PREFACE

The preparation of an annotated English translation of the Nāṭyaśāstra entrusted to me as early as 1944, by the Royal Asiatic Society, has been delayed for various reasons which need not be recounted here in detail. But mention must be made of one important factor of this delay, viz., the inherent difficulty of this very old text which is not yet available in a complete critical edition. From my first serious acquaintance with it in 1925 in connection with the editing of the Abhinayadarpaṇa (Calcutta, 1934) this work has always engaged my attention in the intervals of other duties. But it was only a few years ago, that I came to believe that the entire work could be translated into English. It was, however, only after making some actual progress in translation that I realised the difficulty of the task and understood to some extent at least why no complete translation of this very important text had so far not been made.

However, I considered it a duty to make strenuous efforts and proceeded patiently with the work and finished at last translating the major portion of the Nāṭyaśāstra. I am now genuinely happy to place it before the scholarly public, not because it could be done in an ideal fashion, but because it could be finished at all.

In handling a difficult old text like this it it natural that one has to offer conclusions and interpretations, here and there, which due to the absence of better materials cannot be placed on surer grounds. But whatever tentative assertions I have made, have been made after the most careful consideration with the expectation that they may prove helpful to others working in this field, and it may be hoped that their number has not been too many, and in a few cases where I myself had any doubt about the interpretation offered, the same has been expressly mentioned in the footnote.

The chapters on music covering a little more than one fourth of the Nāṭyaśāstra still remain to be done. These when completed will be published in the second volume. As the work on it, is progressing very slowly and it cannot be said definitely when it will be finished, it was thought advisable to publish the portion of the translation already prepared. Though the musical terms occurring in the present volume remain undefined, the absence of chapters on music where they have been discussed, will not, it is hoped, seriously interfere with the understanding of the dramaturgy and histrionics treated here.

For information regarding the plan and scope of the present work, the reader is referred to the Introduction, section I.

For the purpose of this volume, works of various scholars have been helpful to the translator and they have been mentioned