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The Sanskrit drama

Chapter 110: I
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About This Book

A scholarly study traces the origins, development, theory, and practice of classical Indian drama written in Sanskrit and Prākrit, examining ritual and Vedic antecedents, the Nāṭyaśāstra’s account of divine origin, and debates prompted by newly discovered early fragments. It analyzes major dramatists and representative plays through the first millennium, outlines technical principles of poetics and stagecraft—such as rasa, characterization, metre, and performance conventions—and distinguishes theoretical prescriptions from later imitative works. The author confines discussion to literary-dramatic traditions, omitting vernacular theatre, and emphasizes how textual confusion in sources complicates but also illuminates understanding of classical dramatic art.

[Contents]

I

Iason, actor, 59.

Idealism of Sanskrit drama, 276.

Illuminator (dīpaka), a figure of speech, 331.

Imitation, of Açvaghoṣa (Buddhacarita, xiii. 60), by Bhāsa, 118.
of Bhāsa, by Kālidāsa, 124–6;
by Bhavabhūti, 187, n. 2;
in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, 131, 140.
of Kālidāsa, by Harṣa, 175, 176;
by Bhavabhūti, 193.
of the Mṛcchakaṭikā (wrongly questioned in JRAS., 1923, p. 592), by Viçākhadatta, 208.

Incident (prakarī), 297, 298, 299.

Incoherent talk (asatpralāpa), 329.

Indian philosophy, the product of the Brahmins, 276.

Individuality, of characterization, not aimed at in Sanskrit drama, 282, 353.

Indra, dialogues introducing, 14, 15, 19;
monologue of drunken, 18, 19;
referred to, 267, 303.

Indra’s banner, origin of drama in festival of, 41, 369.

Indra III, Rāṣṭrakūṭa, 239.

Infinitive, form of, in Açvaghoṣa, 87.

Internal junctures, see Antarasandhi.

Interval of time, between Acts, 301.

Intoxication (mada), as a dramatic motif, 303.

Introduction (āmukha), 328.

Invention of the poet, when allowed, 277, 296, 297, 346, 348, 349.

Ionian, equivalent to Greek, and also used more widely, 61.

Irāvatī, a queen, in the Mālavikāgnimitra, 148, 149, 155, 157.

Irony, in Bhāsa, 119;
in Bhavabhūti, 192, n. 1, 194.

Irregularities of Sanskrit, in Açvaghoṣa, 85, 86;
in Bhāsa, 120, 121.

Īçvarasena, an Ābhīra prince, 129.

I-Tsing, 168, 171.