Have you ever seen a movie from the perspective of a person who knows about “Natya Shastra” or “Rasa Theory”?
It seems like you’ve heard these words for the first time.
The root of “Natya” is Nata, which means “represent, act,” and Shastra means rules or a book in general. Natya Shastra is a Sanskrit-written work on the performing arts like music, dance, and drama. Both the composition date of “Natya Shastra” and the name of the author are unknown, as it is the oldest surviving ancient Indian work on performance arts. However, according to some researchers, it may have started in the 1st millennium BCE, and the sage “Bharata” is the probable author of it.
The Natya Shastra consists of 36 chapters where 6,000 poetic verses are included with explanations of performing arts. It includes how a play should be structured, the construction of the stage, roles, body movements, goals of art, which music should be used, genres of acting, makeup, and costumes. In its 36 chapters, theatrical arts are explained in detail, like in chapters 6 and 7, which represent “Rasa Theory,” which explains that entertainment is the desired result of performance art, but it is not the primary goal of performance art, where the primary goal is to make the audience feel indescribable emotions the way they want to feel and end the art with thought-provoking questioning. Many movie critics said that the Indian movie “Rang De Basanti” followed the Rasa Theory.
In Chapter 4, the basic dance unit known as “Karana” is explained, and 108 karanas are mentioned as the building blocks of the art of dance. Classical dancers can relate to these units.
From chapters 8 to 13, these chapters are dedicated to acting. In many movies, actors take lessons in acting, especially from these chapters. You can extract the lessons from these chapters from many old movies. But nowadays, many art movies are following these lessons, Natya Shastra. In chapters 10 to 13, clear instructions are written about how to do the relative movement of actors and actresses, scene formulation, stage zones, etc.
From chapters 14 to 20, musical meters, the language of expression, and the theory of Sanskrit prosody. In chapter 17, the quality of poetry and figures of speech are explained, and in chapter 18, an explanation of how to present art speech is written.
Natya Shastra also presents 10 kinds of play, its theory of plot, costumes, and make-up, with instructions on how to make them real on stage. For women’s performance in art, chapter 24 is devoted to female theater. Chapters 26 and 35 are written on how to train the actors for performance art.
In its final chapters, various dramatic characters are explained for the actors’ reference, the role of teamwork, etc.
Natya Shastra’s main aim is to connect the audience’s emotions through performance art. For this, there are four types of communication between performers and the audience: gestures, words, dresses, representations of temperament, make-up, and cosmetics. That’s why people remember those acts for a long time when they feel connected.
For singers, this written manual works well for learning about musical scales, as the music theory in Natya Shastra centers around sound, rhythm, and prosody. It also discusses which scales are appropriate for performance art. In Chapter 28, four types of musical instruments are described: veena, drums, cymbals, and flutes. For actors, screen players, auditors, directors, or anyone related to performance art, “Natya Shastra” is the best example and available writing manual for making their art more valuable and related to the audience.
Through Natya Shastra, any performer awakens his thoughts as well as those of the audience by connecting them through his art.
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Writer,
Adri Sen,
Intern,
Content Writing Department,
YSSE