Б.з.д. IV ғасырындағы ежелгі үнді драматургі Бхаса

Indian playwright in Sanskrit

Bhāsa is one of the earliest Indian playwrights in Sanskrit, predating Kālidasa. Estimates of his floruit range from the 4th century BCE

Bhāsa's date of birth is uncertain: he likely lived after Aśvaghoṣa (1st 2nd century CE) as a verse in his Pratijna yaugandharayana is probably from Aśvaghoṣa's Buddha charita. He definitely lived before Kālidāsa (4th 5th century CE), who knew of his fame as an established poet. Bhāsa's language is closer to Kālidāsa than it is to Aśvaghoṣa. According to British scholar Richard Stoneman, Bhasa may have belonged to the late Maurya period at the earliest, and was already known by the 1st century BCE. Stoneman notes that the thirteen plays attributed to Bhasa are generally dated closer to the 1st or 2nd century CE. Other scholarly estimates of Bhasa's floruit range from the late 2nd century CE to the 4th century CE. Bhāsa's works do not follow all the dictates of the Natya Shastra. This has been taken as a proof of their antiquity; no post Kālidāsa play has been found to break the rules of the Natya Shastra. Scenes from Bhāsa present signs of physical violence on the stage, as in plays like Urubhangam. This is strictly frowned upon by Natya Shastra. However, these facts alone don't make chronology certain. Indu Shekhar states that, "Whatever the exact date [of Natya Shastra] may have been, it is significant that no direct reference to NS was made before the seventh century," when it became accepted as the subject of attention for many poets, writers, and theorists.

In 1912 Mahamahopadhyaya T. Ganapati Sastri came upon 13 Sanskrit plays that were used in the Koodiyattam plays. The first discovery yielded ten complete manuscripts (Svapnavasavadattam, Pratijnayaugandharayana, Pancharatra, Charudatta, Dootaghatotkacha, Avimaraka, Balacharita, Madhyamavyayoga, Karnabhara and Urubhanga) and fragments of one. Later, he found two more: Abhisheka and Pratimanataka. Finally, he found intact manuscript of Dootavakyam, adding up to total thirteen plays believed to be authored by Bhasa. Unlike other classical plays, none of them mentioned the author, but one was the Swapnavāsavadatta. Comparing the style of writing and techniques employed in these plays and based on the knowledge that Swapnavāsavadatta was Bhāsa's work, all of them were credited to him. Some scholars have disputed Bhāsa's authorship of all the plays but over the years the plays have generally come to be ascribed to Bhāsa.

The first person to revive Bhasa in modern Indian theatre was a Professor of Ancient Indian Drama at National School of Drama, and theatre director, Shanta Gandhi, who first directed productions of Madhyamavyayoga (1966) ("The Middle One") and Urubhanga ("The Broken Thigh") in Hindi. A decade later, his work was approached by playwright Kavalam Narayan Panikkar and theatre director, Ratan Thiyam using Manipuri dance and theatre traditions, and traditional martial art of Thang Ta, who first performed Karna bhara ("Karna's burden") in 1976, and later Urubhanga. Waman Kendre did an adaptation of Madhyama Vyāyoga in three different languages: O My Love in English, Mohe Piya in Hindi and Piya Bawari in Marathi. The legendary Natyasastra scholar and Koodiyattam maestro Guru Mani Madhava Chakyar choreographed and started to perform Swapnavāsadatta and Pancharātra for the first time in the history of Koodiyattam.