The Polysemy of ‘Śāstra’ Apropos of the Nāṭyaśāstra

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The Polysemy of ‘Śāstra’ Apropos of the Nāṭyaśāstra

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    In order to understand the text in the Indian tradition an analogy would be pertinent. Whether it is the Mahābhārata or the Nāṭyaśāstra, these are texts with a seed which has a distinctiveness, like a genetic distinctiveness. It grows like a tree and it gives out shoots like aśvatha. In the case of the Natyasastra the possibility of multiple readings is inbuilt in the text; it does not explicitly state the possibilities of multiple texts or multiple writing. However, as we shall observe in a later chapter, it is from the seeds of this very text that other trees grow.

    Before we examine more closely the structure and contents of the Nāṭyaśāstra, it may also be useful to pause here to consider not only the general nature of text— verbal, oral or written– but the pointed question of what constitutes a sastra in the Indian tradition generally, more specifically in the arts. Why is a category of writing called a śāstra?

    There have been countless equivalents of the word śāstra in English, of ‘theory’, ‘code’, ‘manual’, ‘treatise’, ‘scientific text’. Also, śāstra is distinguished in literature and the arts as being a category distinct from the creative. While in the English language, we can easily use the terms ‘creative and critical literature’, ‘creative and technical literature’, when the terms are transferred to the sphere of the Indian, for that matter, the Asian arts, there is some difficulty. Can we juxtapose kāvya (poetry, epic or lyrical) and śāstra, and nāṭya (drama) and śāstra as being opposites or use a generic term as kalpanā (imagination) and racanā (composition) or and use the word sastra as an antonym or perhaps coin a pair sāhitya (literature) and samalocana (criticism) or kavitā (poetry) and samālocanā (criticism) as in contemporary parlance in Hindi and other literature?

    The śāstra within the tradition, cannot be equated, so far as one can gather, from the śāstras in different fields and disciplines, to ‘critical writing’ or criticism, as used in contemporary scholarship. Can we then equate the category of śāstra with theory, and then use it for the spheres of dharma, nīti, cikitsā, etc.? Can we juxtapose the term with the antonym of ‘practice’ and suggest another pair of binary opposites of modern discourse, i.e. of ‘theory’ and ‘praxis’? Or, can we speak of śāstra only as prescriptive and understand the word prayoga as experimentation and innovation as used in contemporary Indian literature, specially, Hindi?

    Let us look at both these levels. First, the domains of human activity and knowledge covered by the texts which can be categorized as sastra and second, the adjectival and adverbial use of the term when used as śāstrīya nṛtya, śāstric, etc.

    In regard to the first, one knows that within the Indian tradition, the range of subjects covered by the śāstras is extensive, as they cover all possible human activities– from cooking to horse and elephant breeding, performing, love-making to social conduct, economic organization, justice and much else and, of course, all the arts– from architecture to poetry. Now, if we look at this range closely, we will find that all these activities and disciplines are subsumed in the three more basic categories of human endeavor defined in the Indian world-view. Amongst the four-fold spheres and goals (i.e. puruṣārthas), the śāstras relate to the sphere of dharma, artha and kāma, but not mokṣa the final. There is, for example, no ātman or mokṣa śāstra although the goal of each of these may be mokṣa (liberation). The exclusion of the last is a pointer to a recognition of a dimension of life endeavor where classifications, ‘grammar’ rules, or even intellection is of little significance. One could deduce from this that śāstras are in the sphere of measure, of ‘organization’, of ‘metho-dologies’ alluding to the infinite perhaps, but are in the finite’. In common parlance, the Puranas and other texts are alluded to as mokṣa śāstra, but these should only be considered as the texts that lead to mokṣa, but are not texts of mokṣa.

    Now, if we look at some of these texts, especially in the arts, we find that they are largely couched in a cryptic language which often sounds like algebraic formulae and is, at least on the surface, prescriptive. Little wonder that they have called ‘recipe’ books for cooking meals. In common parlance, they have been described through several English equivalents such as ‘treatise’, ‘manual’, ‘codes’, etc.

    In regard to the second level, i.e. juxtaposing the terms ‘theory’ and ‘praxis’ with śāstra and prayoga, or using the adjectival forms of śāstrīya sangīta, nṛtya, etc., we find that the Nāṭyaśāstra at least does not consider śāstra and prayoga (i.e. theory and praxis) as antonyms or in opposition. Instead, Bharata asserts at the very outset that he is writing a prayoga śāstra. Translated literally in modern usage, it would amount to saying that he is writing a ‘theory’ of ‘praxis’. We may even suggest that he is alluding to a prescriptive text of ‘praxis’ and ‘practice’. Paradoxical as it may sound, this is indeed what he sets out to do, and what distinguishes his work as also of others, both from being cook-books or manuals on the one hand, and abstract theoretical discourses, on the other. The dictionary meaning of the word śāstra (Monier-Williams) as an order, a command, rule, teaching, direction, instruction manual, conforming to sacred precepts, would obviously need considerable modification and explanation if we are to evaluate these categories from within the tradition on its own terms, before equating them with others which carry with them a valid and legitimate ‘load’ of another stream of thought and discourse. The English word ‘theory’, with its long, distinguished and perfectly understandable history, implies knowledge or pure science as such without reference to applicability. Further, it is accepted that a theory is a tentative statement of a supposed principle or relationship of cause and effect, in short, a working hypothesis. In its derivative and extended meaning, it suggests abstract principles and universals of any body of related facts.

    The category of ‘śāstra’ does not denote the purely speculative and contemplative – it may or does suggest abstraction of principles from a body of facts, or more precisely, the phenomenon of practice. It is in this sense and with these improvisos that we have used the word ‘theory’ for sastra in this discussion.

    The Nāṭyaśāstra as a text has to be viewed, thus, neither as ‘theory’ as understood in its Greek connotation, nor as a ‘manual’ or a series of ‘commands’ or precepts of sacred knowledge. It is a ‘category’ apart, which moves on many levels, some implicit, others explicit and explanatory. It is, it was, an abstraction, a deduction from experience and practice, and in turn can play an inductive role. The sifting of a large body of data in a particular field of activity of human life and its systemized arrangement as broad principles are its distinguishing features. The fundamentals so proposed are subject to both multiple interpretations and modifications in a specific time, place and situation.

    As regards the recent use of the term śāstra an adjective, śāstrīya nṛtya or sangīta, it suggests quality of performance, sometimes genre, with an implied translation of the term ‘classical’ in English, as a qualitative and not historical period category.

    Elsewhere, we have elaborated on the jigsaw puzzle of categories and terms in Sanskrit and their English equivalents. Here, it is necessary to draw attention to the particular category of knowledge and discourse to which our text belongs within a larger body of knowledge and its epistemology.

    As has been pointed out, Bharata is at pains to remind his readers and listeners repeatedly that the efficacy of the formulation lies in practice (prayoga); also, that the text can be interpreted and changed according to the needs of ‘time’ and ‘place’. He allows for both continuity and flow, as also change.

    We have also to take into account of the ‘dynamics’ of the oral and the ‘written’, more, the silent shared experience and transmission in words. The algebraic formulae or aphoristic character was natural and understandable because like modern software with codes, the articulated word was only an indicator, stimulator of a larger shared and transmitted knowledge. Initiated training and practical experience was essential.

    The nāṭya or vāstu or śilpa śāstras existed within a cultural milieu of (a large body of) shared and transmitted knowledge, practical expertise, and systemized methodologies of oral transmission. The written texts, as they have come down to us through manuscripts and published editions, represent a ‘residual’ record of this larger and also more exact communication. They are not the totality, they only reflect a ‘totality’ and have to be viewed as such.

    The history of the search and discovery of the manuscripts, the fragmentary nature of the evidence, the endeavor of arriving at one authentic text, has now to be juxtaposed with the need to recognize the large cultural matrix, the categories of knowledge and discourses evolved and the methods of transmission.

    The text is the one and only evidence we have– indispensable and invaluable– and yet each text is perhaps a fragment or a small prototype of a great monument, not of ‘brick’ and ‘stone’, but of experience, speculation, thought and practice, shared and lived.

    One last point in the context of the textual tradition of the Indian arts is pertinent. Can any text in the Indian arts be considered exclusive in terms of the modern categories of architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance, drama and poetry? Are the categories of vāstu, śilpa, citra, sangīta, nāṭya, sāhitya, kāvya insulated, autonomous, inclusive or exclusive? If not, then, what is the internal interdisciplinary or interpretation system? How do these texts, and the Nāṭyaśāstra as the earliest of them all, approach the question of the autonomy and specificity of each art-form and its intrinsically inter-related character?

    An examination of these texts, except in the case of poetics and rhetorics, reveals that in each case the particular śāstra (nāṭya or vāstu or sangīta) identifies a principal genre or form and then invariably considers the role of the other arts in the structure of the principal. Thus, drama (nāṭya) not only considers but comprises architecture, dance, music, poetry and painting. Vāstu (architecture) comprises sculpture, painting and dance, and sangīta (music) considers the physiological systems, poetry and dance and so on. There is an integral vision which blooms in a multiplicity. It is not an aggregation of disciplines. It is an interpretation of disciplines. For facility, we may call it an integral multidisciplinary approach.

    We shall endeavor to look at the Nāṭyaśāstra at its implicit and explicit levels, its structure and design, the inter-relatedness of the arts and its language of form and technique, throughout reminding ourselves that our text is neither pure theory nor a working hypothesis or manual or rule-book or a handy guide for practitioners of the arts.

    Instead, it reflects a world-view, is embedded in a cultural context, shares a vast body of knowledge in many disciplines, was perhaps orally transmitted for centuries through a highly systemized methodology of transmission, teacher to pupil, pedagogic schools, is inter- and multi-disciplinary in nature, and is Pan-Indian.

    The Nāṭyaśāstra is an ocean, certainly a confluence. An attempt at analysis can only be inadequate despite the fact that from the sixth century to the eighteenth century it was followed and commented upon, and now for a hundred years or more, modern scholarship has attempted a critical assessment of the seminal text.


[This article is an excerpt from the book titled Bharata: The Nāṭyaśāstra (1996), published by the Sahitya Akademi. The author, Kapila Vatsyayan, has discussed in detail the various aspects of Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra with subtle nuances. This excerpt can be browsed in the book from page no. 39-45 (2018 reprint ed.). The title of the article is provided by Tirtha, editor at the Indic Varta, after due discretion. The work is being reproduced for educational purposes only, without any intention to violate the copyright. Believing that the excerpt will be beneficial for the students and scholars, the Centre for Indic Studies promotes the author and the publisher with proper credits/links.]

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