Abstract

FIGUEROA CASTRO, Óscar. “The Origins of Theatre” (Nāṭyopatti).An Annotated Translation of Nāṭyaśāstra’s First Book. Nova tellus [online]. 2014, vol.32, n.1, pp.155-182. ISSN 0185-3058.

I offer here the first, richly annotated translation into Spanish of the first book of the Nāṭyaśāstra, the great treatise on Sanskrit dramaturgy dated around the second-fourth centuries CE. Entitled “The Origins of Theatre” (Nāṭyopatti), the book relates in a mythical format the circumstances, causes and events that led to the creation of dramatic art. Among other things, the text stands out on account of the great variety of traditions that it encompasses, as well as for its rhetoric of integration, to an important degree a reflection of the transformations Sanskrit culture experienced during the first centuries CE. In particular, the book has the potential to open a new line of research around the problem of the origins of Sanskrit drama beyond the standard dichotomy between a Vedic-ritual origin and an origin outside Brahmanical ritualism.

Keywords : Sanskrit drama; Nāṭyaśāstra; Bharata; Indian mythology; theatre and religion.

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