A N Haksa - The Shattered Thigh and Other Plays

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First published by Penguin Books India 1993
This edition published 2008

Copyright A.N.D. Haksar 1993, 2008

Cover: Provincial Mughal painting Contest Amongst the Princes from the Razm-nama, the Persian translation of the Mahabharata National Museum, New Delhi

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-01-4310-430-8

This digital edition published in 2013.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-893-1

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BHASA is a celebrated name in classical Sanskrit drama. Although his dates have not been conclusively established, it is certain that he preceded Kalidasa, who has praised him by name in the prologue of one of his own plays. It has been suggested that Bhasa lived in the Mauryan period, the fourth or the third century BC , but most scholarly opinion places him in the first or the second century AD .

Bhasas plays were lost over a period of time but thirteen were rediscovered in Kerala at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of these six, forming the present collection, are based on the Mhbhrata story which Bhasa embellished for obtaining dramatic effects. The remaining seven are derived from the Rmyana, the Harivama and legends and stories prevalent at the time.

Bhasa wrote in a period which was politically, socially, economically and most importantly, culturally dynamic. Theatre was already an established art form and the foremost treatise on fine arts, Bharatas Ntyastra, was written in the same period. Plays were written and performed by professionals supported by other well-developed aspects of stagecraft.

For over fifteen hundred years classical Indian commentators and anthologists have counted Bhasa among the foremost writers of ancient India. He made use of the Sanskrit language in a simpler form as compared to the more ornate style of later playwrights. He dispensed with the opening benediction or nndi and began his plays directly with the stage direction. And, most importantly, he broke with convention by giving a tragic ending to one of his plays, Urubhangam, with the death of the hero on stage.

ADITYA NARAYANA DHAIRYASHEEL HAKSAR was born in Gwalior and educated at the Doon School and the universities of Allahabad and Oxford. A well-known translator of Sanskrit classics, he has also had a distinguished career as a diplomat, serving as Indian high commissioner to Kenya and the Seychelles, minister to the United States, and ambassador to Portugal and Yugoslavia. Haksars translations from the Sanskrit include Hitopadesa, Simhasana Dvatrimsika, Tales of the Ten Princes and Subhashitavali, all published as Penguin Classics. He has also compiled A Treasury of Sanskrit Poetry.