Note 7 — IV DRAMATIC PRACTICE XIV THE INDIAN THEATRE

The normal term for actor is Naṭa, a term which has the wider sense of dancer or acrobat; terms like Bharata, or Bhārata, Cāraṇa,7 Kuçīlava, Çailūṣa, or Çaubhika have interest practically only for the history of the drama. The chief actor, whose name Sūtradhāra doubtless denotes him as primarily the architect of the theatre, the man who secures the erection of the temporary stage, is occasionally styled ‘troop-head of actors (naṭagāmaṇi)’,8 and he is essentially the instructor of the other actors in their art (nāṭyācārya), so that his title Sūtradhāra can be used topically as equivalent to Professor. For this high position his qualifications were to be numerous; he was supposed to be learned in all the arts and sciences, to be acquainted with the habits and customs of all lands, to combine the completeness of technical knowledge with practical skill, and to be possessed of all the moral qualities which an Indian genius can enumerate. To him falls not merely the very important function of introducing the play, but also of taking one of the chief parts; thus he plays Vatsa in the Ratnāvalī, and in the Mālatīmādhava Kāmandakī, the nun, who powerfully affects the current of the drama. He is normally the husband of one of the actresses (naṭī), who aids him in the opening scene, and who is compelled, poor woman, to combine the arduous life of an actress with the domestic duty of looking after her husband’s material wants. She is represented as devoted to him, fasting to secure reunion in another life, preparing his meal and seeking to remove by her good works the dangers which threaten him, and compelled to play her parts, although anxious, as in the Ratnāvalī, over the difficulty of securing the marriage of her daughter to a fiancé who has gone overseas, or, as in the Jānakīpariṇaya, over the wickedness of another actor in seeking to take her daughter from her.