Secular Origin of the Drama 57. as the man who lays out the temporary playhouse needed for the exhibition, and this sense passes easily over into that of director; this derivation is preferable on the whole to the other, accepted by Professor Hillebrandt, which would make him the man who knows the rules of his art. The shadow-play, we have seen, cannot have influenced the progress of the early drama, and we may, therefore, leave aside the question whether it does not essentially presuppose the drama, as Professor Hillebrandt contends; the parallel from Java adduced to refute this opinion is clearly wholly inadequate, unless and until it can be proved that the shadow play sprang up in Java without any previous knowledge of real drama. 5. Greek Influence on the Sanskrit Drama It is undoubtedly a matter far from easy for any people to create from materials such as existed in India a true drama, and it was a perfectly legitimate suggestion of Weber's 2 that the necessary impetus to creation may have been given by the contact of Greece with India, through the representation of Greek plays at the courts of the kings in Baktria, the Punjab, and Gujarat, who brought with them Greek culture as well as Greek forces. This view suffered modification in view of further con- sideration of the evidence of an Indian drama in the Mahabhäşya, and the final opinion of Weber was content with the view that a certain influence might have been exerted by the Greek on the Sanskrit drama. The vehement repudiation of this opinion by Pischel 3 was followed by the elaborate effort of Windisch 4 to trace the extent of the influence which he believed he could establish. Windisch's attitude is of special importance because he recognizes fully the elements which made for the development of an independent Indian drama, the epic recitations and the mimetic art of the Nața, whose name indicated, as a Pra- kritism of the root nyt, dance, that he was at first a dancer, in the Indian sense of the term, that is one who represents by ¹ AID. p. 8, n. 2. On Javan drama, cf. Ridgeway, Dramas, &c., pp. 216 ff. 2 1S. ii. 148; Ind. Lit.2 n. 210; SBAW. 1890, p. 920; cf. IS. xiii. 492. 3 Die Recensionen der Çakuntala (1875), p. 19; SBAW. 1906, p. 5c2. Der griechische Einfluss im indischen Drama (1882); Sansk. Phil. pp. 398 ff. Cf. E. Brandes, Lervognen (1870), pp. iii ff.; Vincent Smith, JASB. lviii. 1. 184 ff.
