Canonical Indian Literature and Bhasa: a Study in Texts and Their Aesthetics

Abstract

Indian Knowledge System, the repository of the entire literary and aesthetic corpus of the sub-continent, has a rich repertoire comprising texts like The Ramayana and The Mahabharata and critical texts like The Natyasastra. The former belong to the canon of Epics, they stand representatives of a tradition comprising texts like Chandrabati’s Ramayana, Jaini Ramayana, Asura: Tale of the Vanquished by Neelakantan, Draupadi by Pattanaik, etc. The genres that the tradition comprises vary from poetry to novel and a long oral tradition, as Nabneeta Dev Sen opines, of songs from these epics. In the list, however, is another writer, belonging to the canon of Sanskrit Dramaturgy, whose works are the oldest surviving extant texts in Sanskrit drama: Bhasa, the father of Sanskrit Drama. Chronologically, Bhasa is placed between the composition of Natyasastra and Malvikagnimitram and his plays are dramatic representations of the events of The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. The research paper attempts to delve into two primary questions: that of aesthetic fidelity of the father of Sanskrit drama, to a tradition of writing that precedes him; and secondly, his literary fidelity to the foundational narratives in the Indian Literary Traditions. Through an interrogation of Bhasa’s works on these two parameters, and applying the terminologies of Adoption, Adaptation and Abrogation, the paper shall strive to place him in the canon of Indian Literature and the implications of his positionality, on Indian Literature, especially in relation to contemporaneity.