ISSUES AND REVIEWS
Dicussion Initiated by the Book
Scholarly comments from some reviews:
" This is an honest and open book that states its positions without flinching or ducking ..... Before meeting Gupt my faith in Indian academics was at alow ebb. However , over the years, I have discovered that there are people who are doing authentic work , which is not derivative or colonised. Gupt's work is certainly one of these. "
Makarand Paranjape, Business Srandard, Delhi, 6 May 1994
"This scholarly work brings home to India a line of research hitherto monopolised by the West"
CPA Vasudevan, Indian Book Review, Summer 1994.
"There is evidence of sound scholarship and competece in various areas, notably Indian musicology and choreography, not to mention an in-depth study of the NS itself along with the tradition of Indian aesthetics. This is combined with western shcolarship relevant o Greek drama and dramaturgy generally. The range is impressive...."
V Y Kantak, Journal of Indian Council of Philosophic Research, Vol 12 no.2.
"Performance is notoriously underemphasised in the Poeitcs ..... nothing remotely comparable to the detailed analyses of gesture and acting style in the Natyasastra. Consequently a large part of the book is frustrated in it aim .... Gupt does propose theatre became essentially a site for transforming reality. This vague formula is unpacked in terms of terms of a trasformation into 'semiotised' reality, but it is not clear to me that drama of any kind is possible without semiotisation ---the concept of realim should not be taken at its face vaue, as it seems to be in this book... Gupt suggests that katharsis and rasa can be seen as beginning and end of a single process.... this section is potentially the most interesting part of the book."
Malcolm Heath , Journal of Hellenic Studies 115 (1995)
"Although it is rare to find a comparative treatment of Greek and Sanskrit drama as thoughtful and passionate as this one, students of classical Indian theater will recognize a familiar topic in the title. Those familiar with the texts under consideration will see that the author is indeed effective in the presentation of his material. Gupt asserts that examining genres cross-culturally "can only lead to dead ends" because literary genres are culturally and historically unique; instead, "a comparison of performance modes is likely to be more illuminative." In a way, then, Gupt is asking us to disjoin the performative aspects of the these theaters from their historical embeddedness, and this may be problematic for many. One of the book's strengths is the detailed comparative description of the ritual roots of theater in the Indo-European cultures of ancient Greece and India, though this description is often subjected to the torsion of Gupt's views, some of which are anachronistic: "For the Indians the Supreme was a trinity and in Vedic lore the very question of supremacy among gods did not arise" (55). The explication of comparative theatrical technique is also well-researched but will prove most useful to those with some background in the two dramatic universes. Some characterize Greek theater in which explorations of the political implications of individual crises are paramount-the cosmic arrangement of gods, royal families, and their subjects are tested and transformed-as closer to its ritual roots. In Sanskrit dramas, with the exception of a few significant plays based on the epics, the political or public realm is unproblematized (and this is of course itself a political statement): plays aim for the intensification of aesthetic emotions, especially that of erotic love. Both Greek and Indian theaters could be seen as extensions of ritual praxis, differently conceived-a Greek transformative readjustment of the cosmic disposition in the wake of a discovery and purgation, the Indian fulfillment of desire ensuring royal propagation and continuity.
Yet while Gupt is very good about showing how a total theater emerges from ritual roots, he does not explain how the ritual performance was transformed into the plays we know from the classic periods in each civilization. Readers, however, will need to remind themselves that Gupt's thesis concerning the relationship between ritual and drama is largely unconcerned with notions of common structure or themes. His is rather an aestheticist point about the relationship between re-visioning a theatrical mode in which the visual, the aural, and the verbal cannot be disaggregated.
All in all, this work does represent the most thorough study in this particular critical genre, and if Gupt's engaging idiosyncrasies can be acknowledged, the book will succeed in fostering an appreciation of Sanskrit literature for those who commit to reading the texts he discusses, even in translation."
DAVID L. GITOMER, Comparative Drama ,Kalamazoo. Fall 1997
"Dramatic Concepts Greek and Indian is an elegant exposition of hieropraxic theatre in terms of Indo-European beliefs underlying both Greek and Indian drama. These similarities Gupt locates in attitudes toward disease and death, medical practices and burial rites, and the theatre festival as a timeplace for community renewal. Gupt writes that the "most distinguishing feature of hieropraxic theatre was the unsplintered use of the channels of music, dance and speech. The privileging of the spoken word, which later became a permanent feature of European drama, did not obtain in either Greek or Indian theatre practice" 103 .
"Gupt is most provocative when he compares Aristotle's notion of katharsis to Bharata's notion of rasa. Gupt asks, "Are proper pleasure' oikeia redone and katharsis mutually exclusive, synonymous, or intertwined?" 255 , concluding that they are inextricably related to each other. Gupt argues that rasa, the "juice" or "essence" of the theatrical-aesthetic pleasure experience, is comparable to katharsis: Katharsis should not be viewed as mere relief, it could better be regarded as restoration to a state of pleasure not generally experienced [while] the process of rasa emergence requires the removal of obstructions [...]. Katharsis and rasa, with their separate points of emphasis, both begin with purification and end in delight. 272-73 This is an insight not previously proposed by anyone, a definite advance in performance theory.
"However much his book has been about ancient practicesand theories, Gupt concludes his study looking forward: The vision of ancient hieropraxis which represents a balance of various media of theatrical communication, can be extremely useful. The harmonious use of the visual gestural, symbolic, and kinetic and the aural spoken, sung, and musical as achieved in ancient drama, and as exemplified in the dramatic theories of Greece and India, has many a lesson for the present day world theatre. 274 . The lesson, according to Gupt, is to suggest a codified alternative "which can be offered as a stable and distinct alternative to commercial realism" 274 which continues to dominate modern theatre, both in the West and India.
"Gupt's book is important, examining in depth questions often raised but rarely pursued. Frequently, those making "comparative studies" are more knowledgeable about one side or the other. Radical assertions concerning "Indo-European" or "Eurasian" theatre are in the air but rarely brought down to the scholarly earth. Gupt knows both the Indian and the Greek ancient theatre; his book is full of details, provocative in the best sense, theoretical without losing touch with concrete data, and despite the difficulty of its subject, easy to read. "Dramatic Concepts Greek and Indian" ought to be an assigned text--along with Stephen Halliwell's edition of the Poetics 1987 , Manomohan Ghosh's translation of the NS 1967 , Barbara Stoler Miller's "Theatre of Memory" 1984 , a rendition of Sanskrit dramas, and the David Grene-Richmond Lattimore Complete Greek Tragedies 1959-60 --for courses, some existing, most waiting to be taught, comparing ancient Indian and Greek theatres and performance theories."
Schechner, Richard, TDR, Cambridge, Mass. v41, n2 Summer,1997 :153Goto Mainpage