The Recognition of Sakuntala

Performance in the Indian cultural tradition began as early as 1500 BCE, with the Rigveda, the oldest extant book of Hinduism, containing several hymns and dialogues meant to be chanted and performed. These elements began to crystallize into plays, possibly in the first few centuries before the common era. One of the earliest extant plays in Sanskrit is The Clay Cart, written by Sudraka in the second century CE.

The first few centuries CE marked the apex of classical Sanskrit drama, during which playwrights such as Bhasa and Kalidasa wrote the best-known plays of Sanskrit theater. An important work, The Natyashastra or the Drama Manual, attributed to Bharat Muni, was also composed during this period, containing a comprehensive set of rules for composing and performing plays. The Natyashastra has been considered seminal to the development of Sanskrit drama; however, recent critics believe the conventions prescribed in the manual were by no means as rigidly practiced as earlier thought. Therefore, classical Sanskrit drama should be studied keeping both The Natyashastra and the actual, individual texts in mind.

One of the most important features of classical Sanskrit drama was the absence of tragedy in the western sense. Only two works of Sanskrit tragedy have been discovered so far, both written by Ashwaghosha in the first or second century CE. After Ashwaghosha, tragedy becomes almost absent from the Sanskrit tradition. However, this observation uses Greco-Roman-centered definitions of tragedy. In the Sanskrit theatre, the tragic element or mood was very much present, but incorporated into the middle of the play. In The Recognition of Sakuntala, for instance, Sakuntala and Dusyanta’s long separation constitutes a tragic middle, filled with the emotions of longing and grief.

Another important element of Sanskrit drama is that it contained a polyphony of voices and oratorial styles. Though called “Sanskrit drama,” the plays often include many stretches of dialogue in different Prakrits (dialects of Sanskrit). While upper-class male characters such as Dusyanta would speak in Sanskrit, upper-class women like Sakuntala and Priyamvada would speak a (so-called) refined version of Prakrit. Lower-class characters, like the fisherman, would speak a variant of Prakrit considered cruder. It is also important to note that much of the dialogue would be in the form of song. Music, song, and dance are very important elements of Sanskrit plays. In fact, the “natya” in The Natyashastra refers both to nataka (play), and nritya (dance).

The classical Sanskrit play typically derives its plot from a legend or story from the epic and folk traditions of India. The Recognition of Sakuntala is based on a story from the great epic The Mahabharata. While the settings are described in detail, the use of props is minimal, with actors often using mime instead of props to denote action. The mudra or gesture is extremely important in acting: Plays often contained detailed stage directions for the performers, since specific gestures needed to be enacted with the dialogue for the audience to get its full import.

The Natyashastra also details the crucial theory of the nine rasas or moods, which should inform a narrative. The rasas ranged from hasya (comedy) to sringara (love, beauty, and eroticism) to bibhatsa (the grotesque and the terrifying). These moods were evoked by specific speeches, gestures, costumes, actions, settings, the choice of occupation for characters, and more. The Recognition of Sakuntala is predominated by the sringara mood, as well as the vir rasa, the heroic mood.