Four Sanskrit Plays

Extract

Professor Konow in his work on the Indian Drama (Grundrissder Indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, ii, 2 D, 1920) gives an account of the Sanskrit bhāna as follows:

“ A popular origin belongs to the bhāna also. The subject matter is due to the author's invention; the vrtti is predominantly the bhāratī, the kaisikī, at any rate, being excluded, and of the ‘junctions ’ (sandhi) only the first (mukha) and the last (nirvahana) appear. The leading interests (rasa) are the heroic (vīra) and the erotic (śrngāra), which are evoked by the description of heroisms and fortune in love. The whole is enacted by a single actor, who appears as a rake (vita), and indeed as the rake-in-chief of the city. He describes partly his own experiences, partly those of others, employing ākāsabhāsitas, voices in the air (ākāse), that is, he pretends to see and hear others act and speak and asks ‘what do you say ?', himself then repeating the imagined answer. He accompanies this with the appropriate gestures. It is clear that the bhāna is a development from the pantomime or mimetic dance, and so it is intelligible that the Iāsyāngais employed.”