) The Ammannoor Chakyar
family at Irinjalakkuda, (2) The Koypa Chakyar family at
Painkulam and also at Tirumoozhikkulam, (3) The Maniyoor
Chakyar at Killikkurissimangalam in Lakkiddi, originally
part of Talipparamba in North Kerala, (4) Kuttancheri
Chakyar at Nalluvay, (5) PotiyiI Chakyar and (6) Kitangoor
Chakyar. The late Cacchu Chakyar belonged to the lrinja-
lakkuda family; Padmashri Natyacharya Mani Madhava
Cbak ya r belongs to the Maniyur family and Painkulam Rama
Chakya r, now teaching at the Kerala Kala Mandalam, be-
longs to the Koypa family. Many of the Nambyar families
are related to the Chakyar families through hypergamous
matrimonial relationships.

Instrumental Music

The instruments used for the Kootiyattam include:
(1) The mizhavu. The two drums called mizhavu are of slightly
varying sizes; they are two to three feet high, and are made
of copper. The mouth is tightly covered with calf skin.

Members of the Nambiyar community sit facing the audience
on seats arranged near the top of the drum stand. They play
on them with their hands: one of them keeps the tala, while
the other plays the vinyasas, using both the palms and the
fingers. For Koothu just one mizhavu is sufficient. (2) The
Kuzhithalam or a pair of bronze cymbals is used for keeping
the tala; it is used by the Nangyar who also chants the ver-
ses for the introductory Nirvahana, the dhru va songs recited
at the time of the entrance and exit of characters. (3) The
Kuzhal or Kurumkuzhal, a double reed pipe, is employed to
suggest the rhythm or play the jatis, and indicate the proper
tunes or produce a melodious refrain in the background.
(4) The ldakka or ‘a tunable, double faced, pressure drum’
is held by means of a piece of cloth hanging from the left
shoulder of the standing drummer; the tension strings are
manipulated by the left hand and the drumming is continued
with a thin stick held in the right hand. This delicate and

145

:sensitive drum is also played in temples, and for the Pancha-
vadya type of instrumental orchestra. (5) The auspicious
Shankha or conch ‘shell is blown when important personali-
ties appear for the first time on the stage.

Abhinaya

The abhinaya for Kootiyattam is highly conventionalised
.and to a great extent follows the precepts of the Natya-
.shastra. The Purappadu and the preliminary rites such as
the dance sequences shed considerable light on the way the
Prologue was performed in ancient Sanskrit dramas. The
·songs which invoke the deities, Ganapati, Sa raswati and
Shiva are known as akkitta. Then the Nambyar fetches
.sacred water from the green-room and sprinkles it on the
stage, reciting the mangalashloka. These preliminary rites
last for one day. The introduction of the earlier life of the
hero (prior to the incidents to be actually staged) is called

. Nirvahana; it is very elaborate in its scope and continues for
a few days. These earlier portions are expanded or reduced
to suit the actual circumstances. The actual Kootiyattam
or combined action takes place on the last three nights.

There are four types of abhinaya :

(i) Angika is the technique of using hand poses and gestures
and stage movement to represent ideas. It is mainly based
on the teachings of the Natyashastra. For example, in the
first act of Subhadradhananjaya, Arjuna saves the heroine
without knowing who she is. Her beauty casts its spell on
him . He says:

rr~CfiCf~11~rrT<::~rrfH.~q&-1IfT : "

+r11:q~~ :r>i ~’~T~rel1~CfT I
~~qf<::+r~~T+lT" 'l~G:~T~l1T"lT

f~f~~fCf ~+r~Tl3f~ct +rlrr~ ir II

The actor who plays Arjuna needs four hours to explain this
verse through gestures. He gazes at Subhadra, describes her,

146

beginning with the hair. He stops when he comes to the
eyes, and recites this verse very slowly in the raga called
Arttan indicating the meaning of each word through hand
gesture. Then the gestures are repeated, but the verse is not
recited . Not only the number and gender of words, but.
even the nature of the compounds is suggested through hand
gestures. Then the verse is taken up the third time. This.
time it is the syntax, the anvaya which matters. He says the
words, iyarn ka, “What sort of a girl is she? What is her
name? Who is her father?” His gestures indicate these
queries. Then he stops. “Why should this bother me?”-
Then he goes on to the words me manasam shithilayati and
again expounds it in detail till he comes to Subhadramudit-
ram , when he assumes the posture of Subhadra and suggests.
how she enters his heart. Her eyes are beautifie d by coIly-·
rium, anjanasnigdham. To explain the idea, he enac ts a
story. The heroine calls her attendants to adorn her body.
The entire procedure is described, from th e combing of her-
hair to the tying of the anklets ro und her feet. But some–
thing has been forgotten- app lyin g the collyrium to the eyes.
The Chakyar becomes the heroine, her attendants and even,
Arjun a himself.

The Angikahhinaya consists not only in explaining the
meanings of the text, but also in indicating the nature of the
character whose role is played by the actor. Thus in Abh i-
shekana taka as so on as Sugriva enters, he holds th e tree-
branch es, shakes them, scratches his head, smells the tip of
hi s tail to show that he is a monk ey . After he has done this
be ass umes the po stu re of Sugriva, king of the monkeys. In
Kootiyattam the a ct or has to confine himself to the space
between hi s should ers during the hand gestures. This is
un like what happens in Kathakali where the actor can stretch
his arms to any length.

(ii) Vachika or verbal recitation. Here the acto r himself
slowly recites his text, and then uses the language of gesture
in detail.

r41

There is no regular mu sic in Kootiyattam but there are
different modes of reciting the verses or even the prose pas-
sages; the modes depend on various factors, such as the type
of the character who is reciting them, the natu re of the situa-
tion described and the sentiments conveyed. These mode s
of recitation have different technical names such as Inda/a,
Tarkan, Veladhooli. These are ca lled ragas, even if t hese
ragas have very little to do with the ragas of Indi a n music .
Some of these like Srikamaram , Poranir and Tarkan ar(;!
found in the Panns of aucient Tamil music; some like
Indalam, Srikanthi are ag~in preserved in modern Kathakali
songs. It is very difficult to identify and distinguish these
Kootiyattam ragas,” the modes of recitation h ave been hand –
ed down from teacher to student, without any preci se theo-
retical definitions. However, there are detailed inst ruct ions

as to the usage of these recit ation ragas,” Antari is used fo r
narration; Veladhooli is for shouting and indica te s fear and
per plexity; Srikamara suggests unexpected joy; Tarkan indi-
cates anger; the us e of Veera Tarkan denotes enthusiasm ;
Kaisika is for hasya and bibhatsa; Poranir is used in describ-
ing the rainy season, Korakurinji is used for the words of
monkeys . Indala is the normal raga for the Vidushaka.
Some correlations between ragas and talas are formulated in
the stage manuals. In Vachikabhinaya the Vidushaka some-
times explains the significance of even the pure sounds of
words uttered. In Subhadradhananjaya, the Vidushaka hears
the word Sakhe Ka udinya. First he hears the sound eee,” he
says it is like the waves in the pond. Then khe which he

thinks is like the croaking of frogs in a pond. He is reminded

of his bo yhood prank of wounding frogs and finally it strikes
him that it is hi s friend Arjuna calling out t o him . The hero
gives prominence to those scenes where there is scope for
Angikabhinaya; the Vidushaka to tho se where there is scope
for Vachikabhinaya. He speaks his own lines and a lso those

of the hero and explains them.

(iii) Aharya denotes costume an d make-up. This is similar-
to that of Kathakali, but simpler. The Chutti (the lining.

148

made with ri ce flour paste) which is applied round the cheek
and th e chin is narrower, and the headgear is also sm a ller.
Different types of make-up like Pacca, Pazhukkua, Kari and
Katti are used. The magnanimous have the Paz hukkua make-
up, with the face painted in a reddish colour. The haughty

types like Ravana have the Katti make-up, with a round
ball painted at the tip of the nose.

•
Formerly certain spectacular stage effects were achieved.

In the F ourth Act of the N agananda, thousands of strings
were tied t o the artificial wings of the actor pl aying Garuda
and he used to slide do wn from above the stage space. The
strings were manipulated by the Nambyar In Topatisam-
varna, the river were depicted by thousands of strings kept
tightly in a horizontal way and the idea of ozhukal (flowing)
was suggested . The suicide scene in Nagananda with Mala-
yavati trying to hang herself, or the sequence in Aschary a-
chudamani where Lakshman deforms Surpanakha were staged
with an eye for realistic detail.

(iv) Satt vika is the representation of moods and the emo-

tions. With the help of delicate movements of the eyes,
brows, lips and cheeks, but without any gestures of the
hand, the actor is able to produce facial expressions which
correspond to a particular mood. In this Sattvikabhinaya the
Chakyar is supreme and has not been surpassed or even
equalled by the Kathakali actors.

Since music and recitation are integral to the Kooti-

yatta m, talas or rhythmic patterns playa very important
part in the performance. The female musician, Nangyar,
keeps the tala with the help of the Kuzhitalam cymbals. The
drummers, seated at the back of the stage, behind the actor,
and. facing the mizhavu keep the tala; one of them merely
keeps the tala and the other plays the appropriate jatis or
vinyasas for the various talas to give proper effect to the

acting. Six different talas are generally used, depen-
ding on the raga (mode of recitation) employed. There are

149

detailed rules prescribing p~rticular talas for particular ragas
and specific occasions.

1. Ektala of four beats (matras) is used for the ragas
Srikanthi, Thondu, Poranir, Kaisika, Indala, Bhinna, Pan-
chama and Dukkha Gandhara. I t is used also for has),a and
bibhasta rasas and for the adbhuta rasa of dhirodattha cha-

racters .

2. Dhruvatala of fourteen beats is used for the ragas
Muddan, Tarkan and Korakurinji, and in adbhuta, bhayanaka,
sambhoga shril’lgara (of rakshasas) and vipralambha -shringara

of dhirodattha characters.

3. Triputatala of seven beats, used when Veladhooli is
the raga and for bhay anaka rasa. Triputa of slow tempo is
used in Ghattantari raga; it is in a fast tempo in the case of
Srikamara and PaUl’ali ragas.

4, Champatatala of eight beats is used for the instru-
mental orchestra before the start of the play.

5. Thampatala of ten beats is the same as Jh a;npa of

Karnatic music.

6. Atonta of fourteen beats is used while repeating
what another has said. For different types of dance pieces
or modes of gait different talas have been prescribed.

Till very recently the Kootiyattam, being a rel igious art,
was strictly confined to the precincts of the temples of
Kerala. It was only in 1960 that the fir st public performance
of the Kootiyattam outside the temple precincts was staged
at Calicut before a select audience invited by All India
Radio. A portion from Act One of the Subhadradhananjaya
was staged by Painkulam Rama Chakyar and his party. I
made a preliminary survey of Kootiyattam in 1960; this sur-

vey was published in the Samskrita Ranga Annual, II. Other
public performances of the Kootiyattam followed-at the

]50

Kalamandalam in 1962 a rranged by Dr. Clifford Jones of the
University of Pennsylvania; a show was arranged in Madras
under the auspices of the Samskrita Ranga in 1963, and in
New Delhi under the auspices of the Sangeet Nataka Aka-
demi and the Pederewski Foundation. It was Natyacharya
Mani Madhava Chakyar and his party who gave the perfor-
mances at Madras and at New Delhi. Enthusiastic enco’u-
ragement was given to this activity by scholars like Dr . V.
Raghann. My paper on Kootiyattam was republi shed as a
booklet by the Sangeet Nataka Akademi. The Madras
University produced a M. Litt thesis on Kootiyattam and
another doctoral thesis was written in Poona. In 1966 a
seminar on Kootiyattam was arranged at Cheruthurutty; it
was sponsored jointly by the Kerala Kalamandalam and the
American Institute of Indian Studies, on the enthusiastic
initiative of Dr. Clifford Jones, the well-known Western
scholar of art and theatre history. Mani Madhava Chakyar
has prepared a scholarly work in Malayalam on the theory
and practice of the Kootiyattam, and it is to be published
by the Kerala Kalamandalam, \-vhere a department of Kooti-
yattam was started in 1967, with Painkulam Rama Chakyar
as pro(essor. Dr. Clifford Jones is now in India preparing
a documentary film and a descriptive monograph on the
technique and practice of this one surviving form of the
classical Sanskrit-based dramatic tradition. The Kerala
Kalamandalam and other scholars in the field are co-opera-
ting with him in this effort and it is to be hoped that more
light will be shed on our ancient drama as a result of this
awakening of interest in the subject.

Footnote to Chapter XI .

L Kootiyattam is also spell as Kutiyattam or Kudiyattam.

Painkuiam Rama Chakyar as Ravana perfo’rming the lifting

of the Kai/asa Mountain in Abhishekanatakam

Sthapana Sutradhara’ perform/ng)the Nityakriya. Two
Mizh~vu’ drums and the players

Malli Madhva Chakyar in Asokavanikanka in
Ascharachudamani

The Yakshagana of Karnataka

KamiJlabhupa and. his ‘da,ughteii Rati

CHAPTER XII

THE YAKSHAGANA OF KARNATAKA

-K. Shivram Karanlh

The Kannada-speak)ng area of India, usually called
Karnataka, has a rich theatre form known as ‘Yakshagana.’
ln earlier times it used to be called ‘Bhagavatara ata,’
“Dashavatara ata,’ or simply ‘Bayalata.’ In Kannada ‘ata’
means a play . Originally this form of theatre used to deal
with the tales of Bhagavan Krishna and hence the name
‘Bhagavatara ata.’ Later on, it began to depict tales of the ten
jncarnations of Lord Vishnu; hence the name ‘Dashavatara
ata.’ Being an open-air theatre, it came to be called
·’Bayalata.’ The nomenclature ‘Yakshagana’ came from a
‘special style of music which accompanies these plays. It is
.a very ancient style, for there is mention of this style in
Kannada literature of the tenth and twelfth centuries. The
Chandraprabha Purana (1189) makes mention of the form.
Nagachandra’s Mallinatha Purana (1105) refers to Yaksha-
:gaDa as “pleasing to Laksmi who stands in the .lotus.” In
the sixteenth century Kavi Ratnakar Varni speaks of
Yakkalagana in his Bharateshavaibhava. Since he belongs
10 the region of South Kanara, it may be surmised that the
Yakshagana form was widespread by that time.

Yakshagana embraced in earlier times a form of music
played before royal personages. Later on, owing to the

The Sacred and the Secular
–In

India’s Performing Arts–
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy Centenary Essays

Edited by Prof. v. Subramaniam

ASHISH PUBLISHING HOUSE
NEW DELHI-110027

published by :
Shri S.B. Nangia,

for ASHISH PUBLISHING HOUSE: CONTENTS
H-12, Rajouri Garden,

New Delhi-l10027.. PART I

1980

@ With the Contributors

Printed at :

National Printers, West Patel Nagar, New Delhi-l 10008

Phone: 582828

I. The Sacred and the Secular: Symbiosis
and Synthesis

-Prof. V. Subramaniam

II. Religion as a Bridge between Classical . \.
and Folk Art

-Prof. V. Subramaniam , ..

III. The King-God Concept and the Arts
-Prof. V. Subramaniam

IV. The Rasa Theory: Theology or Aesthe-
tics

-Prof. V.K. Chari

V. The Place of Indian Classical Dance in

Traditional Indian Culture

-Anne-Marie Gaston

VI. Secularism in Yakshagana
– Martha B. Ashton

PART II

VII. Bharata Nat yam
-Dr. T. Balasaraswati

VIII. The History and the Origin of the

Thumri with Special Reference to
Gharanas and Style

-Premlata Sharma

IX. The Evolution of the Thumri
-Jaideva Singh

… 11

… 19

… 47

… 62

… 86

… 98

… 109

•. .124

( iv )

X. The Musical Evolution of the Gazal
-Ashok Ranade .

XI. Kootiyattam
(A General Survey)

-K. Kunjunni Raja

XU. The Yakshagana of Karnataka
-K. Shivram Karanth

Appendix

The Editor’s Postscript

. .. 133

… 138

… 151

… 163

… 18l

A NOTE ON OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Prof. V. Subramaniam, the editor is Professor of Politi-
cal Science at Carleton University; Ottawa and a classical
composer of acknowledged merit. In the last few years,
he has done considerable work on cultural sociology and
history of which his recent book Cultural Integration in India
(Ashish Publishing House) is a good example. For more
background information see the dust jacket.

Prof. V.K. Chari, is a Professor of English Literature at
Carleton University and has done much work on Sanskrit
poetics and aesthetics. He is also an accomplished Katha-
kali dancer.

Anne-Marie Gaston (Anjali) recently completed her
B. Phil. Thesis at Oxford-from which the present chapter is
taken. She is a professional Bharata Nat yam and Odissi
dancer of repute with considerable knowledge of Kuchipudi
and Kathakali.

Dr. Martha Ashton is a cultural anthropologist who has
worked in Karnataka on folk culture. She is also an ac-
complished Yakshagana dancer.

Dr. Premlata Sharma is Reader, Theory and Research
College of Music and Fine Arts, Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi.

Dr. Jaideva Singh, musicologist and authority on Hin-
dustani music lives in, D 61/26 F, Vishram Kuti, Siddhagiri

. Bagb, Varanasi.

( vi )

Dr. Ashok Ranade is the Head, University Music Centre,
University of Bombay, Dnyandevi Sahitya Sahawas, Bandra
(East), Bombay-400051.

Dr. K. Kunjunne Raja is Professor of Sanskrit, Depart-
ment of Sanskrit, University of Madras, Chepauk, Triplicane-
p.d., Madras-600005.

His name is synonymous with Yakshagana, the cen-
turies-old folk theatre of Karnataka. But almost all his
iIlllovations, such as doing away with the dialogue, have
been widely questioned.

He is living in Suhasa, Saligrama P.O., Udipi Taluk.
South Kanara, Karnataka State-576225.

‘

. ‘

CHAPTER VI

SECULARISM IN Y AKSHAGANA

-Martha B. Ashton

The Yakshagana dance-drama of the, Kanara Coast is
considered a religious art form because it relives the c eation
and life stories of the Hindu deities as well as episodes
revealing their intervention into and effect on the lives of
mortals. The dance-drama through Mahabharata, Ramayana
and Puranic legends reinforces the theme that Hinduism is
all encompassing, that is; that everything in life is in some
way related to religion. Therefore, if we want to discuss
“secularism” in a Hindu dance-drama we must first be
cognizant of the fact that “secularism” is a relatively recent
concept in Indian thought. “Secular” is an Anglo-Saxon
English word with its root in Latin; and there appear to be
no equivalents in any of the Indian languages. Moreover,
it seems that the nearest similar term is a combination of
Sanskrit words “dharmaniraphekshata” which means “no
favoriti sm towards any particular religion.” The problem
is then that we are attempting to discuss an aspect of
the Hindu culture in terms of an English word, the concept
of which is not indigenous to the Hindu culture. Accordingly
we must be aware then, that whatever is considered “secular

”

from the point of view of one culture is not necessarily
-considered so from the points of view of other cultures.

With all this in mind let us consider “secularism” in
Yakshagana beginning with a subject that is sure to be
.controversial, that of the romances of Lord Krishna. These
are described in a collection of 14 songs four or five of which
are alternatively sung and danced to as part of the prelimi-
nary rituals of each traditional Yakshagana performance.
The dance is sensual, yet tastefully performed by two male
youths dressed in female attire. The songs suggest that
these two can be either wives of Lord Vishnu, or Gopis.

To an outsider the words of this first song appear only
as those of a jealous female. It is only if one knows the ‘
stories of Krishna that all the clues are recognized and the
song gains religious significance. E\’en so we do not know
if this song is an expression of a jealous wife or a jealous

mistress.

Raga Kalyani Adi Tala

I can’t bear this mischief.
He is a great adulterer, mother.
He is a butter thief and

he is strong in magic.
But at the same time

he is very charming.
When the ladies are going to fetch water,

he blocks their way and calls them to him.
With such small hands he will lift the

big mountains and secretly enjoy the eight ladies.1

The beginning part of this next song suggests that it is only
-one wife making known her jealousy of another wife. In
the latter lines, however, references to the avatars appear.
Yet, only those who are knowledgeable in these legends are
able to distinguish that the subject is the God Vishnu, not

an ordinary man being scolded.

Raga Kalyani Rupaka Tala

Oh ! My dear female companion. What am I to do ?’
My dear lord has gone to another wife,

to a place where they will enjoy each other.
I am feeling so, lonely here.
These are the fruits I reap for marrying him.
What am I to do ?

Shall I make a house in the water and keep him there ?’
Shall I put my burden on him.

Or by some native root shall I cure him of his cruel’
ways?

Whom can I tell ?
Whom can I ask ?
Can I call him a beggar (of love) by nature?
Can I give up this jealousy and once again join him?
Shall I ever talk to him again or shall I leave him

forever?

Tell me if he has any affection,

he (Parashurama) who has killed his mother;
he (Rama) who has monkeys for companions.

What is the use of giving him acivice.
How am I to beat this?
He is so much taken up with (Satya) Bhama.
He has permanently settled there.
This great fellow has no shame.
What am I to do ?

Shall I get him (Kalki) a horse to ride in the end.2

The third song tells of a husband longing for his beloved
wife. Only in one line is the husband’s name mentioned
and we know that this is a religious song.

Raga Natai Adi Tala

Beautiful lady, rich in her virtues,
come and let us enjoy one another.

I am suffering from passion. Come.

I’ll embrace you affectionately.
Come ! Come ! Come!Come!

Beautiful lady, I am forever thinking
of you in my dreams.

Don’t break my heart.
It’s not proper. It’s not proper.
LIla, I1a, I1a, wife.

Beautiful lady, Guru Venkateshwara is
the only protection.

How can you forget him.3
Ta, ta, ta, wife.

The next song is usually the last song of these particular
rituals. It appears to be a song that many a wife probably
did and stilI does sing. But it does not give us any indication
as to whose wife should get the credit here.

Raga Kalyani Rupaka Tala

Moth~r, I am bidding you goodby.
I am leaving for my home.
I don’t know my destiny.
I came here in the hope of staying for ten days

as I was suffering from my mother-in-Iaw’s nagging.
But can we erase what Brahma has written or

what actions we have done in the previous life ?
How can I disobey my husband, shamelessly listening

to others?
He is always punishing me by abuses .4

To those who are both knowledgeable and who are devotees-
these songs are considered religious. To those who are-
neither perhaps these songs could be considered secular?

Let us now turn to the possibilities of secularism in
Yakshagana humour. The Yakshagana texts rarely contain.:
humour. This is brought about through the folk songs and.-

through the impromptu dialogue which follows the per-
formance of songs, poems or explanatory passages of the
texts. Although conversation between or among the non-
comic characters might be clever and witty the comic mood
of the performance mainly depends on the abilities of the
clowns.

The clown actors play the roles of sages like Narada
and Valmiki, guards, messengers, and servants. One of the
most enjoyable roles of the clown is that of being the guard
for the Pandavas’ Ashwamedha horse in “The Battle of
Babhruwahana.” The horse roams into the kingdom of
Queen Pramila. Pramila’s female guards find the clown
sleeping instead of watching the horse. Clapping their
hands and shouting, the guards try to awake him. But he
rolls over and yawns. When he is finally awoken, he notices
with delight that he is surrounded by lovely young maidens.
He dances to and sometimes sings alongwith the Bhagavata
a comic folk-song entitled “Oh, you girl.”

Lavani Eka Tala

Oh, you girl !
Who are you?
Who came with you?
Tell ~e quickly.

Oh, you girl!
Clever one, who is your father?
Here, show me your face?
Married or unmarried ?
Tell me quickly.

Oh, you girl!
Mara’s (God of Love’s) flowered arrow is shot.
My mind is filled.
Lady, I promise you I am telling the truth.
I am in a state of emotional frenzy.

. . “Furthermore, you forget everything else .
1 will make you happy.
I won’t leave you.
It’s getting dark and I’m getting hungry.
“Don’t delay, come quickly.
Don’t you want to come ?5

-With comic facial movement he flirts with, chases the girls,
:and tells how infatuated he is with them.

If the clown is playing the part of the gate-keeper and
“must protect his master’s kingdom or possessions, he is
usually the loser. The clown’s weapon is a long stick. The

-victor pulls the clown’s arms back and bends them at the
·-elbows. Through the opening caused by the bent elbows
“the victor puts the clown’s stick and leaves him defeated.
-The clown bemoans his situation to the Bhagavata and asks
:the Bhagavata to remove the stick.

I~ one scene from The Battle af Abhimanyu, a king’s
–messenger comes to challenge Arjuna to battle. The clown
-playing the role of the messenger created an aura of
-nonsense as he entered miming a deformed person and
-talking as though he were hare-lipped. Arjuna asked how
the had come to this State. The clown replied that when
‘his wife was pregnant she craved a liquid sw~eet (payasam)
-made from a sour fruit pod (tamarind). He had climbed
the tree to get the fruit and had fallen. Arjuna cured him

‘with a magic arrow.6

In another scene from The Battle of Abhimanyu Kaurava’s
-servant comes to announce the arrival of Kaurava’s friend,
,the demon Samasaptaka, from Patala. The servant says to
Kaurava: “He has come from Patala.” Kaurava says:
-“Who has come from Patala?” Then the clown runs to
-ask Samasaptaka what to tell Kaurava. Samasaptaka beats
·the clown and says, “I have come from Patala.” The clown
t hen runs to Kaurava and says: “I have come from Patala.”

Kaurava beats the clown, again says: “You have not come-
from Patala. Now you go and ask the name of the person
who has come.” Finally the clown gets the message straight
and Kaurava receives his friend. Later on in the same ‘
sequence Samasaptaka agrees to fight on Kaurava’s side ‘
against the Pandavas. When preparing to give and receive ‘
the betel leaf and nut as a sign of their contract, Kaurava
requests the clown not to make any noise. Pretending he
cannot help himself the clown’ sneezes, trips on his owm
feet and falls on the fioor, then yawns loudly. After
each incident the annoyed Kaurava beats him with a
handerkerchief. 7

The clown rarely escapes without a beating from his –
superior. In The Wedding of Kanakangi, the servant accom-
panies Abhimanyu in search of Abhimanyu’s mother,
Subhadra. When they found Subhadra she was sleeping
soundly. The clown says that she must have died, therefore, .
they are not able to wake her. As Subhadra awakes,
Abhimanyu beats the clown with mango leaves for trying to·
fool him .B

The demoness also brings humour with her role. Unlike>
the mighty demon who, regardless of his so-called evil
nature still commands the fear and respect of the audience,
the demoness is known to use any devious means to have’
her way. She is famous for her disguises, from beautiful’
damsels down to the ugliest old crones. In the dance ‘
introducing the demoness into the story the actor shows her-
completing her daily routine, that is, through mime and to ·
rhythmic drum beats she brushes her teeth, washes ber hair, .
combs her hair with her fingers, kills some lice in the process ·
and then throws her hair over her shoulders. In a make–
believe mirror she admires herself and puts on her make-up ..
After her entrance she asks the singer how she looks. He-
teils her that her appearance is ugly and pretends to give her ‘
a mirror. Looking into the mirror she agrees and says she:
will return as a beautiful maiden.

The following is a sample of the demo ness Shurpanika’s

-Shurpanika (in disguise) says to the singer:
Do you know who I am ?

Singer: No.

Sh urpanika : Did a big demoness come here?

Singer: Yes.

Shurpanika: Well, I am she. How do I look?

Singer: You look beautiful.

Shurpanika : I wasn’t sure. People were gazing at me all
along the way. Let me see a mirror. (The
singer pretends to hand her a mirror.) Oh,
yes! I am wearing precious jewels, therefore,
I am attractive. I have a swing that is going
to be a death trap for my victims. I’m going
to decorate it with fragrant flowers. It’s a
magic swing? Did you know that? I’m going
to sing with a voice as beautiful as the cuckoo
and they will be spellbound by the beauty of
my song (and thereby be lured into my swing).9

The outcome of this adventure is that one brother warns
the other that this girl must be a demoness. Why? Because
she is not singing the raga properly. Nevertheless one
brother is charmed into the swing which she takes high’ into

the sky. Her play is spoiled when the other brother shoots.
down the swing.

The regioIial flavor of South Kanara is often reflected ‘
in the dialogue. One ex.ample occurs in the talk of the
singer, a character named Chikka and another called_
Kichaka. Prior to Kichaka’s entrance, a poor man, Chikka,.
played by the clown, discusses his life story with the singer ‘
and talks about buying bufalloes, preparing them for and .
entering them into a particular local race. As far as I
know buffalo-racing is unique to South Kanara. After-
further chat about buying and selling dried coconuts and alL
sorts of local varieties of plantains, Chikka exits . He re–
enters with Kichaka.

Kichaka says that he has not been to visit his sister for
some time. He wants to go now and wants Chikka to-
accompany him. Chikka asks if Kichaka’s sister will
prepare him some good food. If so, he will come. Kichaka
suggests that she will certainly do so and inquires into ·
Chikka’s desires. Chikka wants among other things chicken
rotti which in South Kanara refers to a very hot chicken
curry served ever paper-thin crisp-edged rice pancakes-a
specialty of the Bant community of this coastal area. He-
also wants boiled rice and payasa, a favorite liquid sweet
of South India. In time they come near the house of
Kichaka’s sister. Kichaka instructs Chikka to go and
announce their arrival. Chikka who has come in the hope
of getting good food is overcome when he sees Kichaka’s.
sister cooking and forgets his purpose. With his mouth
watering he speaks.

Chikka : Amma, (mother) what are you doing?

Sudeshna: I am frying rotti, Chikka.

Chikka : Why have the edges become black, amma ?

S~deshna: The fire has become too hot.

”

95 .. ,

Chikka : Is it so, amma? Then give it to me. I’ll eat it.

He takes it and returns to Kichaka and tells him what has
happened. Then Kichaka asks Chikka if he told her that
her younger brother Kichaka had come. He sheepisly
admitted that he had not, returned to announce Kichaka’s
arrival and then both entered Sudeshna’s house.1o

The dialogue between the singer and Babruwahana’s
political minister in The Battle of Babhruwahafia is proof
on how it must have been in the past when wandering
troupes of Yakshagana artists, referred in the dialogue as
Dashavatara players, or players of the stories of ten avatars
of Vishnu, tried to get people to sponsor their performances_
An excerpt follows:

Minister: How many of you are there?

Singer: We are forty.

Minister: Whose house did you start out to deplete? If
this many of you go to one house, how can it
survive.

Singer: For our purposes we need this many people.

Minister: From which direction did you come?
Didn’t you cross a river on the way?

Singer: Yes, we crossed a river. And the boatman there
has no sense. He caused one of our group to
drown, so we are really less than usual in number.

Minister: All right. Let that be. We will agree to sponsor
your performance by giving you four seers of

rice.

Singer: That is not enough rice for this many people.

Minister: We’ll give you other things as well. And we’ll
give you an abundance of salt.

Singer: Why so much salt?

Minister: If you eat a lot of salt, you will drink a lot and
that way your stomachs will become full. ll

Except when the hunter is the God Shiva, perhaps this
role also could be considered secular. The hunter’s entrance
along with his little hunters is always a spectacle. His very
colorful costume and unusual headdress, along with a bon-
fire and the acrobatics of the little hunters is topped off with
some rather appropriate hunters’ talk. The dialogue runs
along these lines:

,Hunter: In which direction shall we go to-day? In which
forest shall we hunt? We’re so hungry. What
animals and birds do we want to hunt to-day. We’ ll
take the net and several dogs, knives, spears and
bows. Who will go to drive the animals in our
direction? (Looking at one boy) Where will you
go?

Boy: I will sit on the river bank. When the animals come
to drink I’ll shoot them.

Another Boy: I will sit in the cashew tree (common in
South Kanara). When the animals come to
eat the fruit I will shoot them.

Third Boy; There are two hills and a salty stream running.
There I will sit and catch the animals.12

Through the above examples I have suggested that even
though the concept of secularism was not realized as being
.a part of Hindu culture, that is, they did not have a term
to express it, nevertheless these examples of dialogue imply
that secular situations exist in this Hindu religious dance
drama. Perhaps the mystery lies in a word lost or removed
from the vocabularies thousands of years ago.

:!Footnotes to Chapter VI

1. Yakshagana Sabhalakshana and Prasangapithige
(Udipi, South ‘ Kanara, Mysore, India: Pavanje
Gururao and Sons, 1968-69, p . 38 (in Kannada).
All songs from this work quoted in this paper were
translated by Sri mati B. Leela Bhat. Reader and
Head of the Department of Kannada, Mahatma
Gandhi Memorial College, U dupi.

2. Sabhalakshana, p. 39.

3. Sabhalakshana, pp. 40-41.

4. Sabhalakshana, pp. 39-40.

5. A Kannada folk-song which is traditionally per-
formed in The Battle of Babhruwahana. Translated
by Srimati B. Leela Bhat.

6. Recorded at a performance of The Battle of
Abhimanyu by Kamalashile Troupe, Brahmavara,
South Kanara, December 7, 1970. Translated by
L. Bhat.

‘7. Ibid.
.8. Recorded at a performance of The Wedding of

Kanakangi by Perduru Troupe, near Hiriadka.
South Kanara, January 8, 1970. Translated by
L. Bhat.

9. Recorded at a performance of Lava and Kusha’s
Battle by Kadiyali Temple Troupe, Udupi,
February 20, 1971. Translated by L. Bhat.

.10. Collected by Sri Hiriyadka Gopala Rao, November
1976 and translated by the author. Although this
dialogue is known to several performers it has
rarely been performed in the last fifty years.

11. Ibid.

12. Collected by Sri Hiriyadka Gopala Rao and trans-
lated by Rao and the author. The last two
sentences are risque. The two hiIls symbolize a
woman’s breasts and the salty stream represents
her urine.

. ‘

•

A. J. GUNAW ARDANA
H

DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS
SRI LANKA

TO THE READER

This slim volume is only a basic introduction to Sinhala

theatre; it has no pretensions to being an exhaustive

detailed

study. Interested readers who wish to further pursue the

subject are referred to other relevant publications in this series

and to the select bibliography given at the end of the book.

My thanks are due to the Department of Cultural Affairs fo

sponsoring this publication.

•

July 12, 1976

Vidyodaya Campus,

University of Sri Lanka,

Gangodawila, Nugegoda.

•
•

A. J. GUNAWARDANA

. , …

•

The Culture of Sri lanka –

A. J. GUNAWARDANA
II

1976

PUBLISHED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS
SRI .. LANKA

•
•
•

•

THEATRE IN SRI LANKA

IN Sri Lanka, the traditional and the modern, the old and the
~ew in theatre can be seen in striking conjunction. Based in
Colombo, the capital city, there is a burgeoning, cosmopolitan,
modern theatre which presents original works and translations
(of Beckett, Brecht, Gogol, Gorky, et. al.) in a wide range of forms
.and styles. In the rural areas, age-old ritualistic theatres are per-
formed to promote the welfare of the community and to heal
the sick. In between are various folk theatres the entertain-
me~ts springing from a predominantly agricultural way of life.
And, as in all modernizing societies, many of the older forms are
waning away while the new theatre is flowering.

THE RITUAl. THEATRES

The ritual theatres of Sri Lanka are among the oldest extant
-performances with an unbroken history. Legend traces their
beginnings to pre-Buddhistic times. However remote their ori-
gins, it is quite clear that the ritual theatres, like all living art
forms, have been changing over the years, discarding some ele-

•

ments and absorbing others. As practised today, ritual theatres
are generally night-long performances addressed to the numerous
deities and demons of the folk religion.

A vast pantheon of gods a~d demons inhabits the still vital
world of Sinhala folk belief. Depending on time and circums-
tances, and their particular spheres of influence, these powerful
beings can impinge in various ways on the affairs of men. For
-example, gods can assure a plentiful harvest and bring succour
to people in times of distress. The demons, on the other hand,
are evil in their effects : they possess people, making them ilL

•

The primary purpoSe of the ritual theatres is to propitiate the
gods and the demons, so that they will confer their blessings or
heal the afflicted. Where the demons are concerned, there is an
-exorcistic ‘aim also. A basic assumption in these theatres is that

•

these beings have the right to expect certain oblations and offer-
ings from humans. If these are not made, the gods will either
cause harm to people or desist from helping them. As for the
demons, they extract their dues by afflicting people with various
diseases. However, once an offering is made in the proper
manner, the demons are obliged to remove their malefic influence
and return the patient to good health.

The ritual theatres are more than modes of oblation: they are
also re-enactments of the original ceremonials in which the cove-
nant between the other-worldly forces and the human forces
was first ratified or demonstrated. Typically, the gods are
invited to watch the proceedings; the demons are summoned in
order that they may be persuaded to behave in the manner they
did on a similar occasion in the distant past .

. Although there is great dramatic potential in this view of the
relationship between the human world and the spirit world, the
ritual performances have not evolved into continuous, full-scale
dramas. The general conception is theatrical (the space used is
constantly referred to as the” ranga mandala” arena of perfor-
mance) but the form itself is highly segmented, mixing long sec-
tions of verse narrative, incantation, chant, and dance with dra-
matized episodes which employ dialogue and mime as well. The
episodes are culled mainly from stories dealing with the genesiS
and the background of each principal deity or demon. While
almost every performance element is brought in, it is dance that
predominates in most ritual theatres.

Furthermore, these theatres have an unmistakably composite
character; in the course of time, a number of different but allied

•

rites have come together. This is suggested both by the strong
reminiscences of archaic year rites and animistic cults found :iIi
them, and by the diversity of gods and demons coming within
the ambit of each ceremonial.

While they all occupy one broad framework on account of the
similarity of their essential attitudes and structures, the ritual
theatres can be conveniently separated into several categories. In
the large-scale performances, the collective aspect predominates
-they are done for the welfare of a whole community, the village

being the primary unit. These are generally addressed to the gods
and are given annually (customarily at harvest time) or when
the community is’ threatned by epidemics of certain infectious
diseases thought to have links with the spirit world. In the latter
case, a vow is first made that a performance would be given upon
speedy release from the grip of the epidemic.

There is a second category of ritual where the beneficiary is an
individual, rather than the community as a whole. Demonic pos-
session is one obvious occasion which calls for such theatre.
Another is evil planetary influence. These theatres, smaller in
scale than the communal types, are of course performed when
indicated, or rather prescribed by the ritual specialist or
astrologer.

Of the major communal theatres, the most fa mous and un-
doubtedly the most majestic is the Kohomba Kankariya. Now-
adays confined to the environs of Kandy, the Kohomba Kankariya
traces its beginnings all the way back to the first Sinhala kings .

. .
The name means the rite of God Kohomba, an animistic deity,
which is suggestive of the antiquity of the ritual. However, the
original cult appears to have coalesced with several other, per-
haps more recent, folk ceremonials. Today it clearly displays this .

•

mixed ancestry, a feature common to all Sinhala ritual theatres.

In keeping with the usual pattern, the Kohomba Kankariya is
a somewhat disjointed performance separating into a number of
named segments or episodes. A common set of ritual objectives

•

and a single form of dance, rather than a coherent dramatic
structure, link them together. In the Kohomba Kankariya, far
more than in other comparable ritual theatres, the dance element
takes precedence over all other aspects. In consequence, it
becomes the finest and most complete presentation of Sinhala
dance: in this instance, the Kandyan form, which is counted the
most beautiful of Sinhala dances.

The massed Kandyan dancers in stately head-gear (ves) going
into elaborate balletic formations to the accompaniment of deep,
‘vibrant drum music, make a splendid spectacle. The sheer per-
vasiveness’ and beauty of the dance might lead the uninitiated

to the conclusion that the Kohomba Kankariya is nothing but an
extensive presentation of dance. Despite the elaboration of the
dance the ritual purpose has never been forgotten. For example,
the opening of the giapt Mahaveli river diversion scheme in
January 1976 was marked by the performance of a Kohomba
Kankariya on the dam site.

The participants themselves treat it with the utmost serious-
ness and observe the ritual sanctions. A Kohomba Kankariya,
moreover, figures as a ‘ significant event in the Kandyan dancer’s
artistic life: it offers him the most challenging occasion for
the display of his talents, for he dances in the company of his
peers. And it was customary at one time to perform a Kohomba
Kankariya on the “graduation” of a Kandyan dancer, that is,
when he is first permitted to put on the ves head-gear at the
end of his training.

The explicitly dramatic segments of the Kohomba Kankariya.-
nowdays sometimes omitted in performance come towards the
conclusion. Though only peripherally connected to the core ritual,
these are of great interest, not only for their use of performance
techniques, but also for the way they reflect the social reality
that engendered them. Uro Yakkama (the rite of Hunting the
Boar) is a case in point. The event is presented in verse narrative,
dialogue (often humorous) and mimetic action.

Before setting forth to shoot the boar, the hunter (played by
one of the dancers) consults an astrologer for an auspicious time
and the proper procedure to be followed. The hunter encounters
other animals which he mistakes for a boar. Eventually, he comes
across the real quarry. At this point, a boar-effigy (made of
banana stem) is brought into the arena. Now a discussion ensues
as to how the boar should be taken, and it is decided that the
best method would be to use a buffalo as decoy.

Now another dancer turns himself into a buffalo by arching his
body and placing his limbs in a particular manner. This animal,
noosed after much effort, is then used to entice the boar, which
is shot down with bow and arrow. Subsequently, it is

dismembered, and the parts are given away to the villagers. In
this distribution, the actual social order of everyday life is
reversed by means of a simple device: the least desirable por-
tions of the carcass are given to the highest-ranking members of
the community, and the best to the lowest. Done to the accom-
paniment of a sarcastic commentary, this achieves a high degree
of social satire and criticism. .

The Uru Yakkama is but one episode of a type that is found
not only the Kahomba Kankariya, but also in practically all
ritual theatres. This makes it- clear that ritual theatres have
functions besides those pertaining strictly to the spirit world.
They deal with matters of everyday reality; in fact, they fre-
quently exhibit a strong tendency to move in the direction of
” profane” entertainment :h~ving little to do with ritual purpose.
This is not a characteristic unknown to other cultures; in Sri
Lanka it has been quite pronounced because ritual -was, . from
the beginning, the major kind of performance among the Sinh ala
people.

,
Less stately, less costly, hence more frequently given is a

group of communal rituals _ (Gam Maduva, Devol Maduva, Puna
Maduva) deriving largely from the V{orship of the goddess
Pattini (Sinhala variant of the peerless Kannaki celebrated in
the Tamil classic Shilappadi1caram). Pattini, whose cult is wipe-
ly followed, is considered to be a powerful deity especially im- ,
port ant with respect to contagious diseases. Her intercession is
also sought in times of personal distress. Temples (kovill devale)
dedicated to her a.r~ scattered throughout the country.

Ritual theatres linked with the Pattini cult are in the main
annual occurrences. The principal objects of worship repre-
senting the goddess herself are a pair of ankle bracelets, the
item of jewellery that played such a crucial role in he:r,- own life.
Following the normal practice, the core ritual incorporates a
number of subsidiary rites. Chiefly, though, it is the story of
the goddess that is enacted through mime, dance, and verse
narrative. Of special interest is a sequence called the Mara-
I paddema (death and resurrection) which intimates the great
antiquity of the cults that have come to be affiliated with the
Pattmi theatres.

,
•

Since these theatres are performed in many parts of the
country, some variations can be noticed in the styles they em-
ploy. Furthermore, two distinct forms of dance ” Kandyan .,
Or “Uda Rata” in the up-country areas, and” Pahata Rata” in
the low-country are used. At the present time, one is more
likely to witness these theatres in the coastal areas (” Pahata
Rata “) . As with the Kohomba Kankariya, their performance
depends on the support of the community.

The second category of ritual theatres those concerned with
individual sickness or misfortune are known collectively as
bali-thovil. Bali means rites dedicated to the planetary deities,
and are the least dramatic of the ritual theatres. Thovil, given
to propitiate and exorcise demons, are as a class highly dramatic
;.md excitingly theatrical.

Bali is a votive offering where chant and incantation receive
far greater emphasis than dance and mime. This feature,
together with its direct appeal to planetary deities, can be taken
as evidence that Bali is a later growth than the communal
theatres. Another notable characteristic of Bali is the use of
images. Large clay effigies, sometimes as tall as 3
metres, representing the planetary deities are constructed in
bas-relief fashion, and mounted in upright position before the
commencement of the ceremony. The ritual activities take
place in front of these images. When they are over, these care-
fully moulded images are destroyed. Mainly on account of the
heavy expenditure it involves, Bali is seldom performed today.

From Bali to Thovil is a fair leap, though in common parlance
the two are linked. The demon world forms the territory of
Thovil. The demons are seen as adversaries ever ready to cause
harm to men, not as beings capable of beneficence. Thus, apart
from propitiation (which is common to all ritual theatres) exor-
cism also occurs in Thovil. In many instances, the demons are
impersonated by masked dancers. (Hence the term “devil
dancing” frequently used to describe Thovil.) It is not un-
common for patients to go into states of trance during the course
of a performance: at such times, the patient is said to be possessed
by the demon responsible for the ailment. These characteristics,

implying direct and unmediated encounters with the demons,
sometimes turn Thovil into an enormously exciting theatrical

• experIence.

Thovil is an exceptionally interesting curative and therapeu-
tic performance in which the patient’s syndrome is translated
into the shape and fOlnl of other-wordly creatures who, though
evil and frightening, cannot exercise total dominion over man.
They can be brought under control. The performers confront
them on behalf of the patient by summoning them to the arena
and enacting the original ritual to reiterate the sanctions within
which they must operate. Accordingly, the demons are obliged
to accept the offerings tokens of what they used to extract
before the covenant was established and depart.

The demons must appear before dawn, because they have to
r eturn to their abodes without being seen by the sun. Upon
arrival ill the arena, each demon executes a few steps to the
drum, then opens a dialogue with another performer or dru Imner,
asking ‘why he has been summoned, etc. The reason is given:
he must accept the offerings made ready for him and heal the
sick person: Some” bargaining” between him and the interlo-
cutor now follows he wants more than is given. Finally,
agreement is reached; the demon accepts offerings, blesses the
patient and exits. The dialogue is quite humorous, and often
heavily charged with obscenities and scatological references.

Th~ intensest moment in a Thovil performance is reached
when the patient becomes violently possessed, and assumes the
persona of the apposite demon. At such times, the “patient-
demon” is closely questioned, and forced to pledge that he will
remove llis evil influence and go away’. Customarily, the patient
joins in the dancing at such times. Recalcitrant, unyielding
demons are subjected to various punishments, usually exhaust-
ing dance at highly increased tempo. Sometimes, they are made
to beat themselves with coconut flowers or fronds.

There are several different kinds of Thovil (e.g. Suniyama, Rata.
Yakuma, Sanni Yakuma) , each distinguished by a particular con-
tent and a concern with specific forms of demon affliction. Sann.i

7
•

•

Yakuma is probably the best known, for it brings in eighteen
demons, representing eighteen separate diseases (sanni). The

. .
demon is identified by the mask he wears, the gestures and
mannerisms that attach to him as well as by the verses that signal
his entry. Great theatrical flair can be seen in the execution of
the entry each demon, appropriately masked and costumed,
sometimes bearing lighted torches in his hands, rushes into the
arena from behind an altar (vidiya) amid shrieks and frenzied
drumming. These grotesque and fearsome-looking creatures do
not however frighten the patient and the spectators. One reason
for this is the ribald, comic gesture and tone that underlie their
portrayal. Another is the assumption that demons, however
malevolent, can ultimately be controlled.

” Arena” is perhaps too suggestive a word to be employed in
the context of these theatres. Any level piece of ground serves
as the performance area. A raised platform and fixed seating are
totally unknown. The audience sits or stands in, a circle round
the space. A roofed structure is built for certain
such as the Kohomba Kankariya and Gam Maduva (maduva =
shed or pavilion) but this is never thought of as a playhouse.
Whatever the ritual prompting behind it, the Maduva today
functions chiefly as a shelter for the altars and the offering trays,
and also as a means of demarcating the performance space. The
audience is accommodated outside it-in the open air. For Thovil,
the Maduva is not a prescribed requirement. Quite often, the
verandah and compound of the patient’s house are used as the
acting space. The area thus obtained may be quite small; more
over, it is a variable one, since the spectators move about
constantly, changing the size of the circle.

The absence of a raised stage and a rigidly demarcated acting
area means, among other things, that the relationship between
the audience and the performers is an intimate one. It also means
that lighting is for illumination only not for stage effects. Light
and fire do playa very important part in ritual theatres. Fire, as
is well known, is a ritual cleansing agent. So is the smok:e-e-
created with aromatic resin powders which the performers in-
hale and envelope themselves in at certain times. Lighted torches,
lamps are regular “props” featured in these theatres. Dancers

execute intricate, acrobatic steps while holding or twirling
several t orches at once, then touch them on chest and arms and
” eat” the flames. In major commupal theatres, “fire-walking

”

is one of the mandatory concluding rites. The effect of the light
and fire sequences is much reduced these days on account of
the bright illumination given by electric and kerosene lights.
In a dimly-lit environment, the lights and the flames make for
a beautiful, exciting spectacle.

Ritual theatre is generally speaking a formal and solemn event
Yet it is an air of informality that mostly prevails at perform-
ances, for they are important social gatherings and meeting
places too. The spectators are free to move about as they please;.
and they usually do, especially at Thovils, where the serving of
refreshments is a widely observed custom. There are other:
reasons for the atmosphere of casualness. Few members of ‘ the”
audience stay awake throughout a dusk to dawn ” show”. ‘A:Iit
occasional snooze is not considered improper. Furthermore-;
these theatres are not designed to elicit continuous and consis-
tent audience attention. There are segments (especially those·
given over to chant and incantation) which turn into longueurs;
even for the performers. At such times, the performers who are
free rest or sleep.

A word needs to be said here about the performers. They are
•

true professionals after a fashion not because their entire live-
lihood today depends on the art, but because they are trained
specialists. The training they receive is chiefly ir~ traditional
dance and music, either Uda rata or Pahata rata depending on
place of birth, family background and other determining factors.
They begin quite early (normally before the age of ten) usually
under the tutelage of an elder (father, uncle or other
since the teaching, and indeed the whole tradition, is family-
centred and caste-oriented. As in all traditional societies, the
neophyte learns both by doing and observing. He will learn
drumming as well as dancing, but concentrate on one later in
life.

To become a ritual specialist, he does not have to join a cult.
be initiated, or have a shamanistic experience. He merely learns
the lore of the rituals, the procedures and the” texts”. In fact,

•

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the student automatically turns mto a ritual specialist too as he
completes his training, f.or Sinhala dance is traditionally insepa-
rable from ritual. The dance, whatever the style, developed as
the core of the ritual event. In the Kandyan tradition, for exam-
ple, the education of the dancer culminated in the performance
of the Kohomba Kankariya. Dance was pursued as a discipline
and practised almost exclusively in the ritual context, and even
today it forms the principal attraction of these theatres.

‘The” texts” of the ritual theatres, which the performers mU!it
know by memory, are of course not pieces of dramatic writing,
but chants, mantrains, narratives in verse and other balladic
material. Most of this may be called ” folk” literature; a small
part of it, though, is known only to the specialists. Several seg-
ments of each performance have no textual basis and are entirely
iinprovised following conventional techniques. For example, in

• •

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the conversations with their interlocutors, the demons regularly
play with words by mispronouncing and punning. Except for

•

tllese passages of ad-libbing, whicn of course are in earthy, collo-
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q1,liaLspeech, there are no other occasions when the language of
·

, ,

ritual .theatre departs from the metrical, stanzaic forms of folk . ‘.,
poetry and from incantatory prose. ,

” lTheir major characteristics the propitiatory, exorcistic intent,
the paramountcy of dance, the highly episodic, segmented ‘struc-
ture, the elastic fonn, the lack of a textual probably
raise the question whether the ritual theatres are theatres at all.
Indeed, they are frequently seen as primitive performances with
only the rudiments of drama the rudiments being those sections
where dramatic situatiCins are presented and developed through
mime and dialogue.

It is hardly necessary to point out Jhat such a modernistic,
literary perspective is inapplicable to these theatres which were
generated and nurtured by societies entirely different from
those germane to modern urban theatre. The traditional
theatres articulated the specific kinds of relations that the
people had with each other, with the environment and with the
“Other World”. They mixed the sacral and the secular and

, .
,

overlaid religious ceremonial with profane en tertainment.
They served their several purposes admirably well and were
wholly sufficient in their context. To deny that so patently
audieilce-oriented perfonnances are theatre is t.o give a “Very
limiting definition to the term

. ”

:< ;'.. , ,

To say all this is not to gloss over the fact that the ritual
theatres have now reached a stage where all internal growth
has ceased. The times have changed, but not the theatres.
The cleavage between them and society is increasing, and the
current revival of interest in the traditional arts has , served
only to focus attention on their dance and musical aspects,
not to transform or modify their s\lbJect matter. That , they’
resist ” modernisation” is part of their esse;ntial nature. ,

, ‘

That they are still performed is, however, sufficient evfdenc-e
that these theatres have not lost all meaning and vitality. Of the
several very important theatrical qualities they exempl,ify, the.
most considerable and noteworthy perhaps is the communal. col’–
lective base that is a pre-condition of their being. They are ‘ the
richly imaginative and functional artistic expressions of a siniple

but highly integrated society where all endeavour was collective

, ,

endeavour. This characteristic is evident even in Bali and ThovH
• • • •

for there individual distress is brought into the public domain
through the performance and the viewers participate in the heaJ- ,

, ,

ing by sharing responsibility for the curative and therapeutic
proced ures.

The ritual theatres are also total theatres. They bring into play~
besides the entire range of expressive modes gesture, mime~
song, chant, dance, etc. certain traditional crafts as well. Bali,
as noted earlier, requires the moulding of images out of clay and
the painting of figures of demons and deities. This is done in a
style very similar, if not identical, to the work seen in the image
holises of Buddhist temples. The mask carver’s art, a notable one
in the Sinhala tradition,’ was sustained almost entirely by
ritualistic theatre. (There is only one non-ritualistic Sinhala
theatre Kolam that uses wooden masks.) –

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All ritual theatres make profuse use of offering trays (Thatu,
Pideni), altars (Veediya, Aile) and other properties especially
constructed for each performance. None of these ritual objects
are re-used, since they are destroyed or discarded at the end of
the event. Moreover, they are made of impermanent materials:
banana stem, coconut fronds (gok), and habarala leaf.

Considering the diverse ways in which they haV€ reflected and
articulated the culture, harnassed the perforn1ance arts and the
decorative crafts, the ritual theatres may be said to constitute the
mainstream of the Sinhala theatrical tradition. Certainly few
other tlieatrical forms are better known or have found wider
acceptance among the people. The performances still vibrate with
energies absent in the other theatres and they achieve an
elemental power with no investment in dramatic writing and
no expenditure of scenery and set.

SOKARI
•

. The indigellous Sinhala theatres outlined thus far fall strictly
within the matrix of folk religious belief and practice. There are
some others that lie out:ajde this matrix. Of these, Sokari, now an
e~cl:usively Kandyan performance, is a rare transitional form that
has . retained some ritual import despite a fully secular content.
Its connection, interestingly, is with the Pattini cult which, as
mentioned earlier, has a number of ritual theatres devoted to it.

Sokari is performed as a votive offering to Pattini. The goddess
herself does not appear in the action in an instrumental fashion,
but is nevertheless an immanent figure. Sokari has one story (like

•

the ritual theatres) and this concerns a man, Guru Hami, his
wife, the eponymous heroine, and their rascally servant Paraya
(or Pachchamira) who travel to Sri Lanka from India, with the
intention of settling down and raising a family. In the course of
attempting these things, tne trio goes through a series of (largely
comical) adventures. At one point, Sokari, young and seductive,
elopes with, or is seduced by (the interpretation varies) the
doctor summoned to treat her husband who has been bitten pya
snake. Eventually she returns, and has a child by Guru Hami. .

How, when and why the enactment of this stor y came to be
linked with the worship of Pa’ttini are matters for speCUlation.
That it has the connotations of a fertility rite is however quite
obvious. Sokari is without child for sometime, and prays to
Pattini for one. She conceives; the birth of the baby is depicted
in the play. Afterwards, Sokari picks up a child from the
audience and rocks it to sleep. All this, together with the sexual
symbolism and the obscenities that punctuate the performance,
are strongly suggestive of the possibility that Sokari is the
dramatic elaboration of an archaic fertility rite.

Sokari is among the most theatrically accomplished of the folk
performances. Its mimetic content is truly impressive in range
and economy of use. The principal stages of the sea journey-
the procuring of the timber, the building of the ship, the actual
crossing of the ocean and the other happenings in Sri Lanka
are presented through highly inventive physical actions that often
match and even outdo the sophisticated experiments of th9
modern stage.

As done in the village setting, Sokari is a non-stop all night
” show” be’ . g shortly after the evening meal. Its ritual
necessities are modest just one simple altar to house the few
offerings to Pattini. The place of performance is any open space:
threshing floors are commonly utilized for this purpose, again
suggesting the fertility implications. The elaborate dancing seen
in the ritual theatres is absent. The narrative portions, all in
verse, are recited by the players (all males) and an unobtrusive
chorus to the accompaniment of a: drum.

The characteristic movement of Sokari is a circular one the
players go round the arena in simple rhythmic step while narra-
ting the story. They stop to enact a scene, and having finished it,
continue the recitation and the circular motion. The scenes are
1>et pieces which provide room for improvisation and individual
creativity. Of the major characters, only- the clownish servant
wears a mask. At the end of the performance, which comes as
dawn breaks, the players take off their make up in front of the
altar, s,upplicating the~.selves befor~ Pattini, and b’egging her
forgiveness for any deficiencies and mistakes in the presentation.

At one time it was feared that Sokari was no longer being-
performed and that the tradition itself was on the verge of
extiction. Fortunately, this has proved to be a false alarm. At
the present time, there are several active peasant Bokari-
groups, one of which is made up of young men. The teacher,
though, is an ageing trouper.

It can be surmisedthat the survival of Sokari is due largely to
the Pattini cult which still has many adherents : the performers.
consider themselves to be devotees of the goddess. It is
quite nonnal for the players to go into trance states during
the performance. Sometimes , several members of the audience –
also follow suit. Unlike in Thovil and certain other ritual theatreJ-
these trances do not involve violent activity but are character–
ised by muscular rigidity. Again, unlike the ritual theatres, Sokari
is not caste-bound. Nor does the training take as long, because.
the dancing is simpler.

The Sokari form is responding in a fashion to the changing;
tastes of the folk audience. The opening sequences in tbe perfor-
mance of one group carry a strong flavour of the Nurti, an early
modern form of Sinhala drama. Contemporary Sinhala “pop”
tunes are being adopted by another group. These will be regarded
by some as signs of decline and corruption, but it must be stress-
ed tbat the essential strengths of Sokari remain.

KOLAM

From Sokari it is an easy transition to Kolam, a folk theatre
wnich at one time was very popular, but is infrequently perform-

•

ed nowadays. In comparison with Sokari, Kolam denotes a
further stage in: the secularization of indigenous theatre, for it
has attained the status of a theatrical genre, yet not without
clear hints of an earlier ritualistic function. Being more of an
open form than Sokari, Kolam has a repertoire of dramas (albeit
a small one) any of which may be selected for p.erformance.

Kolam, now confined to a few locations in the Southern mari-
time area, is distinguished by the extensive use of masks. These-
masks, though akin to those employed in Thovil, tend to be

• •

•

more realistic because many of the characters they represent are
of this world. A few masks, such as those of the King and the
Queen (stock characters both), are quite intricately sculptured
and heavy. Further. Kolam masks are full masks, not designed to
allow a strong, distinct projection of the voice. Going by these
features, some scholars have argued that Kolam began as a
masked dance ritual which later became a sung and spoken
drama, but did not discard or modify the masks.

Lending support to’ this argument is the fact that Kolam
preserves certain affinities with the ritual theatres in the
conceptualization and presentation of characters. Analogous to
the demons of Thovil are the stock characters who are brought
b efore the audience as a prelude to the dramas proper. There is
a large collection of such types: the king’s herald or crier, his
wife (a randy old woman), the policeman, the washerman, his
wife and paramour, the village dignitary as well as certain
eelestial beings, demons and some animals. According to old
texts, there are over fifty such characters.

The large cast of the prelude have no direct bearing on the
stories that are dramatised, but they are tenuously connected
with the story of the genesis of Kalam. According to this, a
certain Queen, being with, child, suffered from a “pregnancy
craving” for “dances and amusements” which was ultimately
satisfied with a performance of Kolam. As each character ends
his piece, the question is asked, by a musician who is supposed
to be the caretaker of the place, why he has made his appearance.
(In Thavil, it will be recalled, it is the demon who puts the
question, “Why have I been summoned. “) The reply is: “IjWe
have come to announce that the King and the Queen are on their
way here.”

It is evident that this gallery of characters has grown over the
years, though the dramas themselves have remained in the
region of five or six. As in Thovil, each character’s entry is
preceded by a set of introductory verses which are chanted by
the musicians. The character, masked, then enters and dances
round the area singing verses descriptive of his or her speciall
talents and , condition. Sometimes, two or more players represent

the same character type. For example, in one tradition, there are
five policemen four constables and a sergeant. This convention
allows for the elaboration of the presentations into dramatic
episodes. Thus the four policemen may be shown playing cards
instead of attending to their duties, and be discovered by the
officer. The most famous of these is the episode of J asa and
Lenchina (the washerman and his wife) a short play in itself.

The central situation here is a menage a trois; Jasa has
brought a mistress to live with him. The wife Lenchina, herself
amorous, laments her fate (for she has been married to Jasa
against her will) and complains to the Mudali, the village func-
tionary. The case is tried, but not before a good deal of farcical
business has taken place. A wily doctor also figures is these
events as happens in the Sokari story. But the comedy here is
stronger and sharper in social content, perhaps because the
Kolam is more secular is nature.

The large gallery of characters and the comic scenes that are
woven around them well qualify the Kolam to be called the Com-

•

media dell’Arte of Sri Lanka: the tone and the techniques used
:’111 , are very similar.
I ~I
1′”1 In common with other native theatres, the Kolam dispenses

•

with all stage paraphernalia. Any level piece of ground suffices;
the audience forms a circle round it during the performance
which as usual starts after invocatory chants and dances address-
ed to the deities. These brief rites are done before the altar (a
small one, as in the Sokari). However, the gods are not
instrumental or immanent presences as in the ritual theatres.
At the end of the event, which is reached early in the morning,
the supernaturals are invoked again, so that the players may
beg their pardon for errors and imperfections in the performance.

There are three main stories particularly associated with the
Kolam: Sanda1ci.nduru Kata.va. (katava story), Mana.me-
Katava. and Ga.mn. Katava. The first two are from Buddhist lore,
the Sandakinduru being a version of the Manora story, which is a
a staple of all South East Asian theatres. In the enactment of
these dramas masks are not used It is not easy to say when

the masks were discarded, if indeed they were f unctionally em-
ployed in the dramatisations. In any event, as per formed today,
the Katavas lack a distinctive flavour, and it is quite obviolls
that the true creativity and power of the Kolam reside in the in-
troductory presentations. With their exuberant theatricality and
p:ungent satirical thrust, they constitute the soul of the Kolam :
the enactment of the stories appears a tame afterpiece. Whether
this has been the case right through the history of the form is
not known.

A nearly-extinct folk theatre called the Kavi N adagama throws
some light on the problem. The Kavi Nadagama had a larger re-
pertoire than the Kolam, but its most popular pieces were San-
dakinduru and Maname. Although it made no use whatever of
masks, its theatrical style was basically similar to that of the
Kolam. These links and differences have been interpreted to mean
that the Kavi Nadagama was a natural outcome of the Kolam’s
experience with the masks. Instead of dropping the masks, which
were found an encumbrance, a new form the Kavi Nadagama.-
was created, and the Kolam itself took the cue from its offspring
and discarded the masks from the dramas proper.

Whether this was the actual scenario or not, the connections
between the two forms indicate an ongoing process among alI
folk theatres. Since they existed in the same culture, were per-
formed for the same audience by n’early the same perfonners
and were not bound by a rigid aesthetic, the folk theatres in-
fluenced each other continuously. Each did preserve its separate
identity, but assimilated diverse elements from others. This pro-
cess of interpenetration has continued to the present day Sokari,
as noted earlier, has picked up “pop” tunes, and the Kolam has
culled some material from the modern stage.

NADAGAMA

The next chapter in the story of the Sinhala theatre is the
coming of the N adagama. This happened not more than two
hundred years ago, most scholars agree, though no exact date
has been established. But there is little doubt as to its sourc:e-e-

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t he N adagama has no antecendents among the Sinhala theat res
.and is unquestionably Dravidian in origin. The first Sinhala
Nadagama plays, it is said, were translated from the Tamil.

All available evidence points to Roman Catholicism as the
agent of the Nadagama’s diffusion among the Sinhalese, if not
its begetter as well. It has been suggested that the forerunne.r
{)f the Sinhala N adagama was a dramatic form constructed out
of several South-Indian folk theatres by Catholic missionaries.
In any event, the earliest Sinhala practitioners of the N adagama
were Catholics who employed it to dramatise liturgical subject~
matter. Before long, however, the Nadagama merged into the
existing patterns of Sinhala folk theatre in the Western coastal
belt, the area most directly exposed to foreign cultural contact.
In the process, its exclusive Catholic orientation disappeared.

Though not native to the soil, the new form appears to have
had numerous affinities with indigenous theatre. Its novelty lay
not in its primary theatrical craft it brought no such
appurtenances as scenery or playhouse but in its music, story
material, and in its conception of theatre as a performance
divorced from ritual observance.

Musically, the roots of the Nadagama were in the South-Indian
Carnatic tradition, whose idiom differs SUbstantially from that
of indigenous Sinhala music. In the ritual theatres, Kolam and
Sokari, “song” was actually a sort of chant or recitative
embedded in the regular metrical schemes of folk poetry,
rhythmically less complex than the drum music, and limited in
melodic compass. The N adagama song had a greater melodic
range and offered more scope for dramatic expression.

Furthermore, the N adagama gave a central role to music. It
was, in fact, a completely ~ung drama, the closest approximation
to a fully operatic form to develop within the traditional
framework. All other theatres used prose dialogue in varying
degrees; here it was reduced to an utterance between songs,
intoned in a particular fashion. The N adagama music thus
brought a fresh dimension into Sinhala folk theatre.

So did its subject matter. The Sinhala folk theatre had been
tied to specific myths or to a very small number of legends
determined by convention and transmitted by tradition. The

Nadagama introduced fictional material, and thereby opened up
hitherto uncharted territory for the Sinhala theatre. In the
beginning, it is true, it dealt with Christian themes, but was
never thought of as ritual performance or religious drama *. The
form was palpably secular, readily at home in the land of
adventure and romance.

In its presentational aspects, the N adagama was not too foreign
to the indigenous tradition. Its main innovation, in this regard,
was the use of a raised, covered stage a temporary structure of
piled earth, semi-circular in shape, sheltered by a thatch of
coconut palm leaves. There was no front curtain, no sets, and of:
course no playhouse. The musicians occupied a part of the stage”

• so did the Narrator or Presenter, and perhaps one or two singers.
to serve as a chorus.

The performance, starting around nine and lasting till
morning (and continuing nightly for a week in the old days)
would commence with the presentation of stock characters ‘
jester, drununer, herald, and so forth. As with the earlier-
indigenous theatres, the stock characters had their identifying-
styles of dance and song. Two members of this prologue, called
the Deshanavadi, briefly narrated the story to be enacted. Then”
after certain other preliminaries, such as the arrival of the king”

the drama would begin.
The dramas were long, rather involved tales peopled by-

eloquent kings, warriors, aristocratic beauties, all consumed by
affairs of state ‘and of love. They were written in a mixed’
tongue, profusely littered with Tanhl and pseudo-learned words.
The authorship of the early plays cannot be established with-
any certainty; many are attributed to the legendary Philippu~
Singho, putative father of the Sinhala N adagama. Little really –
is known about this man, but he is believed to have been~
a blacksmith. This gives a sufficient picture of the social level
at which the N adagama was practised. It was essentially a folk-

* The Christian religious drama developed later than the N adagama,
under the direct auspices of the Catholic Church, as a separate genre ,
based on European Nativity plays and the Corpus Christi. They were
semi-musical and not unrelated to the folk theatre forms. This” passion
play” tradition is not as active as it used to be, but several productions’_
are still regularly performed during Easter time in the predominantly
Catholic areas of the Western coastal belt.

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drama, largely made by unschooled authors for a folk audience .
. But what the N adagama lacked in literary sophistication, it
made up in raw theatrical energy.

The N adagama became very popular in the Western and
Southern coastal belt, but did not spread to the interior of the
eountry. In this area it turned into a much sought after
entertainment, even superseding the older theatres. Yet it
never made it to the city as a truly urban entertainment. The
fact that the N adagama stayed within the folds of the folk
tradition without evolving into an urban or literary art, though
it had a potential in that direction, was not accidental.

The fate of the N adagama was determined in significant
measure by a cultural factor which is of the utmost importance
in understanding the nature and development of the theatre in
Sri Lanka. From the earlist times, the dramatic form appears
to have been eschewed indeed despised by the Sinhala
literati: they devoted their abundant labours to prose and
-poetry. It is unlikely that Sinh ala classical culture was unaware
of Sanskrit dramatic literature, since the links with India were
very close, but so far no evidence has been unearthed to show
that any Sinhala writer worked in: the dramatic form. (The
earliest extant Sinhala writings date from the 6th century.)

The neglect of drama as a literary form, whatever its causes,
also decided the social base of the art. In Sri Lanka, this meant
the confining of the theatre to the rural setting and to folk
<:ulture or to the Little Tradition, as anthropologists would say. In consequence, the theatres were very tardy in developing . " secular characteristics; the propitiatory and exorcistic elements persisted as the very core of their being. Most of them retained a fixed and inviolable content without widening into theatrical genres or forms. To be sure, they did acquire and enlarge upon «profane", non-ritualistic aspects, but the forms themselves remained unchanged. The opening out of the Kolam and the Kavi Nadagama was probably due to their contact with the Nadagama.

The age-old disdain of the literati towards the theatre lasted
into the twentieth century, long after Sinhala literature itself
had moved away from the religious base. The N adaqama enriched

the traditional patterns in several ways, but w as unable to
attract the interest of the literati. It was only in the mid-Fifties
t hat the Nadagama was” discovered” by the mode nl practitioner
as a promising theatrical resource.

•

NURTI
A truly urban Sinhala theatre came into being only in the

last decades of the nineteenth century. Around that time, there
arrived in this country a Parsi theatrical company from Bombay,
bringing with it a novel kind of drama quite unlike the
performances familiar to local audiences. This Parsi theatre,
which soon came to be known as Nurti (=the new drama) in
Sinhala, was a singular blend of European aha Indian dramatic
modes and stage-craft.

In terms of presentation, the Nurti adhered to the Western
concept of an organised, scenic proscenium stage employing
painted backdrops and wings and of course an enclose4
playhouse. Against the scenic splendour thus achieved were
placed gorgeously costumed personages (chiefly of royal or
aristocratic lineage) who acted out exotic tales of romance and
adventure to lilting Hindustani melodies. Audiences in Colombo
found this unusual stage entertainment utterly captivating, as
did their counterparts in the major cities of South and South-
East Asia (The Pa,’si companies toured extensively.)

Practically overnight, the Nurti was domesticated. Sinhala
plays were written on similar material, and staged in the same
manner to the very same music. Playhouses were built in
Colombo to accomodate the Nurti and its rapidly growing
audience. Thus was born the first urban, commercial theatre in
Sri Lanka. It flourished in the first two decades of this century.
and brought into being a new breed of players (both male and
female) who made a living out of the theatre, a stage-struck
audience that nightly crowded the several playhouses in
Colombo, and a new profession that of playwriting .

•

Like every thriving commercial theatre, the Nurti needed a
regular supply of new plays. This demand was met by the new
Sinha:la playwrights who, though untutored in the craft, learnt

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•

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rapidly from the models. Fortunately. they did not limit them-
selves to the Parsi creations they also turned to Sanskrit
classical drama and to Shakespeare. These were rendered in
Sinhala, though not with scrupulous fidelity to the originals. And
inevitably, they took up local history and Buddhist lore. Of these
playwrights who fed the Nurti, John de Silva (1857-1922) won
the greatest popularity and a lasting renown. (The first state-
built theatre in Colombo is named after him.)

Viewed from the perspective of dramatic craft, the Nurti plays
hardly pass muster. They carry the deadweight and the crudities
-of the initial model that inspired the dramatists. The Parsi
theatrical was an inelegant hybrid created by grafting the already
outmoded European techniques of staging onto a dramatic form
which was itself an admixture of Indian classical and folk
elements. The Sinhala playwrights retained the prototype’s accent
-on song, high gesture and spectacle, but did not address them-
‘Selves to the task of eliminating its defects and improving the
iorm.

It is important to remember, however, that the Nurti writers
were true pioneers. Working in a language that possessed no
dramatic literature, they started practically from scratch. And
though they wrote for a highly competitive commercial stage,
many of them (most particularly John de Silva) did not forget
to honour drama as a serious art with important social implica-
tions. They preserved a moral tone and for the most part
succeeded in keeping the cheap and the vulgar at bay. Most of
all, they meshed in with the new directions of social and political
change by attacking the blind imitation of things Western, and
expressing the rising national consciousness of the Sinhalese.
(This again is a quality best seen in the works of John de Silva.)

In this manner, the Nurti playwrights contributed much to
Sinhala drama. They helped to make it a popular medium: an
art acceptable to a wide social spectrum. Their work was patro-
nised by the decorous middle-class (then in the early phase of
its growth) as well as the city populace. Moreover, the plays
were published and sold at a modest price. Though they were
read chiefly by the Nurti fans, their publication did foster the
concept of playwriting as a literary art. The tremendous impact

the Nurti had in its time may be gauged by the f act that its
heyday is still regarded by some as the golden age of Sinhala
theatre.

Despite its great popularity, the NUTti could not survive into
t he Thirties. After the advent of the” bioscope” (the cinema) it
became hard to sustain the stage financially. The decline was
r apid. Ironically, the Indian-made films that p roved a major
challenge to the theatre were themselves fashioned on the very
same Parsi theatre that begot the Nurti. Notwithstanding the
language barrier, these films were able to seduce the audience
away from drama. The NUTti stuck to its fonnula and did not
change sufficiently to meet the new competition. (Other Parsi
inspired theatres in the region met with the same fate. )
Symbolically, the leading playhouse The Tow er Hall was
converted into a movie house, signalling the end of the brief but
lively epoch of the first Sinhala urban theatre.

Some of the” classical” Nurti pieces are occasionally revived
but if they hold audiences today, it is mainly because of their
beautiful melodies. Yet the form itself is far from dead: the
scores of · amateur theatricals presented during the major
Buddhist religious festivals (Ve·sak, Poson) are cast in the NUTti
mould, though they do not generally go by that name. One always
finds in them the amalgam of the melodramatic and the comic.
the sung and the declaimed dialogue, and the loose, episodic
structure so characteristic of the NUTti. The lavish spectacle of
the NUTti cannot be reproduced on the high booth stages put up
for these productions, but the same interest in costume prevails.

Incidentally, it is worth nothing that the presentation of plays
in connection: with the Vesak and Poson festivals has greatly
increased during the past few years. Though by no means solemn
in tone, these dramas are built around Buddhist themes and
J ataka tales (birth stories of the Buddha.) They are done largely
by inexperienced amateurs in wayside booths. They are enor-
mously popular with the bulk of the sightseers who throng the
streets during the festive nights. And like all folk theatre, they
are ” free shows. ”

, ‘=

I ‘.
‘II

II
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Sinhala theatre as a commercial, urban medium ended its first
phase with the arrival of the cinema and the consequent decline
of the Nurti. It tried again during the period of World War
II with another kind of product: a drama with a more imme-
diate social base and a tighter structure than the Nurti. Some-
times described as the Jayamanne plays (after one of the
principal writers and actors), these works treated contemporary
concerns and problems such as the evils of caste, and the dowry
system of marriage. But they were really domestic melodramas
peopled by characters rather over-endowed with emotion.

Though somewhat better constructed than the average Nurti
work, these plays were no great contribution to Sinhala drama-
turgy. They mixed the realistic and the far-fetched, the comic
and the sentimental in indiscriminate fashion; they also used
song, though not as extensively in the Nurti. Unlike their
predecessors on the commercial stage, however, the companies
that performed this drama toured the country, doing one-night
stands wherever basic stage facilities were available.

These plays filled a tangible gap in the entertainment field:
there was as yet no Sinhala-language cinema, and they brought
to the local audiences something that approximated to what the
Tamil and Hindi films purveyed. Before long, they themselves
migrated to the silver screen, and in its initial stages, the Sinhala
cinema (the first film was made in 1947) subsisted almost entirely
on them. The J ayamannes also became the first star names of the
Sinh ala screen.

MODERN DRAMA
The Nurti and the Jayamanne plays were merely the precur-

sors, not the begetters of the modern Sinhala drama. They set
the stage. so to speak, by establishing certain basic conventions,
such as the proscenium stage, the concept of play-writing, the
urban setting, etc. With them, the theatre made its transition to
the city. Modem Sinhala drama was born under other, more lite-
rary-oriented auspices namely, that of the Western-educated in-
telligentsia. For example, at the Ceylon University College (as
the nucleus of the present university system was known) , Sinhala

translations and adaptations of the modern classics were annually
presented. These productions, though seen only by a small,
initiated audience, were not mere academic exercises. Among
other things, they helped in the forging of a stage language free
from the ornate rhetoric of the Nurti, and the bombast of the
Jayamanne plays.

Meanwhile, several amateur theatrical groups outside the uni-
versity too were making sporadic attempts to produce works
suitable for a modern Sinhala stage that is, dramas not flowing
directly from the Nurti and the Jayamanne traditions. Here also
the inspiration was the Western drama.*

Such were the modest and tentative beginnings of the rapidly
enlarging stream of modern drama. At that time (not more than
three decades ago) the literati who took part in such activities
did not see much artistic value or aesthetic possibilities in the
indigenous theatres. They believed that the future development
of Sinhala drama depended on learning from and following,
appropriate international models, chiefly European ones. Since
they were thinking in terms of a realistic dialogue drama, this
was entirely logical there were no Sinhala models to follow.

Throughout the Forties and the early Fifties, various experi-
ments in dramatic writing and production were made along these
lines. Some were very successful (e.g. the adaptation of Gogol’s
The Inspector-General), but their wit and sparkle, and their
t heatrical polish were not sufficient to fire the imagination of
writers and entice new audiences to the theatre. The significant
breakthrough came in 1956 (in many ways a memorable year for
Sri Lanka) with a play called Mannme.

Ediriweera Sarachchandra, a profesor at the University, had
been studying the indigenous theatrical traditions for some years,
and exploring their possibilities for the creation of a non-realis-
tic dramatic form for the modern stage. ,In 1956 he startled the
-local ‘ theatre world- with Maname, a dramatisation of a

•

• WesteI”Il drama has continued to be an important . factor in the
development of modern SiIihala theatre. Productions of Western drama
in· English, however, have proved · to a . marginal presence, though not
an entirely insignificant one.

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Buddhist Jataka tale (already familiar to Kolam audiences) in
the Nadagam style. As a theatrical achievement, the new play
was as unexpect.ed as it was brilliant, for both patrons and prac-
titioners of the modern Sinhala drama had long consigned the
Nadagama to the limbo of things irrelevant to the contemporary
stage. ,

•

Maname, it must be emphasised, was not solely an attempt at
reviving a folk genre, as it is sometimes misconstrued to be. In
essence, what Sarachchandra did to was to extract certain for-
mal and technical elements from the the old Nadagama, and em-
ploy them in the fashioning of a modern non-realistic stage play.
The Nadagama, as noted earlier, used highly formalised methods
of presentation and a distinctive music. Sarachchandra adopted
the basic presentational methods (especially those relating to the
introduction of the dramatis personae), gesture, modes of speech,
and above all, the music. He also re-interpreted the old story-
” modernised” it, in a manner of speaking. Traditionally Maname
had been a quite anti-feminist moral fable. The story concerns
a prince, Maname, highly adept in the martial arts, who gets lost
in a forest on his journey home with his beautiful young bride.
They are discovered by a band of foresters. The king oi the
foresters desires the princess, and tells Maname to leave her
behind or face death. The prince kills the entire band, finally
overcomes the king and asks the princess for his sword to behead
the captive. She gives the scabbard to him and the sword to the
forester. Having killed Maname, the forester asks the princess to
take off all her jewellery. He then chides the princess for her
treacherous behaviour, and leaves with her belongings. Now
utterly alone, the princess ends her life by biting off her tongue.

Sarachchandra changed this traditional version in several
salient points. In his play, the forester-king dismisses his cohorts
and fights single-handed with the prince. The princess pleads for
his life, pointing out that he was valiant enough not to use his
armed followers. Maname is taken aback by this argument, and
momentarily relaxes his grip on the captive. The forester frees
himself, snatches the sword from the princess and kills the
prince. And he abandons her only when she confesses that she

•

fell in love with him the inst.ant she saw him, and indeed planned
to give the sword not to her husband but to him. The princess
does not kill herself but dies of a broken heart, as the choric
narrator reports to the audience. The chorus leader also com-
ments that he does not know who is to blame for the tragedy.

It , would be evident from this brief description that Sarach-
chandra’s concerns were very different from those of the makers
of traditional theatre. What he expressed was an emerging cons-
ciousness preoccupied with the problems of individual choice
and fulfilment, not with questions of .morality. The Nadagama
form enabled him to reduce the central experience to its essence
and project it with great power. And he made masterly use of the
musical element. Sarachchandra combed the e~tire Nadagama

‘repertoire, and chose the finest melodies available. The writing
itself was an achievement of a high order, superior to anything
heard on the Sinhala stage up to that time. Even at its best, the

•

Nurti language lacked stylistic integrity, and jarred the ear with
its indiscriminate mixing of the 9rnate and the homely. Sarach-
chandra maintained a consistent literary idiom of dramatic force
and much lyric beauty. With Maname, Sinhala dramatic writing
achieved some measure of poetic richness.

On the boards, all of this added up to superb theatre and a
moving dramatic experience. But, apart from pleasing its
audience, Maname stimulated the Sinhala theatre, fertilised it
with fresh ideas, gave intimations of new possibilities, brought
artistic respectability to drama composed in Sinhala, nnd helped
to attract a new audience. Although Maname burst upon the
theatre scene practically unannounced, it was not an isolated
event in the larger perspective. Politically, socially, culturally,
the nation was going through a very important period of change
and re-orientation:. One pervasive feature of these years was the
pre-occupation with questions of nationhood and cultural identity.
For a country that became independent only in 1947 after se\’eral
centuries of colonial rule, these were issue of major significance.
Their corollary, especially in a country with a high rate of litc-
,racy, was an increasing involvement with the national languages
and with traditional culture. Increasingly, it was being felt that

’27

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the people had to return to their traditional roots their language,
their religion, their arts if they were to achieve nationhood .

•

Maname was absolutely in keeping with this tide of feeling.
More, it was positive proof that the ideal of a national art was
no empty dream. .

In these different ways, then, Maname infused a fund of
• •

vitality, and brought a new direction into Sinhala drama. A spate
of experiments followed. And most of them drew upon tradi-
tional forms the Nadagama itself, Sokari, Thovil and folk
dance and music. Not unexpectedly, the experimentation revealed

•

both the pote;ntialities and the limitations of the indigenous
theatrical resources. It became apparent before long that the
pursuit of one particular genre was not the most fertile approach
to tradition .

The Nadagama proved to be an object lesson in this regard. The
playwrights . who essayed it faced the inescapable problem of
music. Being an operatic form, the N adagama places exceptional
demands on music and on a particular style of music at that.
And these demands the composers were unable to satisfy in ade-
quate measure. The existing body of N adagama songs was
neither large nor varied enough to meet the new situation.
Sarachchandra picked out the best melodies for Maname, and
for his second creation in the same style, Sinhabahu (1961), he
had to depend to some extent on new compositions.

The totally sung drama represented by the Nadagama was
gradually abandoned, though in the first flush of re-discovery,
it was regarded by many as the most promising form. Sarach-
chandra himself worked in it only twice. There were other
reasons besides the music for the disenchantment with the
Nadagama. Because of its high degree of stylisation, this forIll
could admit only a limited range of subject matter. Its conven-
tions seemed inhospitable to contemporary characters and
situations.

While the Nadagama was given up as too limited and too
demanding a fonn, the engagement with the traditional theatres

continued unabated, and the bulk of t he new works presented on
the Sinhala stage carried distinctive marks of the encounter. The

” ‘

poorest among the~ were no more than variety “shows”.
– – ~ –

Naturally, this seemingly excessive dependence on the traditional
drama generated a lot of criticism. It was argued’ that · Sinhala
drama was sacrificing content to ,the allurement of the recently-
found .theatrical modes. The function of drama in a changing
society, it was pointed out, was to deal with contemporary issues,
and this could be done , best in the realistic style. , ‘.

The criticism was not unfounded, for a good m any of the new
. , .

makers of Sinhala theatre appeared to be less int erested in” what
they said than how they said it. However, the debate did gene-
rate a lot of heat, and the Sinhala theatre seemed to divide itself

•

into two camps “thaathvika” and “shaileegatha-” meaning
realistic and non-realistic respectively. These appeared to be two
distinctive directions, and the playwright” it was said, had to
choqse one or the other. By tl1e mid-Sixties” however, the. pola,
rization became rather meaningless, for , the t wo paths , had
actually begun to converge.

Sinhala playwrights and directors now move with facility
through the entire territory, using any folk element that suits
their purpose, without strictly adhering to one single form. A few
among them, though, have refused . to venture into realistic
modes, maiQtaining that their particular approach to drama,
which is poetic, precludes realism. Strict naturalism, however, is
~ rarity on the Sinhala stage.

” Free experimentation with traditional forms has enabled the
Sinhala theatre to build up a rich storehouse of theatrical tools.
But the indigenous resources are far from exhausted; in fact,
they have only been touched .

. As in the other arts, in theatre too, the idea of .a specifically
Sinhala form which is distinctive and identifiable as such, is

•

proposed as a desirable and necessary goal. In this regard, it
may be said that modern Sinhala theatre does have an undeniable
flavour and character of its own, despite its obvious eclecticism:
At its finest, the modern Sinhala theatre is a harmonious, crea-
tive blend of Western and native concepts and coriventions, a
far cry from the Parsi pastiche that brought the Nurti into being.

29
S-A 20!;72

. ”
”

I •

. The high. standards attained in ·the ,best Sinhala productions of
today connote a remarkable achievement, considering the fact
that for almost everyone engaged in it, theatre is still a part-time

. ‘ – -.. . .
occupation. ‘A few young-players depend on ~ the theatre for their
livelihood, but ~n(fplaywright or Curector does. And as for~yst~-

.. – – _. . -‘ – – –
rriatic training, th~ most that Sinhala theatre people can claim

, ‘ – .
i~ particip~tion iI.1 short-term workshops and symposia aJ:>road.
They have learnt by doing and observing. ‘ . ~ .

~ As yet, the Sinhala theatre does not possess a large arid suffi-
ciently diversified body of dramatic literature, though new works
are being added to it each year. Playwrights are by custom their
.. – – –
own directors ~nd producers. Theat!ical production is. for the

. .. “._- – . – .. . – ..
most part· an ad ho~ proced,ur~ :: the pl8

~ ~

together Jor~ a specific drama, and. the group disbands. after the
periqrmances are over. Continuity and the ensemble spirit- are
~ . . • -by and . large missing. · ,.’., ~ –,

– … – ._”
~;-‘- – – . _., – . . – -‘

Except in the city of Colombo, facilities for theatrical rehearsal
and produCtion are minimal. Given these difficult and constrain-

ing circumstances. it is no wonder that there are numerous short-
. . – –

c()mings in th,e modern Sinhala theatre. Yet what it has accom-
plished in a brief two decades is undoubtedly impressive but
this must not be measured only in terms ‘ of thenumber of stage
productions of high quality that have been ‘presented . over ~ the
years,. Besides these, what h~ accrued to the whole art; aestheti-
cally and socially must also be taken into account.

In the first place, the theatre has won for itself a large and
loyal audience which is not confined to the metropolis, as was
the case in the Nurti days. In addition to performing in the
several theatres in Colombo, the productions tour extensively

. ‘

in the provinces, playing even in small townships previously
unexposed to drama. Since there are no regular theatres outside
Colombo, the troupes take with them the lighting equipment,
and even the curtains. Cinemas and school halls serve as on~
night theatres:

–
’30 •

•
•

The idea that theatre should be taken to the people is widely
accepted; and this is wholly understandable in a country where
the great majority of the population is rural. The government
itself is encouraging this trend: the Ministry of Cultural Affairs
recently initiated a programme of taking theatre to the remote
villages. Selected plays, given without a fee by the producers, are
shown in the open air free of charge to the rural audiences.

As this will suggest, the audience for modern theatre is
swelling, enlisting members from several social levels. In the
mid-Fifties, Sinhala drama was seen by a tiny minority the
bilingual intelligentsia. Now it is turning once again into a
popular art, but with a wider base than the Nurti.

The makers of the plays still come from the intelligentsia, but
no longer exclusively from the bilingual segment of the popula-
tion. The drama is now drawing its votaries from the ranks of
the Swabhasha educated. On the whole, they are young, and
bring to the art a great fund of enthusiasm and devotion. Despite
the uneven talents and diverse backgrounds, Sinhala theatre
people have shown a remarkable awareness of the social respon-
sibilities that attach to their art. Increasingly, their work is
moving closer to real-life experience and beginning to encoun-
ter the processes of social and cultural change.

They have helped to bring new recognition and respect for
theatre as a vital and important art. So has the state. Govern-
ment agencies such as the Ministries of Education and of
Cultural Affairs have actively interested themselves in the
development of drama. Since the late Fifties they have sponsored
island-wide drama competitions and assisted the theatre in a
variety of ways. The annual drama competition conducted by the
Ministry of Cultural Affairs through its Department of Cultural
Affairs has become the most important single event in the
theatre world as the showcase for new talent. Drama and theatre
were recently made part of the school curriculum, and a pro-
gramme of training drama teachers is now underway in the
University of Sri Lanka.

All of this has stimulated a large release of creativity in the
Sinhala theatre arts: they are alive and well and growing.

•

FOR FURTHER READING

(This is a select bibliography in which only English publications are
listed.)

AMBROSE, KAY. Classical Dances and Costumes of India. London,
1965.

CALLAWAY, JOHN. Yakkun Nattanawa and Kolam Nattanawa.
London, 1829.

DE ZOETE, BERYL. Dance and ~Iagic Drama in Ceylon. London, 1958.

GUNARATNE, DANDRIS DE SILVA. “Demonology and Witchcraft
in Ceylon “, Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society, volume IV, No. 13.

GUNAWARDANA, A. J., “Viewers as Healers: Aspects of Audience
Participation in a Ceylonese traditional theatre “, The Bulletin
of Association Internationale des Critiques de Theatre, No. 7
(June 1975).

—-. “Interview with E. R. Sarachchandra “, The Drama Review
T 50 (Spring 1971).

OBEYSEKARA, GANANATH. “The Ritual Drama of the Sannj
Demons: Collective Representations of Diseases in Ceylon”
Comparative Studies in Society and History, Volume 11, No.2.

PEIRIS, EDMUND Right Reverend. “The Origin and Development of
Simhala Nadagam “, Journal of the Sri Lanka Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, Volume XVIII.

PERTOLD, OTAKER. “The Ceremonial Dances of the Sinhalese “,
Archiv Orientalni, Volume II, reprinted as Volume Twenty of
The Ceyon Historical Journal.

SARACHCHANDRA, E. R. The Folk Drama is Ceylon. Colombo, 1966 .

TILAKASIRI, J. The Puppet Theatre of Asia. Colombo, 1968.

WIRZ, PAUL. ExorciSm and the Art of Healing in Ceylon. Leiden.
1954.

:33

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Credits: Photograph on cover shows a part of the bas .. relief done by Tiss. Ranasinche for the Navarangahala
The.tre; PI.tes I to V: Photographs by A. J. Gunawardan. ; PI.te VI : Photolraph by courtesy
of Trelici. Gun.wardan. : Plate VII : Photolraph by courtelY of Henry Jayasena.

•

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THOVIL Dancer

PLATE IT

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PLATE m

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PLATE IV

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l’LA,.E V

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PLATE VI

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THE CULTURE OF SRI LANKA

No.

1. Ancient Paintings and Sculpture

-Nandadeva Wijesekera

•
In Sri Lanka

•

2. A Background to Sinhala Traditional Music of Sri

Lanka C. de S. Kulatillake & Ranjan Abeysinghe

3 Literature of Sri Lanka C. E. Godakumbure

4 Puppetry in Sri Lanka J . Tilakasiri

5 Architecture of Sri Lanka C. E. Godakumbure

6 Theatre in Sri Lanka A. J. Gunawardana

7 Masks of Sri Lanka M. H. Goonatilleke

8 Dances of Sri Lanka W. B. Makulloluwa

9 Sokari of Sri Lanka M. H. Goonatilleka

10 National Languages of Sri

-,J. B. Disanayaka

Lanka I Sinhala

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11 National Languages of Sri Lanka II Tamil

-K. Kailasapathy & A. Sanmugadas

THIS IS A SERIES OF MONOGRAPHS

ISSUED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS,

135, DHARMAPALA MAWATHA, COLOMBO 7, (SRI LANKA)

Rs.5.00

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