नाट्यशास्त्रम् (प्रथम भाग - अभिनवभारती एवं हिन्दी टीका सहित)

LXXI

VI. The Natyasastra : The Text and its Commentators

1. Its Author

The Nāṭyaśāstra is commonly attributed to Bharata Muni.¹ But Bharata cannot be taken as its author, for in the Nāṭyaśāstra itself his mythical character is very obvious, and the majority of the Purāṇas are silent about the socalled author of the Nāṭyaśāstra², and there is not a single legend about him in any of the extant Purāṇas or the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata. The word Bharata which originally meant 'an actor' seems to have given rise to an eponymous author of the Bharataśāstra or the Naṭaśāstra (the manual of actors).

2. Its Two Recensions

Whoever might be the author of the Nāṭyaśāstra it is certain that the work itself possesses undoubted signs of great antiquity, and one of these is that its text is available in two distinct recensions. In having two partly divergent recensions the Nāṭyaśāstra can well be compared with works like the Nirukta, the Bṛhaddevatā and the Śakuntalā. The editors of these works have differently settled the claims of their shorter and longer recensions. At first sight the tendency would be to accept the shorter recension, as representing the original better, because elaboration would seem in most cases to come later. But opinion is divided in this matter: Pischel regarded the longer recesion as being nearer the orginal³, Macodonell has also given his verdict in favour of the longer recesion⁴ but he has not ventured to reject the shorter recension entirely as being late, and Lakshman Sarup has definitely suggested that the shorter recension is the ealier one.⁵ All these go to show that the problem of the relation between two recensions of any ancient work is not so simple as to be solved off-hand. So in this case also we should not settle the issue with the idea that the longer recension owes its bulk to interpolations.

The text-history of the Nāṭyaśāstra shows that already in the tenth century the work was available in two recensions. Dhanañjaya the author of the Daśarūpa quotes from the shorter recension while Bhoja, who closely follows him, quoted from the longer one.⁶ Abhinava in his commntry of the Nāṭyaśāstra, however, used the shorter recension as the basis of his work.⁷ It is likely that the long time which passed since then has witnessed at least minor changes, intentional as well as unintentional, in the

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¹ See IHQ. Vol. VI, 1930. pp. 72 ff, Annals of BORI, Vol. XV, 1934, p. 90 fn.
² See NŚ.I. 2-5 note 2.
³ Kalidasa's Sakuntala, HOS. p. XI.
⁴ The Bṛhaddevatā, HOS. Vol. I. p. XVIII-XIX.
⁵ Introduction to the Nighaṇṭu and Nirukta, p. 39.
⁶ Preface to Baroda ed. of NŚ, Vol. I. p. 8.
⁷ See above, note 6.