The Natyashastra

A comprehensive ancient treatise on dramatic and aesthetic theory, developing a systematic account of how art produces emotional experience distinct from ordinary feeling.

primary. Primary source text — summarized in original words, not quoted at length.
Tradition: hinduism Period: late-vedic-to-classical Theme: aesthetics Theme: drama Theme: art Theme: method

The Natyashastra is a comprehensive treatise on dramatic and aesthetic theory, and it belongs in this archive as a reminder that the intellectual tradition it covers produced rigorous systematic thought about art and emotional experience, not only about metaphysics, ethics, and liberation.

A theory of aesthetic emotion

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Related in the archive

Concept

Purushartha

The classical scheme of four legitimate aims of human life — duty, prosperity, pleasure, and liberation — held in tension.

Concept

Dharma

A cluster of ideas around duty, order, and right conduct that is understood differently across Indian traditions.

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Next → The Kama Sutra A systematic treatise on pleasure, courtship, and cultivated living, popularly reduced in the West to a narrow sexual manual despite covering a far broader account of a refined life.