Iranian Studies

The Origins of Drama in Ancient India and a Glance at its Iranian Counterparts

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Alireza Esmaeilpour

PhD in Ancient Iranian Culture and Languages, University of Tehran

https://doi.org/10.22059/jis.2016.59421
Abstract
Drama has an ancient history in India. The Sanskrit dramatic literature developed in an organized traditional infrastructure and continued during centuries. The main origins of drama in India are the dialogue-like vedic chants, vedic rituals, and epic recitation. Related arts such as dance and music were important in appearance and development of drama in India. Moreover, Greek dramas may have had influences on Sanskrit dramatic literature. Studying the origins of drama in ancient culture of India reveals that it had some counterparts in ancient literature of Iran, which remained until Islamic period and parts of it became more widespread. On the contrary to these powerful origins in India, drama has not been able to develop in form of organized and indelible works of art in Iran. In this paper, firstly the origins of drama in India is discussed and afterwards, the void of drama in ancient literature of Iran is studied. It seems the main reason for such historical void is the fact that writing tradition has not been developed properly in ancient literature of Iran.

Keywords

drama
Epic
writing tradition
dance
vedic chants
Indian and Iranian dramas
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Iranian Studies
Volume 5, Issue 2
Autumn 2016
Pages 1-15

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