Thirty-two years have elapsed since the appearance of Professor Sylvain Lévi’s admirable treatise, Le théâtre indien, the first adequate sketch of the origin and development of the Indian drama and of Indian dramatic theory. Since then the discovery of important fragments of the dramas of the great Buddhist poet Açvaghoṣa, and of the plays of the famous Bhāsa, has thrown unexpected light on the early history of the drama in India; the question of the origin of the drama has been the subject of elaborate investigation by Professors von Schroeder, Pischel, Hertel, Sir W. Ridgeway, Lüders, Konow, and myself; and the real significance and value of the Indian theory of the dramatic art have been brought out by the labours of Professor Jacobi. The time is therefore ripe for a fresh investigation of the origin and development of the drama in the light of the new materials available.

To bring the subject matter within moderate compass, I have confined it to the drama in Sanskrit or Prākrit, omitting any reference to vernacular dramas. I have also omitted from the account of the theory of drama all minor detail which appeared to have no more than the interest of ingenuity in subdivision and classification; I have had the less hesitation in doing so, because I have no doubt that the value and depth of the Indian theory of poetics have failed to receive recognition, simply because in the original sources what is important and what is valueless are presented in almost inextricable confusion. In tracing the development of the drama, I have laid stress only on the great writers and on dramatists who wrote before the end of the first millennium; of later works I have selected a few typical specimens for description; it seemed needless to dwell on plays which in the main show an excessive dependence [6]on older models and on the text-books of dramatic theory, and whose chief merit, when they have any, lies in skill and taste in versification. Valuable bibliographies of the dramas are contained in Mr. Montgomery Schuyler’s Bibliography of the Sanskrit Drama (1906), and in Professor Konow’s treatise, and it has seemed needless to do more than refer to the most important and accessible editions of the plays mentioned and to treatises which have appeared since the publication of these works.

Though the limits of space available have precluded any full investigation of the style of the dramatists, I have not followed Professor Lévi in leaving this aspect out of consideration. The translations given of the passages cited are intended merely to convey the main sense; I have therefore left without discussion difficulties of interpretation and allusion, and have resorted to prose. Verse translations from Sanskrit sometimes attain very real merit, but normally only in a way which has little affinity with Sanskrit poetry. H. H. Wilson’s versions of Sanskrit dramas in his Theatre of the Hindus for this reason, and also because the prose of the dramas is turned into verse, thus fail, despite their many intrinsic merits, to convey any precise idea of the effect of a Sanskrit drama.

I am indebted to my wife for much assistance and criticism.

A. BERRIEDALE KEITH.

Edinburgh University,
April, 1923. [7]