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Essay name: Hastalaksanadipika a critical edition and study

Author: E. K. Sudha
Affiliation: Government Sanskrit College (Tripunithura) / Department of Sanskrit

This is an English study on the Hastalaksanadipika—a manual depicting the Mudras (gestures) of the Kerala theatre. It is a very popular text supposedly dating to the 10th century A.D. This study also touches the subject of Krsnanattam, Kathakali and Kutiyattam—some of India's oldest theatrical traditions in Kerala.

Chapter 2 - Bharata’s Dramaturgy

Page:

13 (of 56)


External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)


Download the PDF file of the original publication


Copyright (license):

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)


Warning! Page nr. 13 has not been proofread.

to mean the play and the word rūpaka has come to stand for the play. While Bharata used the word rūpa alone, Abhinavagupta used both the words, rūpa and rūpaka to mean, 'The play'. Bharata named the chapter dealing with the types of plays as Dasarūpa (ten types of plays), but Dhananjaya named his work on the ten types of plays as Daśarūpaka. All creative works are classified as śravya (the auditory) and dṛśya (the visual). While the visual can be enjoyed when it is acted on the stage also, the auditory can only be appreciated when read or heard. The dṛsyakavyas (the plays-visual) have been further classified depending on the supremacy of word or music. When the word rules, it is called a Rūpaka (a major play) and when music and dance predominate, it is called Uparūpaka (a minor play). In the rūpakas, dance and song have no specific purpose to achieve, while the story and dialogue, establishing the characters and a message are important. 45 Bhrata has classified rūpakas into ten depending on the text
and added one more, the Nāṭika. The ten forms are Nātaka, Prakaraṇa,
Anka, Vyāyōga Bhāṇa, Samavakāra, Vidhi, Prahasana, Dima and
Ihāmṛga. Nāṭikā is a derivative of the two forms, Nāṭaka and Prakaraṇa
and so the later authors mentioned it as a Janyarupaka, the derived play.
Nāṭaka, Prakaraṇa, Bhāṇa, Vidhi, Anka and Prahasana are the plays of
delicate type while the rest are virile.

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