The Nāṭya Shāstra (Sanskrit: नाट्य शास्त्र, Nāṭyaśāstra) is a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts.[1][2] The text is attributed to sage Bharata, and its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE,[3][4] but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE.[5]

The text consists of 36 chapters with a cumulative total of 6,000 poetic verses describing performance arts.[6] The subjects covered by the treatise include dramatic composition, structure of a play and the construction of a stage to host it, genres of acting, body movements, make up and costumes, role and goals of an art director, the musical scales, musical instruments and the integration of music with art performance.[7][8]

Natya Shastra in Thai art

The Nāṭya Śāstra is notable as an ancient encyclopedic treatise on the arts,[2][9] one which has influenced dance, music and literary traditions in India.[10] It is also notable for its aesthetic "Rasa" theory, which asserts that entertainment is a desired effect of performance arts but not the primary goal, and that the primary goal is to transport the individual in the audience into another parallel reality, full of wonder, where they experience the essence of their own consciousness, and reflect on spiritual and moral questions.[9][11] The text further inspired secondary literature such as the 10th century commentary Abhinavabharati – an example of a classic Sanskrit bhasya ("reviews and commentaries") – written by Abhinavagupta.[12] In April 2025, Bharat Muni's Nāṭya Shāstra manuscript was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.[13]

Etymology

The title of the text is composed of two words, "Nāṭya" and "Shāstra". The root of the Sanskrit word Nāṭya is Nata (नट) which means "act, represent".[14] The word Shāstra (शास्त्र) means "precept, rules, manual, compendium, book or treatise", and is generally used as a suffix in the Indian literature context, for knowledge in a defined area of practice.[15]

Date and author

Performance arts and culture

Let Nāṭya (drama and dance) be the fifth vedic scripture.
Combined with an epic story,
tending to virtue, wealth, joy and spiritual freedom,
it must contain the significance of every scripture,
and forward every art.

— Nāṭyaśāstra 1.14–15[16][17]

The composition date of Nāṭya Shāstra is unknown. Estimates vary between 500 BCE to 500 CE.[5][3] The text may have started in the 1st millennium BCE,[4] expanded over time, and most scholars suggest, based on mention of this text in other Indian literature, that the first complete version of the text was likely finished between 200 BCE to 200 CE.[3][7] The Nāṭyaśāstra is traditionally alleged to be linked to a 36,000 verse Vedic composition called Adibharata, however there is no corroborating evidence that such a text ever existed.[18]

The text has survived into the modern age in several manuscript versions, wherein the title of the chapters varies and in some cases the content of the few chapters differ.[3] Some recensions show significant interpolations and corruption of the text,[19] along with internal contradictions and sudden changes in style.[20] Scholars such as PV Kane state that some text was likely changed as well as added to the original between the 3rd to 8th century CE, thus creating some variant editions, and the mixture of poetic verses and prose in a few extant manuscripts of Natyashastra may be because of this.[21][22] According to Pramod Kale, who received a doctorate on the text from the University of Wisconsin, the surviving version of Natya Shastra likely existed by the 8th-century.[21]

The author of the Natya Shastra is unknown, and the Hindu tradition attributes it to the Rishi (sage) Bharata. It may be the work of several authors, but scholars disagree.[21][23] Bharat Gupt states that the text stylistically shows characteristics of a single compiler in the existing version, a view shared by Kapila Vatsyayan.[24][citation needed][25] The Agni Purana, a generic encyclopedia, includes chapters on dramatic arts and poetry, which follow the Natyashastra format, but enumerates more styles and types of performance arts, which states Winternitz, may reflect an expansion in studies of the arts by the time Agni Purana was composed.[26]

Historical roots

The Natyashastra is the oldest surviving ancient Indian work on performance arts.[9] The roots of the text extend at least as far back as the Naṭasūtras, dated to around the mid 1st millennium BCE.[27]

The Natasutras are mentioned in the text of Panini, the sage who wrote the classic on Sanskrit grammar, and who is dated to about 500 BCE.[28][29] This performance arts related Sutra text is mentioned in other late Vedic texts, as are two scholars names Shilalin (IAST: Śilālin) and Krishashva (Kṛśaśva), credited to be pioneers in the studies of ancient drama, singing, dance and Sanskrit compositions for these arts.[30] The Natyashastra refers to drama performers as Śhailālinas, likely because they were so known at the time the text was written, a name derived from the legacy of the vedic sage Śilālin credited with Natasutras.[31] Richmond et al. estimate the Natasutras to have been composed around 600 BCE.[29]

According to Lewis Rowell, a professor of Music specializing on classical Indian music, the earliest Indian artistic thought included three arts, syllabic recital (vadya), melos (gita) and dance (nrtta),[32] as well as two musical genre, Gandharva (formal, composed, ceremonial music) and Gana (informal, improvised, entertainment music).[33] The Gandharva subgenre also implied celestial, divine associations, while the Gana was free form art and included singing.[33] The Sanskrit musical tradition spread widely in the Indian subcontinent during the late 1st millennium BCE, and the ancient Tamil classics make it "abundantly clear that a cultivated musical tradition existed in South India as early as the last few pre-Christian centuries".[34]

The art schools of Shilalin and Krishashva, mentioned in both the Brahmanas and the Kalpasutras and Srautasutras,[31] may have been associated with the performance of vedic rituals, which involved storytelling with embedded ethical values.[31] The Vedanga texts such as verse 1.4.29 of Panini Sutras mention these as well. The roots of the Natyashastra thus likely trace to the more ancient vedic traditions of integrating ritual recitation, dialogue and song in a dramatic representation of spiritual themes.[35][36] The Sanskrit verses in chapter 13.2 of Shatapatha Brahmana (~800–700 BCE), for example, are written in the form of a riddle play between two actors.[37]