Bhāsa
Bhāsa is one of the earliest and most celebrated Indian playwrights in Sanskrit. However, very little is known about him.
Kālidāsa in the introduction to his first play Malavikagnimitram writes – Shall we neglect the works of such illustrious authors as Bhāsa, Saumilla, and Kaviputra? Can the audience feel any respect for the work of a modern poet, a Kālidāsa?
Bhāsa is dated between the 2nd century BCE and 2nd century CE. Based on the language used, his date is also supposed to be around 5th century BC. The plays of Bhāsa had been lost for centuries. He was known only from mention in other works like the famous text on poetics Kavyamimamsa written during 880–920 AD by Rajashekhara a famous poet, dramatist and critic. In the Kavyamimamsa, he attributes the play Svapnavasavadatta to Bhāsa.
In the year 1909 the play 'Swapnavasavadattam' was discovered by Pandit Anandalvar of the Archeological survey of Mysore, two years later the Mahamahopadhyaya T. Ganapati Sastri came upon 13 Sanskrit plays that were used in the Koodiyattam plays. The first discovery yielded ten complete manuscripts (Swapnavasavadattam, Pratigya Yaugandharayana, Pancharatra, Charudatta, Dootaghatotkacha, Avimaraka, Balacharita, Madhyamavyayoga, Karnabhara and Urubhanga) and fragments of one. Later, he found two more: Abhisheka and Pratimanataka. Finally, he found intact manuscript of Dootavakyam, adding up to total thirteen plays believed to be authored by Bhasa. Unlike other classical plays, none of them mentioned the author, but one was the Swapnavāsavadatta. Comparing the style of writing and techniques employed in these plays and based on the knowledge that Swapnavāsavadatta was Bhāsa's work, all of them were credited to him. Some scholars have disputed Bhāsa's authorship of all the plays but over the years the plays have generally come to be ascribed to Bhāsa.
Bhāsa does not follow all the dictates of the Natya Shastra. This has been taken as a proof of their antiquity; no post-Kālidāsa play has been found to break the rules of the Natya Shastra's. Bhāsa allows scenes that contain signs of physical violence to be shown on stage in plays like Urubhanga. This is strictly frowned upon by Natya Shastra.
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