Bhāsa
Bhāsa is one of the earliest and most celebrated
Bhasa's plays had been lost for centuries until the manuscripts were rediscovered in 1913 by the Indian scholar
In the introduction to his first play Mālavikāgnimitram,
Date
Bhāsa's date of birth is uncertain: he likely lived after
Indian scholar M.L. Varadpande dates him as early as 4th century BCE.[1] According to British scholar Richard Stoneman, Bhasa may have belonged to the late Maurya period at the earliest, and was already known by the 1st century BCE. Stoneman notes that the thirteen plays attributed to Bhasa are generally dated closer to the 1st or 2nd century CE.[3] Other scholarly estimates of Bhasa's floruit range from the late 2nd century CE[7] to the 4th century CE.[8][2]
Bhāsa's works do not follow all the dictates of the
Discovery of his plays
In 1912 Mahamahopadhyaya
Plays of Bhāsa
The Uru-Bhanga and Karna-bhara are the only known tragic Sanskrit plays in ancient India. Though branded the villain of the Mahabharata, Duryodhana is the actual hero in Uru-Bhanga shown repenting his past as he lies with his thighs crushed awaiting death. His relations with his family are shown with great pathos. The epic contains no reference to such repentance. The Karna-bhara ends with the premonitions of the sad end of Karna, another epic character from Mahabharata. Early plays in India, inspired by Natya Shastra, strictly considered sad endings inappropriate.[11]
The plays are generally short compared to later playwrights and most of them draw on themes from the Indian epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana. Though he is firmly on the side of the heroes of the epic, Bhāsa treats their opponents with great sympathy. He takes a lot of liberties with the story to achieve this. In the Pratima-nataka, Kaikeyi who is responsible for the tragic events in the Ramayana is shown as enduring the calumny of all so that a far noble end is achieved.[12]
Plays based on Ramayana
- Pratima-nataka: The statues
- Yagna-Phalam:[13]
- Abhisheka-natka: The coronation
Plays based on Mahabharata
- Panch-ratra: The five-nights
- Madhyama-vyayoga: The middle one
- Duta-Ghattotkacha: Ghattotkacha as envoy
- Duta-Vakya : The envoy's message
- Urubhanga: The broken thigh
- Karnabharam: Karna's burden
- Harivamsa or Bala-charita: Hari's dynasty or the tale of Childhood
The Duta-Vakya and Bala-charita are perhaps the only Sanskrit plays by a famous playwright with Krishna as the central character.
His other plays are not epic based. Avimaraka is a fairy tale, which later became part of a
His most famous plays —
Though his plays were discovered only in the 20th century, two of them, Uru-Bhanga and Karna-bhara, have become popular due to their appeal to modern tastes and have been performed in translation and in Sanskrit.
Many of Bhasa's plays are staged in Koodiyattam even now, like parts of Pratijna-Yaugandharayana, Abhisheka-nataka etc.
Modern revival
The first person to revive Bhasa in modern
Waman Kendre did an adaptation of Madhyama Vyāyoga in three different languages: O My Love in English, Mohe Piya in Hindi and Piya Bawari in Marathi.[18]
The legendary
See also
- Sanskrit literature
- Sanskrit drama
- Urubhanga
Notes
- ^ ISBN 978-81-7017-221-5.
The earliest known Indian playwright Bhasa (c. 400 BC) wrote about 13 plays.
- ^ ISBN 978-81-208-1589-6
- ^ ISBN 978-0-691-15403-9.
- ^ C. R. Devadhar (1966) "Mālavikāgnimitram of Kālidāsa", p.3
- ^ ISBN 978-81-208-0977-2
- ISBN 978-81-208-0056-4
- ISBN 978-0-674-97527-9. Retrieved 4 February 2024.)
Bhasa probably lived in the late second century
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link - ^ Kroeber, Alfred Louis (1944), Configurations of Culture Growth, University of California Press, p. 419, GGKEY:Q5N845X8FFF,
His date cannot be much earlier than 300, nor later than 350
- ^ V. Venkatachalam (1986) "Bhāsa", p.14
- ^ Īndū Shekhar (1 May 1978). Sanskrit Drama: Its Origin and Decline. Brill Archive. pp. 44–. GGKEY:3TX00B7LD6T.
- ^ K. P. A. Menon (1996) "Complete plays of Bhāsa", p.28
- ^ Govind Keshav Bhat(1968) "Bhāsa-studies", p.47
- ^ "The Yajnaphala Of Mahakavi Bhasa".
- IMDb
- ^ Ahlborn, Matthias (2006) Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa : digitalisierte Textkonstitution, Übersetzung und Annotierung, Universität Würzburg, Dissertation (German translation)
- ^ Dharwadker, p. 167
- ^ Dharwadker, p. 105
- ^ "Interview with Waman Kendre". Mumbai Theatre Guide. Retrieved 25 July 2015.
References
- Thirteen Trivandrum plays ascribed to Bhāsa( 2 Vols), translated by H.C.Woolner, Lakshman Sarup, 193
- Nātyakalpadruma, Kerala Kalamandalam, Vallathol Nagar
- Dharwadker, Aparna Bhargava (2005). Theatres of independence: drama, theory, and urban performance in India since 1947. University of Iowa Press. ISBN 0-87745-961-4.
- Encyclopaedia of Indian Theatre: Bhasa, by Biswajit Sinha, Ashok Kumar Choudhury. Raj Publications, 2000. ISBN 81-86208-11-9.
Further reading
- A.D. Pusalker : Bhasa – a study. Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi, India 1968
- V. Venkatachalam : Bhasa (A monograph in the 'Indian Men of Letter Series'), Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 1986; Second Edn. 1994; (pp. 16+192) (Translated into Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada and Telugu-Pub. By Sahitya Akademi)