Nāṭya Śāstra: The World's First Complete
Manual on Performing Arts
Bharata Muni's Nāṭya Śāstra — composed approximately between 200 BCE and 200 CE — is 36 chapters and approximately 6,000 verses covering every aspect of theatrical performance: the design of theatres, the classification of plays, acting technique, facial expressions, hand gestures, costume and makeup, music theory, dance grammar, and the theory of aesthetic emotion that Indian philosophy calls rasa.
There is nothing comparable to it in any other ancient tradition. Aristotle's Poetics — the closest Western equivalent — is less than 50 pages. The Nāṭya Śāstra is a complete technical manual for an entire performing arts civilisation.
Every Indian classical art form — Bharatanāṭyam, Odissi, Kathak, Kūchipūḍi, Mohiniyāṭṭam, Manipuri — traces its foundations to the Nāṭya Śāstra. It is the ur-text of Indian performance, as foundational to Indian classical arts as Euclid's Elements is to geometry.
The Theory of Rasa — Aesthetic Emotion
The Nāṭya Śāstra's most enduring contribution is the theory of rasa — the aesthetic emotion evoked in a viewer by a performance. Bharata identifies eight primary rasas (with a ninth added later by Abhinavagupta): each with its own characteristic bhāva (emotional state), presiding deity, and colour. The goal of performance is to evoke rasa in the audience — a state of heightened aesthetic feeling that is distinct from everyday emotion.
The Nine Rasas (Navarasa)
Deity: Viṣṇu · Colour: Shyama (dark green-blue)
Deity: Pramatha · Colour: White
Deity: Yama · Colour: Grey
Deity: Rudra · Colour: Red
Deity: Indra · Colour: Honey/golden
Deity: Kāla · Colour: Black
Deity: Mahākāla · Colour: Blue
Deity: Brahmā · Colour: Yellow
Deity: Viṣṇu · Colour: White
What Else the Nāṭya Śāstra Contains
• Theatre architecture: Specifications for three types of theatres — vikṛṣṭa (rectangular), caturasra (square), tryasra (triangular) — with precise dimensions for audience capacity and acoustic quality
• Hand gestures (mudras/hastas): 24 single-hand gestures, 13 double-hand gestures, each with specific meanings and usage contexts
• Music theory: Descriptions of the seven svaras (notes), 22 śrutis (microtones), and the grāma (scale) system that underlies Indian classical music
• Costume and makeup: Detailed specifications for character types, including colour-coding that encodes emotional and social information
Source: Adya Rangacharya (trans.), The Nāṭyaśāstra, Munshiram Manoharlal (1996)
Sources
- • Adya Rangacharya (trans.), The Nāṭyaśāstra, Munshiram Manoharlal (1996)
- • Manomohan Ghosh (trans.), The Nāṭyaśāstra, Asiatic Society of Bengal (1951)
- • Kapila Vatsyayan, The Square and the Circle of the Indian Arts, Abhinav Publications (1983)
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