Natyashastra is the earliest literature on music and drama – written somewhere around 500 BC by Bharata Muni. Comprising 6000 couplets in Sanskrit and spread over thirty-six chapters, Natyashastra’s focus was on dance and drama, with music as an aid. The title is a combination of two Sanskrit words – Natya and Shastra. Natya refers to technique of dance and drama, and shastra refers to science. It is the magnum opus that describes – relation between director and audience, structuring a play, acting techniques, costumes and make-up, music and musical instruments to be used, the dimensions of the stage and its decorations with lighting, and size of the hall and seating of audience. Directors and producers of plays mention that its relevance is high even in this date and age.
Chapters 28
to 33 dwell on music – vocal and instrumental (melodic and rhythmic) and their
deployment in drama/theatre. Thus, we may categorise Bharata Muni’s description
of music as (1) vocal, (2) instrumental, (3) vocal and instrumental, (4)
preliminary music (as in before the drama begins or just at the commencement of
drama, and (5) Dhruva music – authored by the director and set to music.
Reading these particular chapters will definitely guide you on how to become a singer.
Natyashastra
classifies instruments as (1) “tata” – stringed, (2) “avanadha” – covered percussion,
(3) “sushira” – hollow (flute), and (4) “ghana” – rhythm supports like cymbals.
This knowledge of different instruments is essential for those who want
to learn singing too. The text has even codified the
dimensions of the instruments, the material to be used, the treatment of the
material before they are deployed, and the artisanship to convert the various
parts into a single whole instrument. Artisans involved in handcrafting/making
instruments today too follow the broad directions mentioned in Natyashastra.
Bharata Muni
stressed on a 22 swara octave. Swaras are the first elements of music taught to
students when they start to learn singing. It is said he performed a large public
experiment to demonstrate the 22 swaras. While the concept of a raga did not
exist and was not named so, jaatis and murchanas made up for this lack of
definition. Natyashastra defines these in detail in addition to explaining the
organising of swaras as vadi, samvadi, anuvadi and vivadi for the jaatis and
murchanas.
Bharata Muni
expounded the relationship between performers and audience through rasa-bhava
anubhava. He elucidated eight types of “rasas” and their corresponding “bhavas”
that is emotions. A “rasa” is an emotional state. Very simply put, it means
“juice” or sap. A “rasa” is usually the dominant emotional theme through a work
of art. It is the delight and pleasure experienced directly from art. “Bhava”
means to become. It is a state of mind whose outcome is a “rasa”. Knowing how to sing with
emotion is an important skill to master if you want to learn to sing well.
Bhava is the
emotion felt by the character and communicated to the audience via various
dramatizations by the performer, resulting in the audience experiencing the
rasa. As per Bharata, bhava by itself is incomplete and carries no meaning
without the rasa.
Indian tradition attributes divine origin to the Sanskrit Dance. At the request of the gods who desired to have something which would delight both the ears and eyes of all the created beings, the creator composed the Natyaveda taking the element of recitationfrom the RgVeda, song from the SamaVeda, gestures from the YajurVeda and sentiment from the AtharvaVeda, Shiva and Parvati contributed to the part of dance, the former giving his Tandava and the latter her Lasya. Vishnu brought forth the four dramatic styles called ‘kOiSakI’ ‘saa%vatI’ ‘BaartI’ ‘AarBaTI’. Sage Bharata was authorised to transfer it to the world and make it popular which he accordingly. This Natyaveda came to be also called the ‘Fifth Veda’.
The Characteristic features of Dance
The dramatic representation ³naaT\yama\´ consists in the imitation of a condition or a state in life ‘AvasqaanauÌit: naaTyama\’ or of an occurrence happening in the world ‘laaokvaR<aanaukrNaM naaTyama\’. The purpose of such representation is set forth thus in Bharata’s NatyaSastra:
‘]<amaaQamamaQyamaanaaM naraNaaM
kma-saMEayama\. ihtaopdoSajananaM QaRitËIDasauKaidÌt\..
du:Kaqaa-naaM Eamaaqaa-naaM Saaokata-naaM
tpisvanaama\.ivaEaaintjananaM laaoko naaT\yamaptnmayaa Ìtma\..’
The dramatic
representation is to be based on the activities of people of three types –
high, middle and low. It must give people good instruction and provide them
with cheer, pastime and pleasure. It must afford rest and diversion at the
proper hour to those who are afflicted with misery and grief. All these show
that the Sanskrit drama is based on actual life and has a realistic touch. When
it is mentioned by Bharata that the dramatic representation is
intended to give good advice to people, to provide them with
diversion, sports etc. it is suggested that people who witness a dramatic
performance are to enjoy it. The individual who witnesses the drama has
therefore an emotion aroused in him reaching to aesthetic pleasure.
The theme ³[itvaR<ama\´ of
a play may be based on the traditional source, on the imagination of the
dramatist and on an admixture of both. The Epics and Upakhyanas have supplied
much material for the dramatists.
Next to the plot, the characters come to occupy importance in the Sanskrit
dramas. The division of the characters into male and female and into high,
middle and low imparts reality to the plays. The heroes are of four types viz.,
Dhirodatta - ‘QaIraoda<a:’ Dhiroddhata
- ‘QaIraowt:’ Dhiralalita
- ‘QaIrlailat:’ Dhirasanta
- ‘QaIrSaant:’. While heroism
and fortitude are common to all, sublimity, amorous gaity, tranquillity and
boisterousness are respectively their distinctive features. As lovers,
they are of four types viz., Anukta, Dakshina, Dhrshta and Satha. Next to the
hero, the Vidushaka plays a useful part in the drama. He is a Brahmin, foolish
and is depicted as a minister of love affairs. He talks in Prakrtam. Among the
women characters, the heroine occupies an important place. All women characters
speak in Prakrtam.
Next to the plot or Vastu and Neta or hero, Rasa or sentiment plays an
important role in Sanskrit dramas. The sentiment of love is the subject of most
of the Indian dramas and we very often find the repetition of the same dramatic
motif and sometimes of the same dramatic situations in many plays. But the
Indian dramatist is rarely excelled in the masterly manner in which he
describes the intricate working of the lover’s heart. Rasa or sentiments are
nine in number.
‘EaR=\gaarhasyakÉNaa
raOd`vaIrBayaanaka:.baIBa%saad\BautSaantaSca rsaa: PaUvaO-Éda)ta:..’
Sringara or the
erotic, Vira or the heroic, Karuna or the pathos, Hasya or the comic, Raudra or
the furious, Bhayanaka or the frightful, Bhibatsa or the loathsome, Adbhuta or
the wonderful and Santa or the trsnquil are the nine rasas. Four different
kinds of dramatic styles are prescribed in works of dramaturgy to suit the
various sentiments and they are called Kaisiki, Arabhati,Satvati and Bharati.
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