Hello everyone, in this lecture we are going to familiarize ourselves with 10 dramatic forms and their subdivisions that Bharata mentions in his Natyashastra. Bharata calls them Rupakas. Because these are the art forms that are to be enjoyed by seeing.
These ten dramatic forms or rupakas that Bharata and his successors mention include Nataka, Prakarana, Paana, Vyayoga, Samavakara, Dima, Ehamrga, Anga, Veethi and Prahasana. First, let us take a look at Nataka. Nataka is generally considered to be the highest form of drama.
This form of drama is based on a story that is well known to the readers or spectators. And the hero of a Nataka should always be a great king who is the embodiment of all the virtues one can think of. He should be known for his great beauty and his great noble, courageous and powerful. In a Nadaka there will be 5 to 10 Ankas or acts. Although there are different Rasas in a Nadaka, all these Rasas should be subordinate to one overarching Rasa or aesthetic emotion.
Sringara Rasa or the aesthetic emotion of the erotic and Veera Rasa or the aesthetic emotion of the heroic are usually the two Rasas that dominate a Nadaka. Although this is the general convention we should also remember that there are exceptions to this rule as in the case of bhava buddhi's uttararama charita where the dominant rasa is karuna rasa or the aesthetic emotion of grief in a nadaka there would be four to five characters to help the hero achieve the goal he has set out to accomplish even though there are various uploads in a nadaka all these subplots come to an end before the completion of the main plot with which the Nataka finally ends. Vishwanatha in his Sahitya Darbhana compares the position of the subplots in the Nataka to the tail of a cow. Just as the tail of a cow narrows down towards its end, so also a Nataka will complete other stories in it early and will finally focus only on the main plot. Perda also mentions that the playwright should strictly avoid the representation of certain acts in a Nadaka.
These representations that are banned in a Nadaka include sex, death, cursing, revolution, sleeping, kissing, bathing, application of oil on the body, detention, etcetera. They are avoided from the ambit of a Nadaka precisely because they can cause shame or uneasiness to the spectators or readers. There are five stages for a hero of a Nadaka through which he will have to go to accomplish his final goal. And these five stages include Aramtha or the beginning, Yatna or the effort, Praptiyasa or the possibility of success, Niyatapti or the certainty of success and Palagama or the achievement of the goal.
Aramtha marks the desire to achieve the goal. Yatna involves the effort for the success. same.
Praptiasha deals with the uncertainty on the part of the hero about the possibility of achieving the goal. And Niyatapti involves the removal of the doubt about the possibility of the success. And finally, Palagama involves the attainment or achievement of the desired goal.
All these five stages should be well incorporated within five Santhis or Joins. They are called Santhis or Joins in accordance with the rules of the world. with their function, since they are the parts of the plot which are joined together to make the play.
Scholars like Bharata insist that a Nataka should have five Santhis or joins such as Mukha, Pradimukha, Garbha, Vimarsha and Nirvahana. Mukha is the opening of the story. Pradimukha refers to the development of the story. Garbha marks the center of the plot.
Vimarsha refers to the struggle of the hero. to achieve his goal and finally, Narva Hanna refers to the conclusion where all the conflicts will finally, be resolved and the focus will be exclusively on the main plot. According to Bharata, there are also So, five stages for the unfolding of the story in a Nadaka namely Bija, Bindu, Karya, Prakari and Pataka of these three namely Bija, Bindu and Karya are of particular importance. I will explain these with reference to the play Abhijana Shakuntala by Kalidasa.
Ingalls has explained these stages in detail in his translation of Ananda Varthana's Thuanyaloka. Okay, in the play Sagundala, the beja or the seed first appears in act 1 verse 11, where the ascetic who greets Dushyanta blesses him with the words, may you obtain a son who shall be a universal monarch. In this context, the achieving of such a son becomes the seed of the whole drama.
This is actually the real cause of all the action. The Bindu, which literally means drop, appears in Act 2 after verse 7. Bindu is the device by which the flow of the story, which is momentarily interrupted, is restored. Here, the primary aim of the drama gets interrupted by the general of the army, who plants the king's heart. hunting expedition in the forest. Then the Bindu appears in the form of Dushyantra's cancelling of the hunting expedition and his conversation with the clown where he in fact confesses his love for Shakutala.
Thus the drop sets the main action in motion again. The metaphor of a drop may have arisen by a reference to a drop of oil which spreads out over water or by reference to the continuous continuous dripping of ghee which keeps the fire burning. The Kavya, Karya or result comes in act 5 with Dushyantas discovery and recognition of his son.
The Prakari and Pataka are two types of interludes, long and short respectively in which the chief characters do not appear. They do help the plot move forward by introducing events which the readers cannot discover. from the action directly represented by or through the hero and the heroine. In pragari, there will be a sub hero who does not have any individual aim on his own. His sole aim will be to help the hero.
The player should pay attention to conclude the pragari incident either in the garpa sandhi or in the vimarsha sandhi. The same holds true for pataka as well. The only difference between between prakari and pataka is that prakari is shorter than the pataka. Now we can put all these three elements in perspective.
Bija and arampha will together make mukha sandhi. Bindu and yatna will constitute pratimukha sandhi. Garpha is constituted by pataka and pratyasha. Prakari and niyatapti will make vimarsha and finally karya and phalagama will make vimarsha. will constitute nirvahana.
The avastas, sandhis and the artha pragradhis may be distinguished functionally as follows. The avastas are the stages of the causal process from onset to denumer. The sandhis are the plot segments corresponding to these stages.
The artha pragradhis are five factors which stimulate the action through the course of these stages and segments. At the end of a drama, a celestial character or a character of great stature will appear on stage and bless the other characters. Sometimes, this will be done by the hero. This concluding remark of wisdom is called Parada Vakya or the final remark of the drama.
Here, the word Parada in this context refers to the main character. The topic of a prakarana will be common place and the story of a prakarana will be purely the product of the poetic imagination. The dominant rasa of a prakarana would always be Sringara. The hero of a prakarana will always be either a minister, a brahman or a merchant.
The hero of this form of drama will be interested primarily in three purusharthas or goals of life, namely dharma, artha and kama. The heroine of a prakarana would be either a libertine or a noble woman. Sometimes both these types will occupy the position of a heroine. If a prakarana has libertine as the heroine, there will be characters such as a rogue or a gambler.
Sudraga's Mircha Kadiga is an example of a pragarana. Here, the hero is a Brahmin and both the libertine and the noble heroines have equal role to play in the drama. I think that at this juncture, it is also important between Nataka and Prakara. Dr. Raghavan in his The Social Play in Sanskrit very succinctly distinguishes between Nataka and Prakara. According to Raghavan, the ideals that lie at the base of the social play in Sanskrit are the following.
of these two types, the Nataka and the Prakara are different. The two are distinct in a substantial manner. The aim of the poet in the Nataka is to present what has been conceived as the highest type of human personality.
The sublime type called the Hero Data. This is a heroic ideal. On the other hand, in the Prakara, the poet is out to hold up the mirror to the world, to depict society. variety as it is in its rank and file.
As the name signifies, it gives life's metly and a whole train of virtues which the type naturally engenders finds cop here, provided the dramaticities up to the mark. Virtues that come in the train of variety of incident and individuality of character. So, these are the major differences between a Nataka and a Prakara. The Nataka celebrates the accomplishments of the kings and presents how they establish the dharma in this process.
The prakarana on the other hand deals with affairs of the subjects belonging to the middle rung of the society such as a Brahmin, a minister, a soldier, a merchant and so on. The story of prakarana need not be well known to the readers and it could be a fictitious one invented by the poet. Prakarana always attempts to depict the conditions in the society as they are. Srinivasa Rahu says that while the idealism of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the result of the Nataka, the social life depicted in Brihat Katha is generally the source of the prakarana. Bhaana, it is said that the term Bhaana is derived from the root Paan which means to speak.
Farada explains Bhaana as a monologue narrated by a single actor and yet its theme is full of various characters. and situations in Bhana the characters do not enter the stage but are heard indirectly through the mouth of the actor who is out on stage Bhana comprises of only one Anka and the And the story of a Bhana revolves around typically the life of an extravagant person. He will be narrating either his own story or the story of a different person.
The style that is mostly used in Bhana is Paradevrti. In Bhana there are only two Sandhis namely Mukha or the beginning and Nirvahana or the conclusion. Not many of the ancient Bhana scripts have survived.
In the early years of the 20th century, M. Ramakrishna Kavi and S. K. Ramananda Shastri discovered the MSS of four Bhana plays.
They edited and published them. Upaya Apisarika of Varaduji, Patma Prabhartaka of Shudraga and Dhurta Vitta Samvada of Eswara Datta are a few examples of Bhana. Here I will briefly talk about the Dhurta Vitta Samvada since it gives us a good glimpse into the nature of of Epana. Thurthavitha Samvada has a narrator who has wasted his wealth in gambling and liquor. He is penniless now and his clothing is reduced to one garment.
The time at which the story is set is a rainy season. Finding the rainy season too depressing for him, the speaker comes out in search of some amusement. He eventually ends up in a street where courtesans actually live. The Though he is desirous of spending time with the courtesan, he does not have a single penny left with him. Finally, he reaches the house of the ragish couple who were then busily engaged in a discussion on certain awkward problems of sex act and then he gleefully joins the discussion and this is how the story actually goes.