Sanskrit poet bhasa biography of barack

Kalidasa has also mentioned his name in his first playwright, Malavikagnimitram. In , scholar T. Those works were used for performing Koodiyattam, one of the earliest art forms of Kerala. Though all his works have not been recovered, a few have been given his name. The story revolves around King Udayana who is pressurized by his state minister to marry the daughter of a very powerful ruler in order to gain power to protect his kingdom from foreign invasions.

The king is not too keen on this proposal as he loves is wife too much to consider taking such a step. But the wife becomes ready to sacrifice her life for the kingdom and stages a fake death. Stoneman notes that the thirteen plays attributed to Bhasa are generally dated closer to the 1st or 2nd century CE. This is strictly frowned upon by Natya Shastra.

Indu Shekhar states that, "Whatever the exact date [of Natya Shastra] may have been, it is significant that no direct reference to NS was made before the seventh century," when it became accepted as the subject of attention for many poets, writers, and theorists.

Sanskrit poet bhasa biography of barack

Several questions were raised. Were all these plays penned by the same author? Was there only one playwright named Bhasa? Were the plays of the original Bhasa subsequently adapted and re-written by someone else? Several historians attribute these plays to another playwright named Shaktibhadra or the Pallava king Narasimhavarman or the Pandya king Tenmaran.

Some sceptics still strongly believe that these plays were written by the Chakkyars of Malabar, albeit adapted from Bhasa. All the plays have numerous characters and embrace a myriad variety of themes from tragedy to farce and from romance to social-drama. Pratima-natakam and Svapnavasavadattam end with a verse in praise of one King Rajasimha instead of the usual bharatavakya.

Svapnavasavadattam is deemed the best amongst the 13 plays. Date of Bhasa Scholars are unequivocal about the date of Bhasa. The exact time of Bhasa, like his identity, is clouded by uncertainty. Once again scholars and historians had to draw clues from his plays to arrive at a solution. Bharatamuni laid down the guidelines to Sanskrit drama in his Natyashastra approximately around BCE.

For example, the Natyashastra prohibits the portrayal or suggestion of death on stage. Grammatical irregularities and anachronisms in the Natakachakram lead to the supposition that Bhasa might have lived in a period prior to the great grammarian Panini [14] or atleast before his text Ashtadhyayi gained universal acceptance. The Prakrit employed by Bhasa is much more antiquated than that of Kalidasa or subsequent poets.

Also, he does not mention Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu in any of his plays. It is possible that he existed before the inclusion of Buddha as one of the Dasavataras of Vishnu. Therefore, it might be safe to place Bhasa somewhere around — BCE. Bhasa had made references to several cults and religious orders. He seems to be particularly irreverent towards monks belonging to the Buddhist and Jain order.

In Svapnavasavadattam, he pays his tribute to Balarama, a cult whose members were probably addicted to intoxicating drugs. In Balacaritam, he mentions the names of the cow-herd girls gopis such as Ghosasundari, Vanamala, Chandralekha and Mrigakshi who performed rasa-krida with Krishna. However, there is no mention of Radha. His style is facile yet effective and resembles the Vaidarbhi style of classical Sanskrit.