Ancient Theater of India 

Jawaharlal Nehru composed three works, Glimpses of World History, Autobiography, and The Discovery of India. The discovery of India was the first of these works. In this work, not only India but the young minds of the world got the vision to explain the history of human beings. In the same way as his autobiography is not just the life story of a particular person, but it gives an insight to understand the mental structure of New India.

 Indian theater was completely independent in its origin, in its associated ideas and in its development.  Its origin can be traced to those hymns and dialogues of Pragveda which have a degree of dramatization.  The plays are mentioned in Ramayana and Mahabharata.  It began to take shape in the songs, music and dances related to the Krishna-lila. Some theatrical forms are mentioned by Panini, the great grammarian of the 6th or 7th century.  

The Natyashastra, composed on the art of theater, is said to be a composition of the third century.  Such a book could have been composed only when the theatrical art was fully developed and public performances of plays were common.  It is now recognized that regular Sanskrit plays were fully established by the 3rd century.  The plays that we have come across often refer to earlier composers and plays which have not yet been found.  There was a sense in such playwrights.

  At the beginning of this century a collection of his thirteen plays was discoveredis .  The oldest of the Sanskrit plays ever found is that of Ashvaghosha.  It happened just before or after the beginning of the Christian era.

 The manuscripts written on palm-pa are only excerpts and, surprisingly, they have been found in a storm on the outskirts of the Gobo desert.  Ashvaghosh became a pious boat.  He wrote a biography of Buddha under the name Buddhacharita.  This book became very famous and long ago it became popular in India, China and Tibet. 

Europe first learned about ancient Indian drama in 1789, when a translation of Kalidasa's Shakuntala by Sir William Jones was published.  It was also translated into German, French, Danish and Italian, based on the translation by Sir William Jose.  This had a profound effect on Goethe and he greatly admired Shakuntala  Kalidas is considered to be the greatest poet and playwright of Sanskrit literature.  His timing is uncertain, but it is likely that he was in Ujjayini during the reign of Chandragupta (II) Vikramaditya of the Gupta dynasty at the end of the fourth century.  It is believed that he was one of the nine jewels of the court. 

In his works there is a feeling of love for life and impulse towards natural beauty.  Kalidas has a long poem Meghdoot.  A lover, who has been taken prisoner and separated from his beloved, in the rainy season, asks a cloud to convey to her the message of his intense desire.  Probably long before Kalidas was the composition of a very famous play - Shudraka's Mrichchakatikam, the mud cart.  This is a soft, somewhat gimmicky drama.  But there is such a truth in it that affects us and before us the mindset and civilization of that time 

Another famous play was written during the reign of Chandragupta II, around 400.  This was the play Mudrarakshasa of Visakhadatta.  This was a purely political drama, in which love or any mythological story has not been made the basis.  In some sense this play is very relevant in the present situation. 

 King Harsha, who ruled in the seventh century . He established a new empire, was also a playwright.  We find three plays written by him. It was around the seventh century that Bhavabhuti happened, which was a shining star of Sanskrit literature.  Became very popular and only Kalidas's place is considered above that of his India.  This stream of Sanskrit plays continued for centuries, but in the beginning of the nineteenth century it began to show a marked decline in qualitative terms.  

The language of the ancient plays (of Kalidas and others) is mixed - Sanskrit and with it one or more Prakrits, that is, the form prevalent in the colloquial form of Sanskrit.  In the same play, the educated characters speak Sanskrit and the general uneducated masses, often women Prakrit, although translations are also found in them. 

 It was a compromise between literary language and popular art.  Yet ancient dramas often presented elitist art to royal courts or similarly aristocratic audiences, in addition to this high-class literary theater, there has always been a folk stage.  Its basis was Indian mythology and stories taken from the epics. 

 The audience was well-versed in these subjects and was more concerned with the presentation than the dramatic element.  These were composed in the dialects of different regions, so they were confined to that particular region.  On the other hand, Sanskrit drama was prevalent all over India because their language was the language of the educated community of whole India.