Note 5 — II POST-VEDIC LITERATURE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA

The Rāmāyaṇa lends no aid to the attempt to establish an early existence of drama; we hear of festivals and concourses (samāja) where Naṭas and Nartakas delight themselves,5 and even of the speaking of Nāṭakas;6 in another passage the term Vyāmiçraka7 denotes, if we believe the commentator, plays in mingled languages. But, accepting all these references as genuine, which we are not obliged to do, the passages have manifestly no claim to early date, for other reasons than the allusions, and leave us again without any early evidence.