The word rupa in Sanskrit means beautiful, handsome or well-formed, and a cognate of rupa is the word rupaka, which means a thing that is imbued with sublime qualities, something as, for example, a beautifully composed drama. A drama that is not as well-crafted is called an uparupaka, or a secondary drama. That the name …
The earliest Sanskrit dramas with the same theme as Vidagdha Madhava (aka, A Portrait of Lord Shree Krishna, translated from the Sanskrit by Arjundas Adhikari), viz. the pastimes of the incarnation of Lord Shree Krishna, were written by the playwright, Bhasa, in the 4th century BCE. His two principal plays are Balacharitam and Dutavakyam, which …
Sanskrit Terms Relating to ‘actor’ In case there are any doubts Rupa Goswami didn’t intend his Sanskrit drama, Vidagdha Madhava, aka, A Portrait of Lord Shree Krishna, (translated into English by Arjundas Adhikari) to be staged, I would like to share a compilation of Sanskrit terms relating to dramaturgy. The list goes to show what …
In Sanskrit, the word for ‘beholding’, or ‘seeing’, is darshan: As is clear in the above entry taken from Monier-Williams’ 1899 Sanskrit-English dictionary, the word darshan is indicative of ‘seeing’ in the sense of ‘perceiving’ as well as ‘observing’. Sight is generally limited to a certain range of light frequencies and the availability of sunlight, …
