The Nāṭyaśāstra: the Origin of the Ancient Indian Poetics
The Nāṭyaśāstra: the Origin of the Ancient Indian Poetics

Summary/Abstract: The Sanskrit treatise Nāṭyaśāstra is the most ancient and authoritative Indian text on the arts. Some researchers, trying to single out the most ancient kernel of the text, dated it to the 5th century BCE. Others, meaning the concluding stage of its formation, by which the treatise had incorporated interpolations from different times, proposed much later dates up to the 7th-8th centuries CE. It is widely believed that the treatise acquired its modern form between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE. Of an encyclopaedic scope, the Nāṭyaśāstra treats a great variety of topics and comprises a manual for producers and performers, treatises on the theory of drama and aesthetics, as well as the oldest poetic theory in the Indian tradition. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the Nāṭyaśāstra as the earliest available source for the study of the Ancient Indian poetics.

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