According to the Çāstra,[1] the play-house as made ready for performance may be of three types, the first for the gods, 108 hands (18 inches) long; the second rectangular, 64 hands long and 32 broad; the third triangular, 32 hands long, the second being praised on acoustic grounds. The house falls into two parts, the places for the audience and the stage. The auditorium is marked off by pillars, in front a white pillar for the seats for the Brahmins, then a red pillar for the Kṣatriyas, in the north-west a yellow pillar marks the seats for the Vaiçyas, while the Çūdras have a blue-black pillar in the north-east. The seats are of wood and bricks, and arranged in rows. In front beside the stage is a veranda with four pillars, apparently also for the use of spectators. In front of the spectators is the stage (ran̄ga), adorned with pictures and reliefs; it is eight hands square in the second form of play-house; its end is the head of the stage (ran̄gaçīrşa), decorated by figures, and there offerings are made.[2]
Behind[3] the stage is the painted curtain (paṭī, apaṭī, tiraskaraṇī, pratisīrā), to which the name Yavanikā (Prākrit, Javanikā) is given, denoting merely that the material is foreign, and forbidding any conclusion as to the Greek origin of the curtain itself or the theatre. When one enters hastily, the curtain is violently thrown aside (apaṭīkṣepa). Behind the curtain are the actors' quarters (nepathyagṛha) or tiring rooms. Here are performed the sounds necessary to represent uproar and confusion which cannot be represented on the stage; here also are uttered the voices of gods and other persons whose presence on the stage is impossible or undesirable.
The colour of the curtain is given in some authorities as necessarily in harmony with the dominant sentiment of the play, in accordance with the classification of sentiments already given, but others permit the use of red in every instance. Normally the entry of any character is effected by the drawing aside of the curtain by two maidens, whose beauty marks them out for this
- ↑ ii; cf. JPASB. v. 353 ff.; Çilparatna (ed. TSS.), pp. 201 ff. Cf. Kāvyamīmāṅsā, p. 54.
- ↑ For the Greek theatre, which presents certain points of similarity but many of difference, see Dorpfeld, Das griechische Theater; Haigh, Attic Theatre (3rd ed.); a brief summary is given in Norwood, Greek Tragedy, pp. 49 ff.
- ↑ The theory of a transverse curtain (Wilson, I. lxviii) is not supported by evidence of any clear kind. Cf. p. 113, n. 1.
