View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by edoc The Indian Response to Hamlet: Shakespeare’s Reception in India and a Study of Hamlet in Sanskrit Poetics Dissertation zur Erlangung des Würde einer Doktorin der Philosophie, vorgelegt der Philosophisch-Historischen Fakultät der Universität Basel von Sangeeta Mohanty von Baden/ Kanton Aargau Basel 2010 Genehmigt von der Philosophisch-Historischen Fakultät der Universität Basel, auf Antrag von Prof. Dr. Balz Engler und Prof. Dr. Ananta Sukla Basel, den 15. Dezember 2005 Der Dekan Prof. Dr. Kaspar von Greyerz The Indian Response to Hamlet: Shakespeare’s Reception in India and a Study of Hamlet in Sanskrit Poetics Sangeeta Mohanty Dedicated to my Parents Basel, July 1st 2005 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe my sincere gratitude to several persons whose invaluable guidance, help and support have made the completion of my thesis possible. It was my guide, Prof. Dr. Balz Engler who planted the idea of choosing such a topic as I have done. I thank him profusely for supervising this study with meticulousness and critical insight, and for patiently bearing with my shortcomings. To my co-guide, Prof. Dr. Ananta Charan Sukla, I am immensely grateful for showing me the way out of the jungle and for patiently explaining to me certain critical concepts in Indian Poetics. I am highly indebted to my father, Prof. Dr. Rebati Charan Das, without whose support, I would have never reached this stage. Since it wasn’t easy to travel to India too frequently, he spared me a lot of hassle, by collecting a major part of my study material and information, from various sources and different parts of India. He has also been responsible for introducing me to several distinguished scholars in India, including Dr. Sukla. Dr. Sasank Sekhar Mohanty, my husband who has always stood by me through thick and thin; I deeply value his constant encouragement, for having confidence in me, for being there whenever I needed him and for his unfailing support during the trying times of my study. And my dear mother, Manasi Das Kanungo, I wish to thank her for her sacrifice and for giving up her own interests and pursuits, for extended periods of time, in order to relieve me of certain responsibilities. To my two girls, Sarina and Priya; I thank you for your understanding and for coping with my moods, odd hours and periods of absence. To my brother, Dr. Sanjoy Das; I appreciate your brotherly concern and encouragement, especially at the beginning stages of my manuscript. I express my appreciation to my friend, Sanjay Sarangi, for his concern and for helping me acquire useful research materials. I thank my colleagues, Dr. Manuela Rossini, Dr. Ladina Bezzola and Dr. Regula Hohl for responding to my requests and trying to help me in whatever way they could. I wish to extend my warm thanks to all the participants in the department colloquium for lending me an ear, and for their helpful ideas and suggestions. And last but not least, the generous financial contributions of FAG (Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft) and BLKB Stiftung (Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank), I thoroughly acknowledge. CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 English Language and Literature in Colonial and Postcolonial India 9 2.1 Education in Pre-colonial India 9 2.2 Orientalism versus Anglicism 12 2.3 The Role of Christian Missionaries 16 2.4 The Establisment of English and Shakespeare in India 25 3 The Reception of Shakespeare in India: Shakespeare in Indian Languages and in Performances 31 3.1 Shakespeare in Bengali 31 3.2 Shakespeare in Marathi 40 3.3 Shakespeare in the Parsi Theatre 47 3.4 Shakespeare in Hindi 53 3.5 Shakespeare in Tamil 54 3.6 Shakespeare in Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada 57 3.7 Hamlet in Mizoram 60 3.8 Shakespeare in Sanskrit Translations 61 3.9 Some Problems in Intercultural Experimenting 62 3.10 Shakespeareana and the Decline of Shakespeare 66 3.11 The Revival of Shakespeare 67 4 The Popularity of Shakespeare in India 69 4.1 The Causes of Shakespeare’s Popularity 69 4.2 The Causes of the Popularity of Hamlet 75 5. Basic Theories of Sanskrit Poetics: Rasa and Dhvani 81 5.1 The Theory of Rasa 81 5.1.1 Specific Number of Emotions 88 5.1.2 Accessory or Transient Emotions 89 5.1.3 Durable and Transient Emotions 91 5.1.4 Friendly and Opposing Emotions 96 5.1.5 The Direct Perception of the Rasa Experience 103 5.2 The Theory of Dhvani 107 5.2.1 Types of Dhvani 123 6 A Classical Indian Interpretation: Hamlet in the light of the Bhagavad Geeta, Sanskrit Dramaturgy and Poetics 126 6.1 Hamlet and the Bhagavad Geeta 126 6.2 Hamlet and the Dramatic Structure in Classical Sanskrit Plays 135 6.3 Hamlet and the Rasa theory 146 6.4 Hamlet and the Dhvani theory 188 7 Conclusion 197 Notes 203 Works Cited 218 Works Consulted 226 1. INTRODUCTION Today Shakespeare is one of the most admired poets in India. He came to the country through the introduction of the English language by the colonial masters and was later naturalized. His plays have been widely adapted both on the stage and on screen in almost all the Indian languages (including English). The Indian response to Shakespeare has been very aptly described in a recent article by Sisir Kumar Das as: not only widespread, stretching over a vast region conspicuous by its linguistic and cultural diversities, but also of the longest duration so far as any other foreign writer is considered. The Indian engagement with Shakespeare that began almost from the initial phase of the Indo-British encounter and which continues still to-day, fifty years after the end of the Raj, is not simply an issue of literary history involving the problematics of influence and impacts, reception and survival, but an integral part of larger questions of politics and culture in a colonial situation.1 Of all the dramas of Shakespeare, Hamlet appears to be the most popular in India.2 The popularity of Shakespeare in India makes it interesting to study the dramatist in general and Hamlet in particular. From the scholarly point of view, it might be particularly favourable to study Hamlet or any Shakespearean play for that matter, in the light of classical Sanskrit poetics. Such a novel interpretation would not only widen our scope of interpreting drama but would show that Hamlet which is normally typified as a tragedy, could fall into a different category altogether, from one of the seven categories of drama as delineated by Sanskrit poetics. The warm reception of Hamlet in India has motivated me to choose this particular play as a model for interpretation. India and Shakespeare are correlated with a bond of colonialism as much as with a genuine aesthetic taste. Emily Eden wrote in her Letters from India, “the native 1 generation who have been brought up at the Hindu College are perfectly mad about Shakespeare. What a triumph for this dear creature!”3 For Eden, Shakespeare’s warm reception by the colonial intellectuals is a triumph for Shakespeare himself. This “triumph” suggests not merely Shakespeare’s popularity in a foreign land; it also suggests the aesthetic qualifications of an Indian audience unwittingly acknowledged by an English lady. The aesthetic qualifications of an Indian audience in the mid-nineteenth century might have been triggered by the cultural elements of a non-Indian (British) tradition. But the inherent aesthetic base of this Indian audience that must have been shaped by prior exposure to classical Indian/Sanskrit drama must also be acknowledged. Indian theatrical tradition was strictly dictated by the norms of Sanskrit dramaturgy delineated in the canonical theories of rasa and dhvani (to be discussed from chapter 5 onwards). So the aesthetic sensibility of Indian theatregoers, the majority of whom were not familiar with the canons of their own theatrical tradition was largely formed through exposure to the latter in an indirect manner. It is this passive influence of Sanskrit poetics and active influence of Sanskrit drama (their products) that created and nurtured this aesthetic sensibility in Indians. And because of this dramatic genius an Indian actor named Baishnav Charan Adhya could excel in playing the role of Othello with an English actress named Mrs. Anderson playing the role of Desdemona.4 This event is unique in the cultural history of the British colonies in Asia at that time. The basic aesthetic qualifications of Indians are therefore unquestionable. But what remains to be acknowledged is much more than the sensibility of Indians displayed in the theatrical performances and other appropriations. The 2 intelligentsia of modern Bengal, the students of the Hindu college (founded in 1816) were attracted by D.L. Richardsons’s (who was also the founder of the Chowringhee Theatre) style of teaching Shakespeare, reciting and acting scenes from his plays along with critical appreciation, not because the style was anything novel to them but because it suited their inherent age old dramatic sensibility displayed in the great literary and theatrical tradition of classical India.5 Thus, Bankim Chandra’s comparison of The Tempest with Kalidasa’s (4th century A.D.) Shakuntala, eulogizing the narrative skill of both the plays was an expression of a cultural confidence that in India the intellectual and aesthetic traditions are no less glorious than those of the British.6 But none of them were aware of a great theatrical tradition of Sanskrit literature evident in the work of Bharata’s Natyasastra (4th century B.C.) and the various commentaries written on this text between the 8th and the 10th centuries A.D.