Theatre de l'Inde andenne.

• Author: Jamison, Stephanie W.

Theatre de I'lnde andenne. Edited by LYNE BANSAT-BOUDON, with Nalini Balbir, Sylvain Broquet, Yves Codet, Andre Couture, Charles Malamoud, and Marie-Claude Porcher. Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, vol. 523. Paris: GALLIMARD, 2006. Pp. lxxii + 1574. [euro]79.

The venerable and prestigious French series, Bibliotheque de la Pleiade, known for serious and handsomely produced editions of high literature (mostly French) designed for the educated public, has added as its five-hundred-and-twenty-third volume this impressive collection of new translations of ancient Indian dramas--an occasion to be celebrated not merely in the francophone world, but in Indology in general. The general editor and prime mover of the volume, Lyne Bansat-Boudon, is well known for her work on all facets of ancient Indian drama, a field that has benefitted immensely in recent years from her meticulous scholarship and tireless enthusiasm for the subject. Among her numerous publications are the ground-breaking Poetiques du theatre indien. Lectures du Natyasastra (Paris 1992) (reviewed lyrically in this journal by Edwin Gerow, a scholar not given to eulogistic hyperbole: "Avanavagupta on Kalidasa and the Theatre," JAOS 117 [1997] 343-46); a translation of the plays of Kalidasa: Le theatre de Kalidasa (1996); an edited collection of article: Theatres indiens (1998); and Pourquoi le theatre? La repanse indienne (2004). These are all distinguished by Bansat-Bouden's command not merely of the texts of the plays themselves but, on the one hand, the intricacies of dramatic theory (the notoriously difficult Natyasastra of Bharata and Abhinavagupta's commentary thereon) and, on the other, issues of actual performance. Her discussions of the latter are enriched by her knowledge and enthusiasm for drama of all sorts, Western as well as Indian.

She has been aided in this latest task by a group of distinguished collaborators from the ranks of francophone Indology. The volume consists of new translations of fifteen "Sanskrit" (that is, mixed Sanskrit and Prakrit) plays ascribed to six different authors, presented in rough chronological order (for further discussion of chronology see below). Each of the authors and each of his plays is carefully introduced and contextualized, and the translations are helpfully annotated. The volume is rounded out by a general introduction of approximately forty-five pages, a chronology of seven pages, and a guide to pronunciation, and at the end a lengthy...