44. ŅĀȚYASĀSTRA 4I

ŅĀȚYASĀSTRA 4I

the use of such words as स्वामी, सुगृहीतनामन् and भद्रमुख in the works on Nātyaśāstra as terms of address, tried to establish that the नाटयशास्त्र of Bharata was composed about the times of the Indo- Scythian Ksatrapas some of whom like Nahapāna and Caștana are styled swamin and bhadramukha in their inscriptions (e. g. E. I. IX. p. 274 and E. I. XVI. at p. 238). In spite of the vigour and confidence with which the arguments are set forth the theory that the Sanskrit theatre came into existence at the court of the Ksatrapas appears, to say the least, to be an imposing structure built on very slender foundations. In the first place, rarnt is the term of address for a Yuvarāja in the Nātyasāstra (19. 12) and not for a ruling king. In the the second place, an obvious reply is that the inscriptions might have been drafted by persons thoroughly imbued with the dramatic terminology of the नाट्यशास्त्र. भद्रमुख as a term of address does not occur in the नाट्यशास्त्र but in the साहित्यदर्पण. In the Indian Antiquary vol. 46 (1917) pp. 171-183 I diścussed the question of the date and arrived at the conclusion that before 300 A. D. there existed a work on नाट्यशास्त्र ascribed to भरत and dealing with the rasa thecry and dramaturgy in general. Prof. Keith (in HSD. p. 13) holds that 'we cannot with any assurance place it before the 3rd century A. D.' More recently Mr. Manomohan Ghosh (in Department of Letters, Calcutta University, vol. 25, Art. 4 pp. 1-54) dealt exhaustively with the question of the date from several points of view such as the linguistic data (Sanskrit, Prak- rits in ch. 18 and the Dhruvas in chap. 32), the treatment of metres, the mention of only four figures of speech, the mytholo- gy, the geographical data, and came to the conclusion (p. 52) that the date cf the Nātyasastra must be placed between 100 B. C. to 200 A. D. Although I donot agree with several things that he says,1 the date he arrives at cannot, in my opinion, be far

I For example, on p. 25 he says that दाक्षिणात्या, one of the seven भाषाs mentioned in chap. 18.35-36 is not the महाराष्ट्री. भरत's words are : शौरसेनं समाश्रित्य भाषा कार्या तु नाटके। ... नानावेशसमुत्थं हि काव्यं भवति नाटके। मागध्यवन्तिजा प्राच्या शूरसेन्यर्धमागधी। बाहिका दाकिखात्या च सप्त भाषा: प्रकीतिता: ॥. What country, acc. to Mr. Ghosh, is meant by दाक्िात्या ? द्रविड and भोड्र are separately mentioned in v. 36. The काव्यादर्श (I. 34) mentions the भाषा of महाराष्ट्र as the best प्राकत and states that सेतुबन्ध was composed in that language. The सेतुबन्ध