1. Can Literary Parallelisms Prove Cultural Contact?

Theater Following in
Epic’s Footsteps

© 2024 Roberto Morales-Harley, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0417.01

Epic (Gr. ἔπος, Skr. itihāsa) and theater (Gr. δρᾶμα, Skr. nāṭya) exist as literary genres both in the Greco-Roman world and in India. In both contexts, epic is an older literary genre and theater a newer one, so epic can function as a model for later literary production. Indeed, Greek theater and Sanskrit theater take their inspiration from their respective epics. For Ancient Greece, the Iliad and the Odyssey represent the main benchmarks, whereas for Ancient India, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa fill in that position.

The adaptation of epic materials is part of a process of tradition (Lat. trāditiō, Skr. smṛti), through which works from the past are assessed in terms of aesthetics and ethics, and accordingly reinterpreted in the present as an acknowledgment of their authority. Not only the Greco-Roman world, but also India reaches a classical period for their literature and language. In Greece, it is the Age of Pericles (fifth century BCE); in Rome, the Age of Augustus (first century BCE to first century CE); and in India, the Gupta Empire (fourth century CE to sixth century CE). Both in Greece and in India, theater constitutes the most conspicuous form of the Belles Lettres.

For this study, Greek epic will be represented by the Homeric Epics, that is, the Iliad (Il.) and the Odyssey (Od.).1 These are narrative texts: the first one, about anger, fighting, withdrawal and return, power struggles, and the destruction of a generation of heroes; the second one, about homecoming, wandering, and reunion. They were probably dictated by Homer in the Aegean Islands between 800 BCE and 750 BCE.2 The Iliad is structured in three sections: books 1-8, from the loss of Briseis and Zeus’ promise to its fulfillment; books 9-16, from the embassy to Achilles and Agamemnon’s promise to the loss of Patroclus; and books 17-24, from the war around Patroclus’ corpse, to the peace-offering release of Hector’s corpse.

The Odyssey, in turn, is structured in six sections: books 1-4, with Telemachus’ adventures; books 5-8, with Odysseus’ post-Calypso adventures; books 9-12, with Odysseus’ pre-Calypso adventures; books 13-16, with the father/son encounter; books 17-20, with the much-awaited return; and books 21-24, with the trail, the punishment, the reunion, and Laertes’ adventures. The ingenious author of these epics seems to have borrowed materials both from Greek myth and Near Eastern sources to put together a work concurrently producing aesthetic pleasure and serving didactic, religious, and moral purposes.3

In the Homeric Epics, the focus will be on the Presbeia (Il. 9), the Doloneia (Il. 10), and the Cyclopeia (Od. 9), which correspond, respectively, to the literary motifs of the embassy, the ambush, and the ogre. These three books have been viewed from various perspectives within the tendencies of the so-called analysts, unitarians, oral theory researchers, and neoanalysts.4 Within the Presbeia, analysists have seen Phoenix’s intervention as an interpolation for its oddity in terms of both cultural values and dual forms, while unitarians have found common ground for integration in the folktale-nature of Meleager’s story.⁵

As for the Doloneia, analysts, unitarians, oral theory researchers, and neoanalysts alike have almost unanimously regarded it as being a latter insertion. However, recent studies, from a conciliatory perspective combining neoanalysis and oral theory research, have contributed to a better understanding of the book within both the narrative and its tradition, by emphasizing the poetics involved in its composition.⁶ Finally, regarding the Cyclopeia, both analysts and unitarians have profited from the tools of folklore studies, the consensus being the proposal of one or several previous folktales functioning as its sources.⁷

If the Homeric Epics will provide the corpus for Greek epic, (Ps.-)Euripides will do so for Greek theater.8 The playwright Euripides lived in Athens and Macedon from 485/480 BCE to 407/406 BCE. There are nineteen plays attributed to him, which tend to be separated into three groups: nine early plays, from 438-416 BCE (Alcestis, Medea, Children of Heracles, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, Suppliant Women, Electra, and Heracles); eight later plays, from after 416 BCE (Trojan Women, Iphigenia in Tauris, Ion, Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Bacchae); and the miscellanea (Cyclops, Rhesus, and fragments).

Even more so than those authored by Aeschylus and Sophocles, the plays associated with (Ps.-)Euripides rework epic subjects.9 The fragmentary Phoenix borrows from Il. 9; the Rhesus (Rhes.), from Il. 10, as well as from Greek myth and literature; and the Cyclops (Cyc.), from the Od. 9, as well as from Greek myth and literature.¹⁰ These three plays are, respectively, examples of the literary motifs of the embassy, the ambush, and the ogre.

Regarding the other side of the comparison, Sanskrit epic will be represented by the Mahābhārata (MBh.).¹¹ This is a narrative text about dharma (duty), bhakti (devotion), pravṛtti (active life) and nivṛtti (ceasing from worldly acts), education, genealogies, power struggles, and the destruction of a generation of heroes. It was probably written by Vyāsa in Northern India between 1 CE and 100 CE.12 The text is structured through two successive narrative frames.

In the outer frame, the sūta (bard) Ugraśravas tells the story to the kulapati (family chieftain) Śaunaka at the Naimiṣa Forest during a twelve-year sacrifice; in the inner frame, the Brahman Vaiśampāyana tells the story to the rāja (king) Janamejaya at the city of Takṣaśilā during a snake-sacrifice. The ingenious author of this epic seems to have borrowed materials both from Vedic myth and Greco-Roman sources to put together a work concurrently producing aesthetic pleasure and serving didactic, religious, moral, and political purposes.¹³

In the Mahābhārata, the focus will be on the Udyogaparvan (MBh. 5), the Virāṭaparvan (MBh. 4), and the Ādiparvan (MBh. 1), which include, respectively, the literary motifs of the embassy, the ambush, and the ogre. These three books have been viewed from various perspectives within the tendencies of the so-called analysts and synthetists.¹⁴ From an analytic perspective, the Hiḍimbavadhaparvan (MBh. 1.139-144) and the Bakavadhaparvan (MBh. 1.145-152) have been read in terms of postcolonialism, and the Bhagavadyānaparvan (MBh. 5.70-135) in terms of ethics; from a synthetic point of view, the Virāṭaparvan (MBh. 4) has been interpreted based on its supposed sources.15

If the Mahābhārata will provide the corpus for Sanskrit epic, (Ps.-)Bhāsa will do so for Sanskrit theater.¹⁶ The playwright Bhāsa probably lived in Northern India between 100 CE and 200 CE.¹⁷ There are thirteen plays attributed to him, which tend to be separated into three groups: seven Mahābhārata-and-Kṛṣṇa-inspired plays (The Middle One, The Five Nights, The Embassy, Ghaṭotkaca as an Envoy, Karṇa’s Task, The Broken Thighs, and The Adventures of the Boy Kṛṣṇa); two Rāmāyaṇa-inspired plays (The Consecration and The Statue Play); and the miscellanea (two legendary plays, i.e., Avimāraka and Cārudatta in Poverty; and two historical plays, i.e., The Minister’s Vows and The Vision of Vāsavadatta).

Even more so than Kālidāsa, Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa, Vatsarāja, Kulaśekhara Varman, Rājaśekhara, Kṣemendra, and Vijayapāla after him, (Ps.-)Bhāsa reworked epic subjects.18 Focusing only on the literary motifs of the embassy, the ambush, and the ogre, one respectively notices that The Embassy (DV) borrows from MBh. 5; The Five Nights (PR), from MBh. 4; and The Middle One (MV), from MBh. 1.¹⁹ The selection, from among several available options, of these three plays for the book was motivated precisely because they deal with the same three motifs that are present in the only three remaining plays by (Ps.-)Euripides that adapt Homer.

In sum, the aim of this book is to compare, by means of a philological and literary analysis, the adaptation of the embassy, ambush, and ogre motifs, on one hand, in (Ps.-)Euripides’ Homeric-inspired Phoenix, Rhesus, and Cyclops, and on the other, in (Ps.-)Bhāsa’s Mahābhārata-inspired The Embassy, The Five Nights, and The Middle One, towards the goal of supporting the hypothesis of influences and borrowings from the Greco-Roman world into India. Based on this comparison, I will argue that the techniques for adapting epic into theater could have been Greco-Roman influences in India; and some of the elements adapted within the literary motifs of the embassy, the ambush, and the ogre, could have been Greco-Roman borrowings by Sanskrit authors.

Let’s Go to the Greek Theater (in India)

The earliest attestation of Greek epic influencing Sanskrit epic would coincide with the dating that I follow for the MBh. It comes from Dio Chrysostom’s (40-115 CE) Orationes (Or.),20 specifically from his discourse On Homer. The relevant passage offers three pieces of information that are noteworthy. First, the Homeric Epics would have been “sung” and “translated” in India. If the singing part already presupposes an influence in the form of an exposure to Greek language and literature, the translating part also opens the door for linguistic and literary borrowings.

Second, Indian people, and presumably Sanskrit authors as well, would have been “acquainted” with epic Greek themes and characters.21 And third, there are two modes of interacting with epic Greek sources: one, with which other non-Greek speakers would have engaged, that would not have gone past mere enchantment; and another, which the Indians would have followed, that would have included a knowledge of the epic Greek “tongue” and “deeds”.

Ἔτι δὲ καὶ αὐτὸς τῆς χάριτος ἐπαινῶν τὴν ποίησιν σφόδρα ἄγαται τὸν ἄνδρα. ἀτεχνῶς γὰρ οὐκ ἄνευ θείας τύχης οὐδ̓ ἄνευ Μουσῶν τε καὶ Ἀπόλλωνος ἐπιπνοίας δυνατὸν οὕτως ὑψηλὴν καὶ μεγαλοπρεπῆ καὶ προσέτι ἡδεῖαν γενέσθαι ποίησιν, ὥστε μὴ μόνον τοὺς ὁμογλώττους καὶ ὁμοφώνους τοσοῦτον ἤδη κατέχειν χρόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν βαρβάρων πολλούς· καὶ τοὺς μὲν διγλώττους καὶ μιγάδας σφόδρα ἐμπείρους εἶναι τῶν ἐπῶν αὐτοῦ, πολλὰ τῶν ἄλλων ἀγνοοῦντας τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν, ἐνίους δὲ καὶ τῶν σφόδρα μακρὰν διῳκισμένων· ὁπότε καὶ παῤ Ἰνδοῖς φασιν ᾄδεσθαι τὴν Ὁμήρου ποίησιν, μεταλαβόντων αὐτὴν εἰς τὴν σφετέραν διάλεκτόν τε καὶ φωνήν.

ὥστε καὶ Ἰνδοὶ τῶν μὲν ἄστρων τῶν παρ’ ἡμῖν πολλῶν εἰσιν ἀθέατοι· τὰς γὰρ ἄρκτους οὔ φασι φαίνεσθαι παρ’ αὐτοῖς· τῶν δὲ Πριάμου παθημάτων καὶ τῶν Ἀνδρομάχης καὶ Ἑκάβης θρήνων καὶ ὀδυρμῶν καὶ τῆς Ἀχιλλέως τε καὶ Ἕκτορος ἀνδρείας οὐκ ἀπείρως ἔχουσιν. τοσοῦτον ἴσχυσεν ἑνὸς ἀνδρός μουσική· καὶ δοκεῖ ἔμοιγε τῇ δυνάμει ταύτῃ τάς τε Σειρῆνας ὑπερβαλέσθαι καὶ τὸν Ὀρφέα.

τὸ γὰρ λίθους τε καὶ φυτὰ καὶ θηρία κηλεῖν καὶ ἄγειν τί ἔστιν ἕτερον ἢ τὸ βαρβάρους ἀνθρώπους ἀσυνέτους τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς φωνῆς οὕτως ἄγαν χειρώσασθαι, μήτε τῆς γλώττης μήτε τῶν πραγμάτων ἐμπείρους ὄντας ὑπὲρ ὧν ὁ λόγος, ἀλλὰ ἀτεχνῶς καθάπερ, οἶμαι, πρὸς κιθάραν κηλουμένους; ἡγοῦμαι δὲ ἔγωγε πολλοὺς καὶ τῶν ἀμαθεστέρων ἔτι βαρβάρων τό γε ὄνομα ἀκηκοέναι τὸ Ὁμήρου, ὅ τι δὲ δηλοῖ, τοῦτο μὴ εἰδέναι σαφῶς, εἴτε ζῷον εἴτε φυτὸν εἴτε πρᾶγμα ἕτερον.

Furthermore, he [sc. Plato] himself praising the poetry for its charm, greatly admires the man [sc. Homer]. Indeed, without a divine cause or without the Muses’ and Apollo’s intervention, it is simply not possible for an elevated, magnificent, and sweet poetry to appear and to enthrall for quite some time, not only those of the same tongue and of the same language, but also many of the barbarians. The bilingual ones and the mixed ones, not knowing much else about the Greeks, are versed in his poetry, and so are some living very far away. Among the Indians, so they say, Homer’s poetry is sung, after they translated it into their own dialect and language.

Indeed, how is enchanting and steering rocks, plants, and beasts any different than utterly subduing barbarian men who do not understand the Greek language, and who are unacquainted with the tongue and the deeds about which the text is, but are, I believe, simply enchanted by the lyre? Moreover, I think that many of the barbarians that are even more ignorant have certainly heard Homer’s name, it is clear, not knowing well if it was an animal, a plant, or other thing.

(Dio Chrys. Or. 53.6-8)22

As a speculative interpretation of all this information I suggest the following: if Sanskrit authors would have had a mastery of the epic Greek language and an appreciation for the epic Greek literature, they could have profited from them, to re-create Greek epic, however freely, when coming up with the Sanskrit epic.

Contemporaneous to Dio Chrysostom is Plutarch (46-119 CE). From him, there is reason to include as many as four passages. In the first one, from Moralia (Mor.),23 specifically from On the Fortune of Alexander, alongside Homer, he mentions Sophocles and Euripides. Although he is not speaking of India, but of its vicinities (Persia, Susa, and Gedrosia), he notes that these works of Greek literature, both epic and dramatic, would have been “read” and “sung”. In the second one, from Parallel Lives, specifically from Alexander (Alex.),24 he reveals that Alexander the Great traveled to Asia with Aristotle’s “edition” of Homer’s Iliad, and that once he was stationed there, he ordered for more “books”, among others, by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

We admire Carneades’ power, if it did Hellenize Cleitomachus, formerly known as Hasdrubal and Carthaginian by birth. We admire Zeno’s character, if it persuaded Diogenes the Babylonian to philosophize. But while Alexander was civilizing Asia, Homer was habitual reading, and the children of the Persians, the Susianians, and the Gedrosians, sang Euripides’ and Sophocles’ tragedies. When even Socrates was condemned by Athenian slanderers for the charge of introducing foreign deities, through Alexander, Bactria and the Caucasus still worshiped the gods of the Greeks.

(Plut. Mor. 328d)

Considering the Iliad “provisions” for warlike excellencies, and calling it so, he [sc. Alexander] took – after Aristotle revised it – the one called “of the casket”, and he always kept it near his dagger, placed under his pillow, as Onesicritus has reported; and other books not being available at the inland regions, he ordered Harpalus to send some.

And he [sc. Harpalus] sent him [sc. Alexander] Philistus’ books and lots of Euripides’, Sophocles’, and Aeschylus’ tragedies, as well as Telestus’ and Philoxenus’ dithyrambs. Admiring Aristotle at first and loving him no less than he did his father, as he said – for thanks to one he lived, but thanks to the other he lived well – later, he [sc. Alexander] held him more under suspicion, not up to doing him harm, but his kindnesses no longer having such profusion and affection towards the other: thus, surfaced the proof of their estrangement.

(Plut. Alex. 8.2-3)

If the orality of chanting suffices for positing a general influence, writing would be much more likely to account for specific borrowings, which naturally need not be copies. Following up the speculative interpretation, I postulate that if authors of Sanskrit theater would have had a mastery of Greek language (both epic and classical), an appreciation for Greek literature (both epic and dramatic), and written versions of Greek texts (both Homer and Euripides), they could have profited from them, to re-create Greek theater, however freely, when coming up with Sanskrit theater.

In the third and fourth passages, Plutarch is also in the context of speaking about India’s vicinities. Parallel Lives, still in Alexander (Alex.), stretches the reach of Greek theater up to Media. In Ecbatana, there would have been Greek “theaters” and “artists”. Similarly, Parallel Lives, specifically Crassus (Crass.),25 extends Euripides’ influence up to Parthia and Armenia. There, king Orodes II (r. 57-37 BCE) is said to have become acquainted with Greek “language” and “literature”, and king Artavasdes II (r. 55-34 BCE), to have composed, among other things, “tragedies”. Moreover, the passage notably suggests a Parthian adaptation of “Euripides’ Bacchae”, during the staging of which, the head of Crassus would have taken the place of the head of Pentheus.

When he [sc. Alexander] came to Ecbatana of Media and attended pressing matters, once again, he partook in theaters and festivals, after three thousand artists from Greece appeared before him. But around that time, Hephaestion happened to have a fever. Since he was young and a soldier, he was not following a strict regimen: as soon as his physician Glaucus took off to the theater, he turned up for breakfast, ate a cooked chicken, and having drunk a huge decanter of wine, fell ill and died shortly thereafter.

(Plut. Alex. 72.1)

Indeed, neither with the language of the Greeks nor with their literature was Orodes unacquainted, and Artavasdes even composed tragedies, and wrote discourses and histories, some of which are preserved. And when the head of Crassus was taken to the door, the tables had been removed and an actor of tragedies from Tralles, named Jason, was singing the scene about Agave from Euripides’ Bacchae. When he was being cheered, Sillaces stood before the hall, and having kneeled, he cast Crassus’ head in the middle.

(Plut. Crass. 33.2)

The last two ancient sources are about a century later than Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch. They are Aelian and Philostratus. Aelian (175-235 CE), in Historical Miscellany (VH),26 retransmits Dio Chrysostom’s ideas about “translating” and “chanting” the Greek epic in India.

…that Indians, having translated Homer’s poetry into their native language, sing it, and so too do the kings of the Persians, if one must trust those who report these things.

Philostratus (170-250 CE) provides the last attestations of Greek epic and theater bearing an influence on Sanskrit literature. With him, the number of passages goes up to five, all of which come from the Life of Apollonius of Tyana (V A),27 a source that, on account of its tendency to fiction, must be considered with the utmost care. The first two passages refer to the mastery of Greek language in India itself, a practice that would have been so run-of-the-mill as to be qualified as “not remarkable”, and as to be exemplified by pointing out the omission of a “single character”.

…προσδραμόντα δὲ τῷ Ἀπολλωνίῳ φωνῇ Ἑλλάδι προσειπεῖν αὐτόν, καὶ τοῦτο μὲν οὔπω θαυμαστὸν δόξαι διὰ τὸ καὶ τοὺς ἐν τῇ κώμῃ πάντας ἀπὸ Ἑλλήνων φθέγγεσθαι…

…that after having run up to Apollonius, he [sc. the Indian] addressed him in the Greek language, and with this, he did not appear remarkable at all, since following the Greeks, everyone at the village spoke it…

(Philostr. V A 3.12)

…τὸν δὲ Ἀπολλώνιον ἰδὼν φωνῇ τε ἠσπάσατο Ἑλλάδι καὶ τὰ τοῦ Ἰνδοῦ γράμματα ἀπῄτει. θαυμάσαντος δὲ τοῦ Ἀπολλωνίου τὴν πρόγνωσιν καὶ γράμμα γε ἓν ἔφη λείπειν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ, δέλτα εἰπών, παρῆλθε γὰρ αὐτὸν γράφοντα·

…after seeing Apollonius, he [sc. Iarchas] greeted him in the Greek language and asked for the Indian’s letter. When Apollonius became puzzled by his foreknowledge, he told him that a single character was missing from the letter, adding that a “delta” had escaped the writer.

(Philostr. V A 3.16)

The last three passages deal with the appreciation for Greek literature in India itself. They also serve to reinforce the assertion that Greek epic and theater would have been susceptible not only to repetition, but also to re-creation. According to the Indian character, respectively, the literary situation of the Iliad’s “Achaeans” could have applied to the historical situation of the Greeks, the Greek “Palamedes” could just as easily have reincarnated as an Indian “young man”, and the plot of Euripides’ “Children of Heracles” could very well have been about an Indian king’s “sovereignty”.28

…ὁ δὲ Ἰνδὸς “Τροία μὲν ἀπώλετο,” εἶπεν, “ὑπὸ τῶν πλευσάντων Ἀχαιῶν τότε, ὑμᾶς δὲ ἀπολωλέκασιν οἱ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῇ λόγοι· μόνους γὰρ ἄνδρας ἡγούμενοι τοὺς ἐς Τροίαν στρατεύσαντας, ἀμελεῖτε πλειόνων τε καὶ θειοτέρων ἀνδρῶν, οὓς ἥ τε ὑμετέρα γῆ καὶ ἡ Αἰγυπτίων καὶ ἡ Ἰνδῶν ἤνεγκεν.”

…and the Indian replied: “Troy was destroyed by the Achaean sailors and your own words have destroyed you all. Indeed, while considering as heroes only those who fought against Troy, you are neglecting more numerous and more divine heroes, whom your land produced, as well as that of the Egyptians and the Indians.”

(Philostr. V A 3.19)

γέγονε μὲν οὖν τὸ μειράκιον τοῦτο Παλαμήδης ὁ ἐν Τροίᾳ, κέχρηται δὲ ἐναντιωτάτοις Ὀδυσσεῖ καὶ Ὁμήρῳ, τῷ μὲν ξυνθέντι ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν τέχνας, ὑφ᾽ ὧν κατελιθώθη, τῷ δὲ οὐδὲ ἔπους αὐτὸν ἀξιώσαντι. καὶ ἐπειδὴ μήθ᾽ ἡ σοφία αὐτόν τι, ἣν εἶχεν, ὤνησε, μήτε Ὁμήρου ἐπαινέτου ἔτυχεν, ὑφ᾽ οὗ πολλοὶ καὶ τῶν μὴ πάνυ σπουδαίων ἐς ὄνομα ἤχθησαν, Ὀδυσσέως τε ἥττητο ἀδικῶν οὐδέν, διαβέβληται πρὸς φιλοσοφίαν καὶ ὀλοφύρεται τὸ ἑαυτοῦ πάθος. ἔστι δὲ οὗτος Παλαμήδης, ὃς καὶ γράφει μὴ μαθὼν γράμματα.

Indeed, this young man was once born as Palamedes of Troy and has had Odysseus and Homer as his worst enemies: the former, plotting tricks by which he ended up being stoned to death; and the latter, not even having deemed him worthy of a word. And since neither the wisdom that he possessed was of any use to him, nor did he find praise in Homer, by whom many of the not so earnest made a name for themselves, and since he was defeated by Odysseus while not doing anything wrong, he is at variance with philosophy and bewails his sufferings. So, this is Palamedes, who writes while not knowing the alphabet.

If Greek testimonies of their influence in India are abundant, Indian testimonies of a Greek influence therein are altogether nonexistent.29 Oddly enough, this Indian lack of acknowledgement agrees with the sui generis form of acculturation, evidenced for instance, in the Muslim philosophical influence in India. According to Nair (2020, p. 18),

If one should ask why, for instance, despite centuries of sharing the same soil, Sanskrit philosophical writings never discussed – and, overwhelmingly, never even acknowledged the existence of – Muslim thought, the controls set up by the philosophical “discursive tradition” are a significant part of the explanation: if the tradition has no precedent for such an endeavor, and if no foundational texts within the tradition provide any particular encouragement or even pretext to do so, then, in such an environment, any dramatically new intellectual initiative would find scarcely any space to take root.

Anyhow, since someone asserting that something happens in a certain way is not quite the same as it having happened in that way, testimonies will never suffice. Therefore, in mid-nineteenth-century Germany, where the Greek influence hypothesis resurfaces, and in late-nineteenth-century France, where it finds its fiercest adversary, the attention is redirected towards the primary sources. As I will show, the straightforward rejection from most Indologists, paired with the inconsequential acceptance from the few classicists who have even dealt with the question, has resulted in relatively little progress having been made.

The Case of Classicists v. Sanskrit Playwrights

The idea that Greek theater had somehow influenced Sanskrit theater was first suggested by Weber in 1852:

From the foregoing exposition it appears that the drama meets us in an already finished form, and with its best productions. In almost all the prologues, too, the several works are represented as new, in contradistinction to the pieces of former poets; but of these pieces, that is, of the early beginnings of dramatic poetry, not the smallest remnant has been preserved. Consequently the conjecture that it may possibly have been the representation of Greek dramas at the courts of the Grecian kings in Bactria, in the Panjáb, and in Gujarát (for so far did Greek supremacy for a time extend), which awakened the Hindú faculty of imitation, and so gave birth to the Indian drama, does not in the meantime admit for direct verification. But its historical possibility, at any rate, is undeniable, especially as the older dramas nearly all belong to the west of India. No internal connection, however, with the Greek drama exists. (Weber, 1852/1878, p. 207)

The borrowing, on the other hand, thought of in terms of an “internal connection”, would need “a certain type of theater” (Walker, 2004, p. 6), and would refer to a “specific thesis” (Bronkhorst, 2016, p. 392) about how that Greek or Roman theater relates to Sanskrit theater, in the sense of what Diamond (1997) refers to as “blueprint copying” (p. 224). Following Weber, came two explanations, both concerned with borrowing: Windisch sought answers in Greek New Comedy,30 and Reich in Greek Pantomime.31 Contrary to what might be expected, I will follow neither of these paths.

A turning point in the development of the hypothesis was due to Lévi, whose chapter on the subject was conceived as a challenge to Windisch. Lévi rules out the parallelisms one by one, whether by taking them as being broad enough not to be necessarily correlated, or by focusing on their differences more than their similarities. However, apart from striking details like the yavanikā (curtain), which is still regarded as a non-Greek term,32 there are deeper similitudes that might have been overlooked. A case in point is the epic-to-theater procedure, which Lévi saw as an argument in favor of an Indian origin, and therefore, as one against Greek influence.

La fable des drames classiques est tirée directement des épopées ou des contes, mis en œuvre et transformés à l’aide de procédés et de ressources empruntés au fonds commun de l’esprit indien, et qui portent tous une garantie incontestable d’origine.

The fable of classic dramas is taken directly from epics or tales, it is implemented and transformed with the aid of processes and resources borrowed from the common stock of the Indian spirit, all of which bear an indisputable guarantee of originality.

(Lévi, 1890/1963, p. 365)

There are three major assumptions behind this statement: borrowing is the same as being influenced, borrowing/being influenced is at odds with being original, and borrowing from/being influenced by Indian texts is at odds with borrowing from/being influenced by Greek texts. Additionally, a fourth assumption is also at work elsewhere, in Lévi’s one-dimensional concept of influence/borrowing: borrowing/being influenced is always an explicit procedure.33 According to him, if Europe borrowed from/was influenced by the Greco-Roman Classics in an announced manner, then India too would have had to proceed thusly. Against Lévi’s claim that borrowing from Sanskrit epic disproves borrowing from Greek theater, I contend that the textual evidence on this matter could be interpreted as signaling that the idea itself of theater borrowing from epic is part of the Greek influence in India.

Even though Lévi himself partly modified his position later on in his career,34 after him scholars gravitated either towards admitting defeat when faced with lack of evidence, or simply towards accepting the question as settled. For instance, Keith (1924), who in principle is open to the idea, ends up rejecting it: “But we do find in the epic indications that it was not necessary for Greece to give to India the ideas presented in the drama” (Keith, 1924, p. 63). Keith seems to be working under the same assumptions that Lévi did. In agreement with Keith’s view, I argue that Sanskrit theater certainly borrowed from Sanskrit epic, but after further consideration, I also posit that the why (the idea itself of theater borrowing from epic) and the how (the techniques for adapting epic into theater) of such borrowing could have been Greco-Roman influences.

If, after Lévi, Indologists seemed ready to turn the page, classicists remained curious. This is the case with Tarn (1938), who with unprecedented clarity, is willing to delimit what to look for, i.e., general influences instead of specific borrowings, as well as where to look for it, i.e., Homer and Euripides instead of Menander: “And Egypt has at least taught us that whatever other works Greeks might take with them to foreign lands they would certainly take Homer and Euripides” (Tarn, 1938, p. 382). Indeed, literary motifs appearing in both Homer and (Ps.-)Euripides seem like a great starting point to investigate what (the elements adapted from epic to theater) could have been borrowed. But would the results of such research suffice? After all, as Thieme (1966) puts it, “Nach Lage der Dinge muss die Last des Beweises bei denen ruhen, die griechischen Einfluss behaupten [As things stand, the burden of proof must rest with those who affirm a Greek influence]” (p. 51).

The truth is that the expectations are too high for such a meagre reality: when it comes to the literary sources of the Ancient World, new discoveries occur once in a blue moon. For the philologist, even a few blurred lines on a torn manuscript could be the finding of a lifetime. For the archaeologist, on the other hand, the sight of new evidence is certainly a more usual experience. Nonetheless, even archaeological evidence has been deemed inadequate by a very demanding circle. In the 1970s, Bernard (1976) reported a piece of information that could have been the milestone that stirred the debate back to at least the possibility of Greek influence: there was, by the third to second century BCE, a Greek building serving as a theater in India.35 According to him, this replaced the question of whether there had been an influence with that of what type of influence would it have been.

Bernard, like Tarn, distinguishes between general influence and specific borrowing. He also adds, as a third option, the most modest of contributions to a process that would have happened with or without it. This additional attenuation of the claim has much to do with the modern notion of originality, only now not from the point of view of the European colonizer, but from that of the colonized Indian. For the former, acknowledging the extra help would be a sign of merit that stresses their achievement in the light of their legacy, whereas for the latter it would signify demerit. A natural response to the discourse of colonialism is nationalism. Where the modern is foreign, the ancient is native. It is an independent accomplishment. Or at least, it should be.

Closing in on the research problem, in colonial India, where Elizabethan theater would have been seen as foreign, Sanskrit theater would have been thought of as native. Its invention would positively articulate Indian identity; contrarywise, the mere suggestion of its imitation would negatively affect it. Hence, Indian nationalism could have been one of the reasons for an a priori rejection of the Greek influence hypothesis. The fact that two cultures, coinciding in space and time, and having contacts in other branches of the sciences (e.g., astronomy) and the arts (e.g., sculpture), would have both independently developed and mastered theater, without any borrowing, influence, or even contribution, seems, to say the least, unlikely.

Within other fields, the Greek influence hypothesis endured, as it did with the classicist Tarn and the archaeologist Bernard. A case in point is Free (1981), whose background is in theatre arts. Free does not differentiate between borrowing and influence, but she does distinguish between coincidence and intentionality. Coincidence could account for some parallelisms, but not all of them. According to her, to explain every similarity, one must accept influence/borrowing in both directions, that is, from the Greco-Roman world to India, and the other way around. The last option is certainly possible but seems less likely, based on the dating of the playwrights. In addition, Free’s (1981) article offers one of only two statements that I have been able to identify,36 suggesting a possible Greek influence in terms of the epic-to-theater procedure, as I postulate here: “The epic sweep of Sanskrit drama and the indebtedness of the subjects of the earliest plays to the Indian epic offer a further parallel with Greek tragedy” (p. 84). Regrettably, the idea is subject to no further consideration.

Sinha & Choudhury (2000) and Lindtner (2002) are probably the first Indologists since Windisch to openly accept the hypothesis as possible. For the former, not only could (Ps.-)Bhāsa have been influenced by Greek theater, but he could have even borrowed the device of the Greek chorus for his triads of characters (e.g., The Middle One, The Five Nights, The Broken Thighs, and The Consecration).37 For the latter, a long study on the matter is still pending.³⁸ Following them, there are two studies with a lot in common: they are recent, they provide historiographical and bibliographical contributions, and they openly defend the Greek hypothesis. As differences, one can point out that one is by an expert in comparative literature, while the other is by an Indologist; and that one favors borrowing, while the other prefers influence.

The first of these studies is by Walker (2004), who revisits the comparison with Greek New Comedy. The old theory is refurbished with new “circumstantial evidence”.39 This encompasses a text that had not been considered before, as well as a text that was not even available before. These are, respectively, the parallel example of religious borrowing in the adapted Latin theater of Hrostvitha (ca. 935-973),⁴⁰ and the lucky discovery of the plays attributed to Bhāsa. Walker’s take on the hypothesis is quite ingenious. On one hand, (Ps.-)Bhāsa’s The Broken Thighs has much in common with Greek Tragedy;⁴¹ on the other, so do the prakaraṇa and the Greek New Comedy. This could mean that, at an early stage, Sanskrit theater could have begun with borrowings from both Greek tragedy and Greek comedy, only to abandon them later, to develop other dramatic genres that were more relatable to their audiences. As advanced when discussing Windisch, I will not follow this line of inquiry.

In fact, I advance two major criticisms against Walker’s proposal. First, the nāṭaka, with its epic-to-theater procedures, is closer to Greek theater than the prakaraṇa; second, Sanskrit theater and Roman theater, although influenced by the same Greek models, yielded such contrasting results, not because of a language barrier that Walker presupposes, but by reason of conscious choice. If the authors of Sanskrit theater knew Greek and Latin, and if they were aware that there is more than one way to adapt a text,42 they could have consciously designed their adaptations in a new way, that could be called “Greco-Indian anukaraṇa”,43 mirroring the concept of Greco-Roman imitatio.

The texts and genres having much in common is not tantamount to them being the same. If Walker’s similarities are noticeable, so too are the differences that have been adduced time and again by those who reject the influence hypothesis. Just like arguing in favor of what is similar does not entail proving the hypothesis, so too, counterarguing with what is different does not mean disproving it. The Greek influence hypothesis is not a scientific one, precisely because it is not falsifiable. In Classics, Indology, and other disciplines of the Humanities, analysis and interpretation, rather than data and hard evidence, tend to guide the process from hypotheses to conclusions. Unlike Science’s empirical methods, their critical ones hardly ever lead to definitive answers, yet the field of knowledge profits from the debate. Hence, any reframing of the hypothesis of a Greek influence in the Sanskrit theater should be intended to reignite this debate.

To put in an analogy, up until now, Sanskrit borrowing has been approached as if it were a case of copyright infringement: classicists, the plaintiffs, have been seen as alleging that Sanskrit playwrights, the defendants, would have been making unauthorized use of Greco-Roman plays, and since academia, the jury, is not yet convinced by a preponderance of the evidence, therefore, it should have already been determined that there has been no harm done. This picture is troubling in various ways: copyright infringement is a felony, but imitation used to be the norm, e.g., in Rome; neither ancient authors nor modern critics have any exclusive rights over the Greco-Roman Classics; and far from any harm, the supporters of the influence hypothesis have repeatedly emphasized the benefits of acknowledging such interactions for achieving a better understanding of the Ancient World as a whole. Innocent until proven guilty is not a model that works here, and in consequence, a higher standard of proof should not be required. All that the academic jury needs to accept is the possibility of an influence: it is a hypothesis, after all.

The most recent study is Bronkhorst (2016), who openly acknowledges that the mainstream view is still that there is no need for further research into the Greek influence hypothesis. The author is aware of the flawed assumptions that have guided this line of reasoning that started with Lévi. Following Bernard, he distinguishes between borrowing, influence, and contribution; even if he opposes borrowing, he does support influence and contribution. And finally, in overt opposition with the generally accepted view, he even encourages new research to be done in pursuit of influences and contributions: “…in the form which Weber had given to it, the thesis of Greek influence on the Sanskrit theater still awaits its first serious criticism” (Bronkhorst, 2016, p. 403). Still having in mind borrowings, although not of the kind that have been looked for, this book was conceived, in part, in the hopes of filling in this void.

The Building Blocks of Tradition and Adaptation

Anthropological traditions are merely continuous. This continuity exists because the cultural phenomena present in these traditions are characterized by these three features: “(i) they are instances of social interaction; (ii) they are repeated; (iii) they are psychologically salient” (Boyer, 1990, p. 1). The features serve as criteria of recognition, meaning that by their presence or absence an anthropological tradition is recognizable as such. As instances of social interaction, traditional phenomena are to be understood only as actual events and never as hypothetical explanations for such events; as repeated instances, these phenomena refer to previous, similar occurrences; and as psychologically salient instances, traditional phenomena are “attention-demanding”.44 Two additional features are worth noticing, for they complement this basic formulation: on one hand, anthropological traditions cannot be written; and on the other, their members tend not to be self-aware. To put it another way, in such traditions, events are always oral, and the participants are usually unaware of the theoretical implications of such practices.

Conversely, literary traditions⁴⁵ are both continuous and canonical. The element of canon is key, since it allows for the repetitiveness, the orality, and the unawareness of anthropological traditions to turn, respectively, into creativity, literacy, and criticality. Creativity, unlike repetitiveness, is an active endeavor. In this sense, an adaptation of a text would never be solely the repetition of its form or content, but an independent text altogether. In the Greco-Roman world, this is what is meant by the term Gr. μίμησις / Lat. imitatio,⁴⁶ defined as “the study and conspicuous deployment of features recognizably characteristic of a canonical author’s style or content, so as to define one’s own generic affiliation” (Conte & Most, 2015, para. 1).

This way of interacting with authoritative texts differs from three other parallel modes of interaction: plagiarism, parody, and intertextuality. In plagiarism (Gr. κλοπή / Lat. furtum), there is derivative copying, whereas in imitation this turns into creative re-use, which is why even though plagiarism was condemned, imitation was encouraged, not only as a pedagogic means towards literary proficiency, but also as a form of artistic mastery by itself. In parody (Gr. παρῳδία / Lat. ridicula imitatio), the re-use is intended as mockery, and not as a manifestation of admiration towards a revered author, as is the case with imitation. Even satyr plays, such as Euripides’ Cyclops, are not to be interpreted as a parodies;47 instead, they are meant as “mythological burlesques” (Shaw, 2014, p. 109). Finally, in intertextuality, the entire body of literature works as a system; in contrast, imitation is limited to individual authors like Homer, or at the most, to specific genres like epic.

If a canon were a qualitative system of measurement, then the classic would be its qualitative unit of measurement, in which, similarly, the dialectics of ancient and modern tend towards a synthesis or “organic unity”48 of form and content. However, such dialectics, since they allow for differences of opinions, also imply criticality, whether in the form of positive criticism or in that of its negative counterpart. In any case, there is to be expected some degree of underlying tension, as Kermode (1975, pp. 15-16) explains it:

The doctrine of the classic as model or criterion entails, in some form, the assumption that the ancient can be more or less immediately relevant and available, in a sense contemporaneous with the modern – or anyway that its nature is such that it can, by strategies of accommodation, be made so. When this assumption is rejected the whole authority of the classic as model is being challenged, and then we have – whether in Alexandria or in twelfth- or seventeenth- or nineteenth or twentieth-century Europe – the recurrent querelle between ancient and modern.

A relevant example of adaptation as a process of creation within the Indian tradition is that of “adaptive reuse”, a concept borrowed from the fields of architecture and city planning, and itself reused in those of philosophy and literature by Freschi & Maas (2017, p. 13):

If adaptation and reuse come together in the concept of adaptive reuse, adaptation can be further linked to tradition through the notion of textual reuse, as explained by Freschi & Maas (2017, p. 17):49

In the case of textual reuse, adaptive reuse highlights the fact that the textual material has been reused. Its reuse emphasizes the text and its connotations. For example, it possibly adds prestige to the newly created text or situates that text within a continuous and illustrious tradition.

Textual reuse, the manifestation of adaptive reuse in literary traditions, should be both intended and identified as such: without intention, instead of a textual reuse all that is left is simple reuse; and without identification, mere recycling. Even though textual reuse operates more directly at the level of the text (i.e., of adaptation as a product), it also, through the standard of intention, lays part of the responsibility on the author (i.e., on adaptation as a process of creation), and, through the standard of identification, lays the rest of it on the audience (i.e., on adaptation as a process of reception).

Going back to Hutcheon & O’Flynn (2012), when understood as a process of reception, adaptation can be a subtype of intertextuality, if, and only if, two conditions are met: “if the receiver is acquainted with the adapted text”, and if “they are also acknowledged as adaptations of specific texts” (p. 21). For adaptation to be intertextuality, in the reception end of the spectrum, acquaintance (like identification in textual reuses) is a sine qua non; and in the creation end of the spectrum, acknowledgment (like intention in textual reuses) is. Nonetheless, for adaptation to be adaptation, acknowledgement and acquaintance are optional.⁵⁰ This nuance fits better in the Greco-Roman and Indian contexts: even though in most cases a play based on the Homeric Epics or on the Mahābhārata would certainly be intended as such (given the canonical status of the texts) and identified as such (given the cultural background of the audience), this could not be asserted of every single case.51

In sum, adaptation is a “double-faceted” (Elliott, 2020, p. 198) concept: it is product and process, production and consumption, old and new, creativity and criticality; and it can be deliberate or unintentional (or even unconscious).

A combination of the views from the theory of tradition, with its dialectics of the old and the new and its ways of understanding written literature and a canon of classical texts, on one side, and the theory of adaptation, with its integrations of products and processes and its ways of conceiving reinterpretations and re-creations, on the other, can benefit my proposal by way of delimiting the conceptual building blocks upon which an appropriate methodology can be supported.

If It Looks like a Duck…

Concepts provide an appropriate methodological basis for research in the Humanities in general and in Philology specifically. While in a narrow sense philology refers to the collecting, editing, and commentating activities associated with textual criticism, in a broader sense this discipline deals with making sense of texts. This second view is to be thought of, not in terms of higher criticism, but as a form of close reading. Notoriously present in the Greco-Roman world, where the term was coined,52 philology is also well represented in India, the phenomenon at least, if not an equivalent concept. For this book, I intend for the philological and literary analysis to bridge theory and practice, concepts and methods, tradition and adaptation, epic and theater, the Greco-Roman world and India. The key concepts for the following analyses are “motifs”, “adapted elements”, and “adaptation techniques”.

A motif is “a situation, incident, idea, image, or character-type that is found in many different literary works, folktales, or myths” (Baldick, 2001, p. 162). Moreover, a literary motif is a “unidad temática mínima con valor de contenido y situación dentro del texto [minimum thematic unit with content and situation value within the text]” (Orea Rojas, 2018, p. 181). This unit, smaller than the text itself but larger than one of its themes, can be identified by answering the following questions (Bremond, 1980): When? Where? Who? What? To whom? How? With what result? With what consequences?

Much like concepts themselves, motifs travel within traditions, as adaptations from epic to theater, and sometimes even across cultures, if they come into contact. Rather than presenting all the Greco-Roman epic-to-theater transitions, followed by all the Indian ones, in this book I structure the contents according to motifs. Also, for all relevant passages, I successively present textual contexts,⁵³ emphasized summaries, parallel quotations, and commentaries.

The first literary motif is that of the embassy (Gr. πρεσβεία, Lat. legatio, Skr. dūtya). It relates how, during the war/before the war, at a bivouac/at a city, three ambassadors/one ambassador deliver(s) a message to the opposing side, with the aid of applicable substories, and the speakers fail to convince the estranged party to fight/not to fight, thus almost producing total annihilation. It is found in Il. 9, from where Euripides reworks the substory of the eponymous character in the fragmentary Phoenix, as well as in MBh. 5, out of which (Ps.-)Bhāsa fashions The Embassy. The second chapter of this book is dedicated to analyzing this motif.

To that end, I first give a side-by-side translation⁵⁴ of relevant epic and dramatic passages, whose similarities have for the most part been noticed by the critics. This serves to determine the main adapted elements. Second, I provide a comparative analysis of such passages with the aim of identifying the chief adaptation techniques. I present all this separately for each literary tradition. Then, as a third and final step, I bring together the two sets of information, and I postulate a list of possible influences and borrowings from the Greco-Roman world into India.

The third chapter deals with the ambush motif (Gr. λόχος, Lat. insidiae, Skr. sauptika), present, on one hand, in Il. 10 and Ps.-Euripides’ Rhesus; and on the other, in MBh. 4 and (Ps.-)Bhāsa’s The Five Nights. This motif depicts how, during the night/during the day-to-night transition, at a bivouac/at a city, two soldiers/two armies attack the opposing side, without them expecting it, and the attackers massacre enemies/seize cattle, thus obtaining valuable intelligence.

Likewise, the fourth chapter focuses on the ogre motif (Gr. κύκλωψ, Lat. sēmifer, Skr. rākṣasa), which stages how, after the war/before the war, while traveling through the sea/through the forest, a hero faces a man-eating ogre, with the aid of wine/food coming from a priest and his family, and the hero defeats/kills the ogre, thus freeing his companions/the townsfolk. This motif appears, on the Greco-Roman side, in Od. 9 and Euripides’ Cyclops; and on the Indian side, in MBh. 1 and (Ps.-)Bhāsa’s The Middle One. In both cases, I follow the same three-stage process of reviewing adapted elements, adaptation techniques, and Greco-Roman influences and borrowings.

The fifth and concluding chapter builds on all the parallelisms that previous scholars have identified between the Greco-Roman and Sanskrit theatrical traditions, both in theory and in practice, and it does so by bringing together not only the postulated influences and borrowings from the three motifs, but also their distinctive literary features and their hypothetical historical context, with the intention of proposing a preliminary model for Greco-Indian anukaraṇa, mirroring that of Greco-Roman imitatio.

Elements and techniques are useful for analyzing adaptations within the same tradition, like that of Greek epic into Greek theater or that of Sanskrit epic into Sanskrit theater; but they can also contribute to the examination of cross-cultural adaptations, be they well-accepted, such as that from the Greek literary tradition into the Roman literary tradition, or hypothetical, such as that from the Greco-Roman literary tradition into the Sanskrit literary tradition. In this sense, additional methodological criteria, such as those brought forward by Wulff Alonso (2019a, pp. 2-3; 2019b; 2020, pp. 18-23) for the also hypothetical adaptation of the Greco-Roman literary tradition into the Sanskrit epic, may also be useful when considering such cross-cultural adaptation into the Sanskrit theater. Especially, the “argument of improbability” and the “argument of oddity” appear relevant and are worthy of my reformulation here.

In my opinion, the argument of improbability would mean that a higher quantity and quality of shared elements between two versions of a literary motif coming from historically connected cultures is proportional to a lower probability of explanations other than adaptation.55 It is possible for two literary motifs to belong to the realm of folklore, and so, to be completely unrelated to each other.⁵⁶ It is also possible for them to exist exclusively – or to share more elements – within Indo-European traditions, thus suggesting a relation via common heritage.⁵⁷ And cultural contact is no less of a possibility, as the Greco-Roman imitatio itself demonstrates.58 Just as coots, grebes, and loons resemble ducks without actually being ducks, so too, folk motifs and Indo-European motifs might resemble Greco-Roman motifs. Therefore, a review of the shared elements between two versions of the same literary motif, paired with an examination of the opinions of those who have classified it one way or the other, will reveal a higher or lower probability of such motif pertaining to one of these three categories.

In my view, the argument of oddity would entail, first, that odd elements which are shared between two versions of a literary motif coming from historically connected cultures increase the probability of an adaptation more than ordinary elements do; and second, that when they are coherent within one culture but incoherent within the other, such odd elements suggest the directionality of the adaptation, from the former towards the latter. For instance, remuneration for a job done is ordinary, but asking for it when not offered is odd; and remuneration for a soldier or for a teacher is ordinary, but depending on the cultural context, them demanding it would be odd.

Similarly, the emphasizing/ignoring pair suggests Hutcheon & O’Flynn’s (2012) “contraction” (p. 19) and “expansion” (p. 19). This is a technique usually related to the element of time, whose features of frequency, rhythm, and order, make it ideal for various kinds of emphases. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the intentional ignoring of something might be very telling, since sometimes silence speaks louder than words. And the last pair, formulated as merging/splitting, arises from the Greco-Roman term of contaminatio, “a word used by modern scholars to express the procedure of *Terence (and perhaps *Plautus) in incorporating material from another Greek play into the primary play which he was adapting” (Brown, 2015, para. 1).59 This is very similar to what (Ps.-)Bhāsa does in The Middle One, borrowing materials from two separate Mahābhārata episodes and combining them into a single play. For that reason, this is one of my main arguments in support of the influence hypothesis.

Having explained the gist of the book in terms of contents and procedures, it is now time to proceed to the analysis itself.