Indian Theatre/Drama

Indigenous tradition as well as modern research traces the origin of Indian drama to the Vedas. In the Ramayana we hear of drama troupes of women while Kautilya’s Arthshastra mentions musicians, dancers and dramatic shows.

• Bharata wrote Natyashastra and created the plays known as Asura Parajaya and Amrit Manthan. The next epoch is that of the great Bhasa who wrote plays based on the stories of Udayana, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, Swapana Vasabdatta being his masterpiece.
• In the second century B.C., Patanjali’s Mahabhasya refers to several aspects of drama i.e., the actors, the music, the stage, rasa in the performances called ....