CHAPTER TWO

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLAYHOUSE

• Introduction

1-2 On hearing Bharata's words, the sages said, “O the holy one, we would like the hear about the ceremony relating to the stage.¹ And how are the men of future to offer Pūjā in the playhouse or [to know about] the practices related to it, or its accurate description ?

3. As the production of a drama begins with the playhouse, you should [first of all] give us its description.”

The three types of the playhouse

4. On hearing these words of the sages, Bharata said, “Listen, O sages, about the description of a playhouse¹ and of the Pūjā to be offered in this connexion.

5-6.¹ Creations of gods [observed] in houses and gardens².

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1-2 (B.G. same). ¹ raṅga here means 'the stage.' It may also mean the auditorium as well as the spectators sitting there. So Kālidāsa writes : अहो रागबद्धचित्तवृत्तिरालिखित इव सर्वतो रङ्ग : Śak. I. 4. 2. 3 (B.G. same)

4 (B.G. same). ¹. Except the cave (c. 200 B.C.) in the Ramgarh hill suspected by Th. Bloch (Report of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1903-4, pp.123 ff) to have been the remains of a theatre, there is no other evidence of the existence of a playhouse in ancient India. From the description of the playhouse in the present chapter we learn that it was constructed with brick walls and wooden posts probably with a thatched bungalow roof The samgīdaśālā ( samgītaśālā) mentioned by Kālidāsa in his Mālavi. was possibly something like a playhouse (nāṭyamaṇḍapa). Large open halls called nāt-mandir often found in front of more recently built temples in Bengal and the neighbouring provinces may be connected with the extinct playhouses. This nāt-mandir or nāt-śālā is often met with in the medieval Bengali literature.

5-6 (B.G. same). ¹. Between the two hemistichs of 5, B. reads one more hemistich.

². This is the reason why no description of a playhouse suitable for the gods has been given in the NŚ.