1. Victor W. Turner, ''Social Dramas and Stories About Them,'' in From Ritual to Theatre , 61-88.

2. Raymond Williams refers to British newspapers, but his phrases are equally suitable here. Communications , 37.

3. Communication is here understood as the transmission and reception of ideas, information, and attitudes. Ibid., 9.

2. Raymond Williams refers to British newspapers, but his phrases are equally suitable here. Communications , 37.

3. Communication is here understood as the transmission and reception of ideas, information, and attitudes. Ibid., 9.

4. James W. Carey, Communication as Culture , 23.

5. Ibid., 30.

6. These ideas are elaborated by James Carey in response to John Dewey. Ibid., 13-23.

7. Ibid., 65.

4. James W. Carey, Communication as Culture , 23.

5. Ibid., 30.

6. These ideas are elaborated by James Carey in response to John Dewey. Ibid., 13-23.

7. Ibid., 65.

4. James W. Carey, Communication as Culture , 23.

5. Ibid., 30.

6. These ideas are elaborated by James Carey in response to John Dewey. Ibid., 13-23.

7. Ibid., 65.

4. James W. Carey, Communication as Culture , 23.

5. Ibid., 30.

6. These ideas are elaborated by James Carey in response to John Dewey. Ibid., 13-23.

7. Ibid., 65.

8. Roger Chartier has emphasized differences in the appropriation of cultural forms; see Lynn Hunt's introduction, The New Cultural History , 12-14.

9. Carey, Communication as Culture , 9.

10. Swann collected about 150 Sangits from pavement sellers in the early 1970s while researching traditional theatre forms in Uttar Pradesh; listed in the bibliography, Darius Leander Swann, "Three Forms of Traditional Theatre," 463-469. Working on the qissa , a narrative genre printed in chapbooks, for comparative purposes Frances W. Pritchett acquired about 100 Sangits and donated them to the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago; personal communication to author.

11. Partial references to the British collections appear in Frances W. Pritchett, Marvelous Encounters , 24; Ronald Stuart McGregor, Hindi Literature of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries , 91-93.

12. Teresa de Lauretis, ed., Feminist Studies/Critical Studies , 2.

1. The description of the princess Nautanki and synopsis of her story is a composite of verses from Chiranjilal and Natharam, Sangit nautanki (1904), later known as Sangit nautanki shahzadi urf, phul simh panjabi (e.g., 1975 ed.); Muralidhar, Sangit nautanki shahzadi (1909); Govind Ram, Sangit nautanki (1915).

2. Govind Rajnish, Rajasthan ke purvi anchal ka lok-sahitya , 130-134. Phulan De is also the subject of two Rajasthani folk plays, Khyal raja kesar simh rani phulan de ka (1924) and Raja kesar simh ko khyal (1926), both in the British Museum collection. In these khyals her suitor's name is Kesar Singh.

3. Frances W. Pritchett, "Sit Basant: Oral Tale, Sangit and Kissa," Asian Folklore Studies 42, no. 1 (1983): 53. See also Frances W. Pritchett, Marvelous Encounters , appendix B, 191-192, for versions of the Sit Basant story from all over India. Phulvanti's story is also contained in Sangit phulvanti ka (1877), a Marwari folk play in the India Office collection.

4. Charles Augustus Kincaid, "Rupsinh and the Queen of the Anardes," in Folk Tales of Sind and Guzarat , 90-101.

5. Mary Frere, ed., "Panch-Phul Ranee," as told by Anna Liberata de Souza, in Hindoo Fairy Legends , 95-141. In this tale she is sought by a prince exiled by his stepmother. William Crooke, "The Tale of Panchphula Rani," in Indian Antiquary (Sept. 1895): 272-274. Here she lives in the land of China and is wooed by the youngest of seven brothers. Several khyals also exist on Panchphula Rani: Krishnalal, Khyal asa dabi arthat pachphula ka (1923) in the British Museum, and perhaps by the same author, but catalogued as Kishanlal Nasirabadi in the India Office Library, Khyal pachaphula (1923, 1928, 1931).

6. In "A Survey of the Incidents in Modern Indian Aryan Folk-tales," the "delicate heroine" type is characterized as "ordinary form: five-flower princess: heroine weighs five flowers only." See Flora Annie Steel and R. C. Temple, Tales of the Punjab , 302. The Miyan Bhunga (''Sir Buzz'') story is in the same volume, 9-15. Here her suitor is a poor soldier's son.

7. The earliest known manuscript of the Nautanki drama in Hindi is Khushi Ram, Sangit rani nautanki ka (1882) in the British Library. Richard Carnac Temple in the preface to vol. 3 of Legends of the Panjab lists "Rani Nautanki and the Panjabi Lad" as one of the stories he had collected but not translated or published.

8. Passages describing the Nautanki performance at the fair and the interview with Master Surkhi are adapted from Surendra Sukumar, "Mele mem nautanki," Dharmyug , Aug. 28, 1977, 43-46. I am grateful to Bruce Pray for a copy of this article.

9. The interview with Gulab Bai was conducted by an anonymous interviewer and was published in the Hindi newspaper Navbharat Times , Delhi, May 8, 1985, 5. I am indebted to Ashok Aklujkar for a copy of this interview.

10. Malika Begam together with Pandit Kakkuji and Phakkar, all veteran Nautanki artists of Lucknow, were interviewed by Kathryn Hansen and Jugal Kishor on July 15, 1982. Sound recording was done by Kay Norton, transcription by Tara Sinha, and translation by Kathryn Hansen.

11. Excerpts from Phanishwarnath Renu's short story "Tisri kasam" are abridged from the translation by Kathryn Hansen in The Third Vow and Other Stories , 49-88. The original story was published in Thumri in 1959.

12. The various etymologies for the word nautanki are discussed by Ram Narayan Agraval in Sangit: ek loknatya parampara , 135-137.

13. The publication history of Sangit nautanki shahzadi reveals its expanding territory and continuous influence over a hundred-year period. I located a total of twenty versions of the drama in the British Museum, India Office Library, University of Chicago Regenstein Library, and the private collections of Frances Pritchett, Darius Swann, and Kathryn Hansen. Chronologically ordered, the texts were authored by Khushi Ram (Banaras: 1882), Chiranjilal Natharam (Kanpur: 1904), Muralidhar (Kanpur: 1907, 1909; Aligarh: 1912, 1923, 1924), Govind Ram (Kanpur: 1915), Chiranjilal (Mathura: 1922), Shrilal Upadhyay (Banaras: 1922, 1923, 1930), Natharam Sharma Gaur (Hathras: 1925, 1975, 1982), Shivdulare Shukla (Kanpur: 1926), Muhammad Ismail "Shauda" (Banaras: 1930), Dipchand (Muzaffarnagar: 1932), Shrikrishna Pahalvan (Kanpur: n.d.), and Lakhmi Chand (Delhi: n.d.).

14. Scholarly opinion as well as oral sources corroborate the transference of the heroine's name to the theatre. "Nautanki must originally have been the delicate heroine of a certain romance who weighed only nine tank . That story was presented as a musical drama and in this form became so prevalent that now every musical drama or svang has come to be called a nautanki ." Dhirendra Varma et al., eds., Hindi sahitya kosh , 1:358. See also Balwant Gargi, "Nautanki," in Folk Theater of India , 37; Mahendra Bhanavat, Lokrang , 319-320; Kapila Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 165. Several Nautanki performers told the same story to Surendra Sukumar in the interview, "Mele mem nautanki," 44.

15. Ved Prakash Vatuk, "Poetics and Genre-Typology in Indian Folklore," in Studies in Indian Folk Traditions , 38-47; George A. Grierson, introduction to The Lay of Alha , trans. William Waterfield, 9-25; Anil Santram, Kanauji lok-sahitya , 142-147.

16. Susan S. Wadley, "Dhola: A North Indian Folk Genre," Asian Folklore Studies 42, no. 1 (1983): 3-25.

17. Unlike alha and dhola nautanki does not denote a particular meter or song type. Chaubola is the metrical and musical signature of Nautanki performance, but a number of other meters including alha and dhola are also employed.

18. Jonas Barish, The Antitheatrical Prejudice , 4.

19. See appendix A for a detailed motif analysis.

20. The use of the dissuasion motif as a self-referencing device in a body of folklore is discussed by Stuart Blackburn, citing the Tamil bow-song tradition, in his introduction to Another Harmony , 22-23.

21. The Tamil ula is discussed in David Dean Shulman, The King and the Clown in South Indian Myth and Poetry , 312-324.

22. Brenda E. F. Beck, The Three Twins , 24.

23. "The Man Who Changed Sexes," in J. A. B. van Buitenen, trans., Tales of Ancient India , 25-32.

24. This behavior was considered an educational task, part of the male's necessary preparation and "warming up" for marriage, not viewed as sexual aggression on the part of the sister-in-law, according to my female Indian informant.

25. Kathryn Hansen, "The Virangana in North Indian History, Myth and Popular Culture," Economic and Political Weekly 23, no. 18 (Apr. 30, 1988), WS25-33.

1. Women and mlecchas are not mentioned in the Natyasastra passage, but they were by this time also outside the Vedic community. In the earlier Vedic period, women performed sacrifices and recited rituals, but by the time of the lawgiver Manu (around 200 B.C. ), they were classed with Shudras and prohibited access to Vedic learning.

2. G. K. Bhat, Theatric Aspects of Sanskrit Drama , 32; A. K. Warder, Indian Kavya Literature , 1:15.

3. Manomohan Ghosh, trans., The Natyasastra ascribed to Bharata-Muni , 2-4.

4. Elsewhere in the Natyasastra , the secondary function of education, especially moral education, is mentioned; see Ghosh, Natyasastra , 14-15.

5. Ibid., 15.

4. Elsewhere in the Natyasastra , the secondary function of education, especially moral education, is mentioned; see Ghosh, Natyasastra , 14-15.

5. Ibid., 15.

6. V. Raghavan, "Sanskrit Drama in Performance," in Rachel Van M. Baumer and James R. Brandon, eds., Sanskrit Drama in Performance , 18.

7. Lachman M. Khubchandani, Plural Languages, Plural Cultures , 6.

8. Darius Leander Swarm, "Ras Lila and the Sanskrit Drama," in Baumer and Brandon, eds., Sanskrit Drama in Performance , 264.

9. Kapila Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 10.

10. On the Guga legend, see William Crooke, "A Version of the Guga Legend," Indian Antiquary (Feb. 1895): 49-56; Elwyn C. Lapoint, "The Epic of Guga: A North Indian Oral Tradition," in Sylvia Vatuk, ed., American Studies in the Anthropology of India , 281-308; Richard Carnac Temple, "Guru Gugga," in Legends of the Panjab , 1:121-209; John Campbell Oman, Cults, Customs and Superstitions of India , 67-82.

11. For further discussion on the distinctions between northern and southern recitational and dramatic traditions, see John D. Smith, "Scapegoats of the Gods: The Ideology of the Indian Epics," in Stuart H. Blackburn et al., eds., Oral Epics in India , 176-194. Certain North Indian epic genres such as the Pabuji recitation with the scroll ( phar ) may involve possession by Bhopa specialists. See Komal Kothari, "Performers, Gods, and Heroes in the Oral Epics of Rajasthan," in Stuart H. Blackburn et al., eds., Oral Epics in India , 102-117.

12. For an overview of recent activity in the modern Hindi theatre, see Birendra Narayana, Hindi Drama and Stage ; Nemichandra Jain, ed., Adhunik hindi natak aur rangmanch ; Susham Bedi, Hindi natya: prayog ke sandarbh mem .

13. Kathryn Hansen, "Indian Folk Traditions and the Modern Theatre," Asian Folklore Studies 42, no. 1 (1983): 77-89.

14. Susan Wadley, in her study of the western Uttar Pradesh village of Karimpur, does not mention Nautanki or its primary meters ( doha and chaubola ) among the categories of song known to the villagers. Curiously, in a table she lists vahrat as an unglossed category; vahrat or bahrat is the abbreviation of the tune or metrical type bahr-e-tavil typical of Nautanki texts and performance. Discussing performances of traveling drama groups, she mentions only the "folk opera" Dhola and the Ram Lila. Susan S. Wadley, Shakti , 38-49. Similarly, in a review of village musical genres in the Bhojpuri-speaking area of eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar, Edward Henry does not mention Nautanki, although he does discuss Alha, Qavvali, and Muslim "entertainment bands." Edward O. Henry, "Correlating Musical Genres and Social Categories in Bhojpuri-speaking North India," paper delivered at the South Asia Regional Studies Seminar, Univ. of Pennsylvania, Nov. 18, 1987.

15. Personal communication to author from Ron Hess, 1981, detailing results of his fieldwork for the documentary film, Ajuba Dance and Drama Company .

16. It is not entirely clear whether these caste names are ascribed to the women after they take up performing or whether they represent hereditary groups.

17. As an example, note the title of the Hindi monograph, Sangit: ek loknatya parampara .

18. Roger D. Abrahams, "Folk Drama," in Richard M. Dorson, ed., Folklore and Folklife , 354.

19. For a discussion of the Sang of Haryana, see Daniel M. Neuman, "Country Musicians and Their City Cousins: The Social Organization of Music Transmissions in India," Proceedings of the Twelfth International Musicological Conference , 603-608.

20. Abrahams, "Folk Drama," 354.

21. Ross Kidd, "Folk Media, Popular Theatre and Conflicting Strategies for Social Change in the Third World," in Ross Kidd and Nat Colletta, eds., Tradition for Development , 281.

22. Witness this use in J. S. R. Goodlad, A Sociology of Popular Drama .

23. Raymond Williams discusses a similar set of meanings of "popular culture" in Stephen Heath and Gillian Skirrow, "An Interview with Raymond Williams," in Tania Modleski, ed., Studies in Entertainment , 4-5.

24. Stuart H. Blackburn and A. K. Ramanujan, eds., Another Harmony , 24-25.

25. A. J. Gunawardana used the term "intermediary theatre" as the second element in a tripartite scheme for classifying Asian theatres: traditional, intermediary, and modern. Within the intermediary category he included Kabuki, Chinese Opera, Jatra, Nautanki, Tamasha, and Ludruk. The present usage differs somewhat from Gunawardana's definition. He explained the intermediary theatres as those that "are traditional in form but project secular values" and defined the "traditional" theatres as liturgical or ritualistic. A. J. Gunawardana, ''From Ritual to Rationality: Notes on the Changing Asian Theatre," in The Drama Review 15, no. 3 (1971): 48-62.

26. Blackburn and Ramanujan, eds., Another Harmony , 14-23.

27. For a discussion of Kutiyattam and its relationship to the performance practice of Sanskrit drama, see Rachel Van M. Baumer and James R. Brandon,

eds., Sanskrit Drama in Performance , 260-262, and Pragna Thakkar Enros's essay in the same volume, "Producing Sanskrit Plays in the Tradition of Kutiyattam," 275-298.

28. Raghavan, "Sanskrit Drama in Performance," 25.

29. Carla Rae Petievich, "The Two School Theory of Urdu Literature," in particular 293-304.

30. Blackburn and Ramanujan, eds., Another Harmony , 15.

31. Ibid., 19.

30. Blackburn and Ramanujan, eds., Another Harmony , 15.

31. Ibid., 19.

32. Baumer and Brandon, eds., Sanskrit Drama in Performance , 260.

33. Raghavan, "Sanskrit Drama in Performance," 41. For further details on the uparupakas , see V. Raghavan, "Uparupakas< and Nrttyaprabandhas," Sangeet Natak 2 (April 1966): 5-25.

34. According to Vatsyayan, the term sangitaka is mentioned in the Caturbhani , Bana's Kadambari , Bana's Harsacarita Vaijayanti by Yadava Prakasha, and Subhankara's Sangita damodara . Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 100, 182.

35. Hansen, "Indian Folk Traditions and the Modern Theatre."

36. Roger D. Abrahams, "The Complex Relations of Simple Forms," in Dan Ben-Amos, ed., Folklore Genres , 195.

37. Abrahams, "Folk Drama," 351.

38. As an example of genre theory in South Asian folklore studies, see A. K. Ramanujan, "Two Realms of Kannada Folklore," in Stuart H. Blackburn and A. K. Ramanujan, eds., Another Harmony , 41-75.

39. The theoretical limitations of using Eurocentric analytical categories are discussed by Ben-Amos in "Analytical Categories and Ethnic Genres," Folklore Genres , 215-242. To my knowledge, however, there is no comparable critique of Western use of indigenous taxonomies. Such a critique might consider issues such as the criteria for selection of individuals who provide taxonomic information, the number of informants required for reliability, the basis for interpreting informants' statements about the meaning of categories, the influence of social, economic, and cultural processes on the naming of categories, the limitations of ethnographers' linguistic and interpretive abilities, the need for corroboration by observation of performance practices, and so on. Several recent folklore studies illustrate some of the problems. In The Three Twins , Brenda E. F. Beck never defines her use of the term "epic" in reference to the Annanmar katai but draws an analogy between English ballads and Tamil ballads, suggesting that her use is Western-derived (3-7). In a later chapter, she does not distinguish between recitations of the tale by bards in street clothes and dramatic performances by itinerant troupes involving costumes, makeup, and stage props, claiming that native classification makes no distinction (87). She apparently did not document through audiovisual recording and transcription the dramatic performances she viewed in the village or study them as separate performance practices, or examine the text of an early printed dramatic version of the Annanmar story in the British Museum, Ponnara and Cankarar Natakam (1902), a text that would seem to provide evidence of a theatrical tradition of some duration. Susan S. Wadley, in ''Dhola<: A North Indian Folk Genre," Asian Folklore Studies 42, no. 1 (1983): 3-25, defines Dhola as a unified genre ap-

parently on the basis of village informants, although her textual sources include medieval courtly poems, folk lyrics, dramas, and a contemporary bardic recitation. She concludes that "Dhola is, in terms of text, texture and performance, drama, and most critically, a drama to be performed" (20). However, in more recent work she describes Dhola not primarily as a drama but as an oral epic. See Susan S. Wadley, "Choosing a Path: Performance Strategies in a North Indian Epic," in Stuart H. Blackburn et al., eds., Oral Epics in India , 75-101.

40. Gene H. Roghair, The Epic of Palnadu , 7.

41. Frances W. Pritchett, "Sit< Basant: Oral Tale, Sangit and Kissa," Asian Folklore Studies 42, no. 1 (1983): 45-62.

42. Abrahams, "Complex Relations of Simple Forms," 195.

43. Ibid., 196; Ben-Amos, "Analytical Categories and Ethnic Genres," 227.

42. Abrahams, "Complex Relations of Simple Forms," 195.

43. Ibid., 196; Ben-Amos, "Analytical Categories and Ethnic Genres," 227.

44. Ved Prakash Vatuk, "Poetics and Genre-Typology in Indian Folklore," in Studies in Indian Folk Traditions , 38-47.

45. Ramanujan, "Two Realms of Kannada Folklore," especially 42-51.

46. Abrahams, "Complex Relations of Simple Forms," 205.

47. Personal observation of performance, Delhi 1982.

1. For a discussion of how modern playwriting in Hindi as initiated by Bharatendu Harishchandra created a separate space for itself in contradistinction to the practices of the late nineteenth-century indigenous theatre, see Kathryn Hansen, "The Birth of Hindi Drama in Banaras, 1868-1885," in Sandria B. Freitag, ed., Culture and Power in Banaras , 62-92.

2. Raymond Williams, Culture , 156.

3. Shrikrishna Lal, Adhunik hindi sahitya ka vikas , 181.

4. For a background on the history and performance style of the Ram Lila, see Norvin Hein, The Miracle Plays of Mathura , 70-125; Norvin Hein, "The Ram Lila," in Milton Singer, ed., Traditional India , 73-98; Kapila Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 110-135; Balwant Gargi, Folk Theater of India , 90-113; Anuradha Kapur, "Actors, Pilgrims, Kings, and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar," Contributions to Indian Sociology , n.s., 19, no. 1 (1985): 57-74; Induja Avasthi, Ramlila: parampara aur shailiyam ; Richard Schechner and Linda Hess, ''The Ramlila of Ramnagar," in The Drama Review 21, no. 3 (Sept. 1977): 51-82; Richard Schechner, Performative Circumstances , 238-305; Linda Hess, "Ram Lila: The Audience Experience," in Monika Thiel-Horstmann, ed., Bhakti in Current Research , 171-194; Philip Lutgendorf, "Ram's Story in Shiva's City: Public Arenas and Private Patronage," in Sandria B. Freitag, ed., Culture and Power in Banaras , 34-61.

5. The principal sources on the history and performance of the Ras Lila are Hein, Miracle Plays , 129-271; Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 121-135; Gargi, Folk Theater , 114-131; John Stratton Hawley, At Play with Krishna ; Ram Narayan Agravai, Braj ka ras rangmanch .

6. Typical of this folk Lila tradition are the Ram Lila companies cited by Hein and the Rasdharis of Mewar discussed by Samar and Bhanavat. Hein,

Miracle Plays , 71; Devilal Samar, "Rasdhari<: Folk Theatre of Rajasthan," Sangeet Natak 20 (April-June 1971): 50-57; Mahendra Bhanavat, Mevar ke rasdhari . See also Gargi, Folk Theater , 113.

7. The Ram and Krishna stories have little place in the Sangit literature, appearing only in certain nineteenth-century examples, e.g., the Sangit balacharitra Sangit kams lila , and Sangit nag lila , all by Kumvar Sen, and Sangit siya svayamvar ka by Hardev Sahay. Publication dates and library locations of these dramas are given in appendix C pt. 4.

8. These distinctions would be less marked in village and neighborhood Lila performances.

9. Kabir also mentions the caste of actors called nat , the playing of the dank (a type of drum), and the changing of costume ( bhesh ). Ram Narayan Agraval, Sangit: ek loknatya parampara , 22.

10. Yadunath Sarkar, trans., Abul Fazl's A'in-e-akbari , 3:272, cited in Agraval, Sangit , 41.

11. Agraval, Sangit , 42-44; Shivkumar Madhur, Bharat ke loknatya , 27; Somnath Gupta, Hindi natak sahitya ka itihas , 16; Gopinath Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak sahitya , 77.

12. On bhands and popular entertainers during the Mughal period, see Abdul Halim Sharar, Lucknow: The Last Phase , 34, 100, 142-145. On nats , minstrels, and acrobats in central India in the early nineteenth century, see John Malcolm, A Memoir of Central India , 195-197. On naqals , see Gargi, Folk Theater , 183-186.

13. Among the translations from Sanskrit are ten versions of the religious allegory Prabodha chandrodaya , originally written in the eleventh century. There are also two secular compositions based on Sanskrit works, Sakuntala (two versions) and Madhava vinoda (based on Bhavabhuti's Malatimadhava ).

14. Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak ; chap. 3 (46-93) is devoted to proving that the Braj Bhasha plays were performed as dramas.

15. Svanga , derived from Sanskrit su or sva + anga (good or self + limb, part) and meaning "disguise" or "mime," was first used by Kalidasa in his drama Malavikagnimitram . Speech of Raja to Parivrajika in scene 1, cited in ibid., 73-74. Jayasi, Tukaram, Kabir, and others employed the term in medieval literature. Agraval, Sangit , 22-23.

14. Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak ; chap. 3 (46-93) is devoted to proving that the Braj Bhasha plays were performed as dramas.

15. Svanga , derived from Sanskrit su or sva + anga (good or self + limb, part) and meaning "disguise" or "mime," was first used by Kalidasa in his drama Malavikagnimitram . Speech of Raja to Parivrajika in scene 1, cited in ibid., 73-74. Jayasi, Tukaram, Kabir, and others employed the term in medieval literature. Agraval, Sangit , 22-23.

16. According to internal evidence, Hasyarnava was transcribed after it was performed before a king of Telangana by a nat named Kamarup. Maharaja tailangapati ati prasiddha chahum daga / kamarupa nata som kahyau hamahim dikhavahu svanga. / Maharaja mahipala mani jo kachhu ayasu dina / anayasindha naranatha kau sakala svanga maim kina (Agraval, Sangit , 23-24).

17. Madhava vinoda was written at the request of Bahadur Singh, king of Bharatpur. Agraval claims that the poet wrote it down after seeing it performed "in Svang style." Ibid., 26.

16. According to internal evidence, Hasyarnava was transcribed after it was performed before a king of Telangana by a nat named Kamarup. Maharaja tailangapati ati prasiddha chahum daga / kamarupa nata som kahyau hamahim dikhavahu svanga. / Maharaja mahipala mani jo kachhu ayasu dina / anayasindha naranatha kau sakala svanga maim kina (Agraval, Sangit , 23-24).

17. Madhava vinoda was written at the request of Bahadur Singh, king of Bharatpur. Agraval claims that the poet wrote it down after seeing it performed "in Svang style." Ibid., 26.

18. Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak , 93. Aura svanga ki taham bhai avandani niradhara / ayo svanga singara .

19. Tivari lists eight uses of the word in Brajvasi Das's 1759 version, as well as examples contained in subsequent plays on the same theme by Nanak Das (1789) and Gulab Singh (1789). Ibid., 8-9, 93-94.

18. Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak , 93. Aura svanga ki taham bhai avandani niradhara / ayo svanga singara .

19. Tivari lists eight uses of the word in Brajvasi Das's 1759 version, as well as examples contained in subsequent plays on the same theme by Nanak Das (1789) and Gulab Singh (1789). Ibid., 8-9, 93-94.

20. For a brief history and definition of khyal music, see chaps. 1-2 of Bonnie C. Wade, Khyal .

21. Platts's Dictionary of Urdu derives

22. The doha quoted by Agraval, Sangit , 29, is Madhava aura malataya ke prema katha kau khyala / Baranata so sasinatha kavi hukuma paya tatakala . As usual, Agraval gives no reference for his source. Tivari, however, has another reading that omits the reference to khyal: Madhava aru malati ke prema katha rasala / Barananu so sasinatha kavi hukuma pai ke hala . He also notes that Sasinath was the poet's pen name; Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak , 29.

23. Tihim khyala ki rachana aba hama karihem take age . Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak , 94, 9.

24. John Robson, A Selection of Khyals or Marwari Plays , vi-vii.

25. Robson's selections include two martial or political stories, Dungar simh and Angrez aur pathan , the latter a polemic against British rule composed for the Raja of Kishengarh. Also included are the nineteenth-century classics of asceticism, Gopichand and Bharatari , and the popular romance Hir ranjiha .

26. "They are not written by persons pretending to scholarship or even education, and I was unable to get a copy of any of them fully written either in Ajmer or Kishengarh. The different roles of some of them were written and were in the possession of the actors, but in other cases the pundit whom I asked to get the pieces for me, had to write them down from the dictation of the players who could not read or write." Robson, A Selection of Khyals , xv, vi, iii.

27. Ibid., iv-v.

28. Note the phrase "in the middle of the last century." Robson also states that the form of the khyal had "not changed much during the last hundred years." Ibid., vii.

29. "There is seldom anything in them beyond dialogue, and sometimes only one actor sings through several scenes, while numbers of others may be carrying on the action of the piece. A new scene is introduced with a new refrain. If there is dialogue, each of the singers sings his own refrain first, and then they continue singing alternate stanzas, each repeating, at the end of each stanza he sings, his opening refrain." Ibid., vii-viii.

26. "They are not written by persons pretending to scholarship or even education, and I was unable to get a copy of any of them fully written either in Ajmer or Kishengarh. The different roles of some of them were written and were in the possession of the actors, but in other cases the pundit whom I asked to get the pieces for me, had to write them down from the dictation of the players who could not read or write." Robson, A Selection of Khyals , xv, vi, iii.

27. Ibid., iv-v.

28. Note the phrase "in the middle of the last century." Robson also states that the form of the khyal had "not changed much during the last hundred years." Ibid., vii.

29. "There is seldom anything in them beyond dialogue, and sometimes only one actor sings through several scenes, while numbers of others may be carrying on the action of the piece. A new scene is introduced with a new refrain. If there is dialogue, each of the singers sings his own refrain first, and then they continue singing alternate stanzas, each repeating, at the end of each stanza he sings, his opening refrain." Ibid., vii-viii.

26. "They are not written by persons pretending to scholarship or even education, and I was unable to get a copy of any of them fully written either in Ajmer or Kishengarh. The different roles of some of them were written and were in the possession of the actors, but in other cases the pundit whom I asked to get the pieces for me, had to write them down from the dictation of the players who could not read or write." Robson, A Selection of Khyals , xv, vi, iii.

27. Ibid., iv-v.

28. Note the phrase "in the middle of the last century." Robson also states that the form of the khyal had "not changed much during the last hundred years." Ibid., vii.

29. "There is seldom anything in them beyond dialogue, and sometimes only one actor sings through several scenes, while numbers of others may be carrying on the action of the piece. A new scene is introduced with a new refrain. If there is dialogue, each of the singers sings his own refrain first, and then they continue singing alternate stanzas, each repeating, at the end of each stanza he sings, his opening refrain." Ibid., vii-viii.

26. "They are not written by persons pretending to scholarship or even education, and I was unable to get a copy of any of them fully written either in Ajmer or Kishengarh. The different roles of some of them were written and were in the possession of the actors, but in other cases the pundit whom I asked to get the pieces for me, had to write them down from the dictation of the players who could not read or write." Robson, A Selection of Khyals , xv, vi, iii.

27. Ibid., iv-v.

28. Note the phrase "in the middle of the last century." Robson also states that the form of the khyal had "not changed much during the last hundred years." Ibid., vii.

29. "There is seldom anything in them beyond dialogue, and sometimes only one actor sings through several scenes, while numbers of others may be carrying on the action of the piece. A new scene is introduced with a new refrain. If there is dialogue, each of the singers sings his own refrain first, and then they continue singing alternate stanzas, each repeating, at the end of each stanza he sings, his opening refrain." Ibid., vii-viii.

30. Vatsyayan dates Khyal to the eighteenth century ( Traditional Indian Theatre , 160), as does Gargi ( Folk Theater , 48).

31. See appendix B for nineteenth-century printed Khyals in British collections.

32. Samar states that Khyal players of the Shekhawati style traveled regularly to Bombay and Calcutta. Devilal Samar, Rajasthani lok-natya , 18.

33. Ibid., 16-20. See also D. R. Ahuja, Folklore of Rajasthan , 141, and Gargi, Folk Theater , 48, for mention of Nanulal Rana, Jhali Ram (Jhaliram

32. Samar states that Khyal players of the Shekhawati style traveled regularly to Bombay and Calcutta. Devilal Samar, Rajasthani lok-natya , 18.

33. Ibid., 16-20. See also D. R. Ahuja, Folklore of Rajasthan , 141, and Gargi, Folk Theater , 48, for mention of Nanulal Rana, Jhali Ram (Jhaliram

Nirmal), Prahladi Ram (Prahlad Ray Purohit), Ujira or Ujiram, and Lachhi Ram.

34. Devilal Samar, "The Dance Dramas of Rajasthan," Cultural Forum 6, no. 3 (May 1964): 44. Whereas the nineteenth-century plays were published all over North India, in the twentieth century they come mostly from Rajasthan, according to the British Museum and India Office Library catalogues.

35. Samar, Rajasthani lok-natya , 18.

36. Agraval, Sangit , 34-38. See also Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 160.

37. The akharas of Turra and Kalagi bear some striking similarities to the akharas of renunciants ( sadhus ) organized on a paramilitary basis, who also identify themselves with distinctive banners and insignia. See Romila Thapar, Ancient Indian Social History , 89.

38. According to Tulpule, the Kalagi tradition was founded by Vadavalasiddha Nagesa in the fourteenth century, whereas Turra originated with Haradasa. Shankar Gopal Tulpule, Classical Marathi Literature , 440. Several North Indian sources, however, name Tukun Giri and Shah All as founders of Kalagi and Turra respectively, dating them to four hundred years ago. A nineteenth-century lithographed collection of Hindi lavanis in the British Library contains a foreword that supports. this view: "Some call this Lavani and some Marhathi or Khyal. Actually, its composition and singing come from the south, and its two originators were Tukan Giri and Shah Ali who founded the two sects, Turra and Kalagi." Kashigir Banarasi, Lavani (Banaras: Munshi Ambe Prasad, 1877). Similar information is contained in Devilal Samar, "The Khyals of Rajasthan," in P. N. Chopra, ed., Folk Entertainment in India , 57; and in Mahendra Bhanavat, Rajasthan ke turrakalangi , 2-3. Agraval says that Tukhangiri (his spelling) was a nirgunvadi sadhu and Shah All a Sufi faqir . They were residents of Madhya Pradesh and were given their crests by the king of Chanderi following a court performance. Tukhangiri's disciple Rasalgiri came to Uttar Pradesh in the eighteenth century and spread the khyal form there. He was especially welcomed in Agra where akharas of khyal and lavani were started at his instigation. Agraval, Sangit , 30-31.

39. The Turra and Kalagi parties may have been heirs to older confrontations between Naths and rival Siddha or Mahanubhava groups. See Tulpule, Classical Marathi Literature , 440; Bhanvat, Rajasthan ke turrakalangi , 17.

40. Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 170; Tulpule, Classical Marathi Literature , 345, 433.

41. Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 174; Gargi, Folk Theater , 79. Dhyaneshwar Nadkarni, however, reports that the saval-javab form of musical repartee has long disappearred from the Tamasha. See his "Marathi Tamasha, Yesterday and Today," in Durgadas Mukhopadhyay, ed., Lesser Known Forms of Performing Arts in India , 53. See also M. L. Varadpande, "Tamasha: Folk Theatre of Maharashtra," in Chopra, ed., Folk Entertainment in India , 61-67; Chandrashekhar Jahagirdar, "Marathi Folk Literature," in K. M. George, ed., Comparative Indian Literature , 1:103-104.

42. Hemendra Nath Das Gupta, The Indian Theatre , 145.

43. Ibid., 151.

42. Hemendra Nath Das Gupta, The Indian Theatre , 145.

43. Ibid., 151.

44. Shivkumar Madhur reports that Turra-Kalagi parties now exist in Ujjain, Indore, and other towns of Madhya Pradesh, and he describes their performance style in Madhyapradesh ka lok natya mach , 17. I viewed a videotape of a Turra-Kalagi troupe from Madhya Pradesh performing Abhimanyu dronacharya samvad in the Sangeet Natak Akademi archives in December 1984.

45. Ramgharib Chaube, "On Popular Singers in Saharanpur," Indian Antiquary 39 (Feb. 1910): 64.

46. The plays of Guru Gopalji, one of the originators of Mach, bear rubrics such as khyal mach ka and nakal khyal mach ki (play or poem of the Mach stage, impersonation-play or poem of the Mach stage). Gopalji's successor, Balmukund, established the conventions of the present day and popularized the use of the name Mach. Five of Balmukund's plays are contained in the British Library, where three of them are termed pura khel manch ka (complete play of the Mach stage) and two are styled nakal (impersonation). These editions of Balmukund's plays were published in Delhi and Calcutta between 1894 and 1897. See appendix B pt. 2.

47. Bhanavat, Rajasthan ke turrakalangi , 15-21. Samar, "The Khyals of Rajasthan," 55.

48. The Kalagi troupe of Bhagvati Prasad is mentioned as one of the akharas of folk theatre in Agra in the second half of the nineteenth century. Ashok Chakradhar, "Nautanki," in Durgadas Mukhopadhyay, ed., Lesser Known Forms of Performing Arts in India , 121.

49. Sadhuram Mistri, Sangit gorakh machhandar nath (1915), 3; Chiranjilal Natharam, Sangit chandravali ka jhula (1901), 84; Batuknath Kalyan, Sangit brahma ka byah (1902), 136.

50. Batuknath Kalyan, Sangit brahma ka byah , 136; Chhitarmal Jyotishi, Chhandom ka syahposh (1948), 1.

51. [Ustad Indarman], Khyal puran mal ka (1892), 1.

52. The first printed play of the Indarman akhara in the India Office Library, possibly written by Indarman himself, is entitled Khyal puran mal ka , although it is written in the distinctive metrical form of Svang, the doha-chaubola-daur , and is in Khari Boli Hindi.

53. Jo sajjan asli chahem indarman krit khyala / likhau muhar mem lai padhi nam chiranjilala . Chiranjilal Natharam, Amar simh ka sakha (1915). See also Chiranjilal Natharam, Malkhan sangram (1902), cover page.

54. Yah baidya chiranjilal khyal kath gaya / din sat mahim rachi pachi ke svang banaya . Vaidya Chiranjilal, Brahma ka byah (1902), final page.

55. Describing contemporary Khyal, Ahuja writes, "Two principal actors have a question-answer session on the stage and in poetical dialogue they do what would require many actors to perform." Ahuja, Folklore of Rajasthan , 139. Vatsyayan similarly notes, "The characteristic feature of all these performances whether in Punjab or Haryana or Rajasthan or U.P. is ... the wordy battle which takes place between two groups or between two characters." Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 159. Robson's reference to this practice was mentioned above (note 29).

56. Published anthologies of lavanis appear in the British Library from 1866 on. Some of these carry cover sketches of groups of lavani singers gathered

around a drum player, as in fig. 6 where one member of the party smokes a chilam (clay pipe).

57. The texts indicate that the term lavani was used interchangeably with khyal to refer to a song type (e.g., the phrase iti khyal sampurnam , ''the end of the khyal ," at the conclusion of a poem labeled lavani ). The British Library texts examined were Nanhu Lal, Lavani navin bilas (Banaras: Munshi Ambe Prasad, ca. 1873); Kashigir Banarasi, Lavani (Banaras: Munshi Ambe Prasad, 1877); and Suddh bilas pahila bhag (Fatehgarh, 1882) by various authors.

58. "Lower class people had also evolved special literary interests according to their tastes. For instance, one practice arose which was known as khayal . People composed extemporary verses and recited them when sitting in a circle. The name khayal was given to the feat of everyone producing a masterpiece from his imagination and creating some new idea. Several exponents of this art achieved great success and although they had no connection with the best society or with educated people, still, if one considers the matter, one must admit that they produced real and natural poetry." Sharar, Lucknow: The Last Phase , 93.

59. Madan Gopal, The Bharatendu , 28.

60. On the current practice of lavani singing in Urdu, see Mohammad Hasan, "Urdu Folk Literature," in K. M. George, ed., Comparative Indian Literature , 1:144; and also Azhar Ali Faruqi, Uttar pradesh ke lok git , 425-447. In eastern Rajasthan, folk poets continue to compose verses (classed in general as khyals ) in a large number of lavani meters, which have been described in detail by Bhanavat, Rajasthan ke turrakalangi , 4-15, and Govind Rajnish, Rajasthan ke purvi anchal ka lok-sahitya , 53-73.

61. The uniqueness of these tenets can be adjudged from Charlotte Vaudeville's discussion in her Kabir , 126-127, 134.

62. Gorakhnath was probably born between A.D. 1000 and 1200 in either the Punjab or eastern Bengal. His name is closely linked with several other Siddhas, namely Machhendarnath (Matsyendranath), Jalandharnath (Jalandharipa), and Kanipa, who may have been his teachers. Although the early stages of the Nath sect are dim, Gorakh's primary significance lay in synthesizing Buddhist and Tantric doctrines with Shaivism. He codified the system of Hatha yoga and authored the Goraksasataka and possibly other texts. Nath influence on medieval poets like Kabir, Nanak, and Jnandev was considerable, and a host of lesser poets in Hindi, Marathi, and Bengali were also followers of the Nath cult. For general background on the dates and teachings of Gorakh-nath, see J. N. Farquhar, An Outline of the Religious Literature of India ; George Weston Briggs, Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis , 228-257; Vaudeville, Kabir , 85-89.

63. Briggs, Gorakhnath , 78-124.

64. C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars , 140-143. See also David N. Lorenzen, "Warrior Ascetics in Indian History," Journal of the American Oriental Society 98, no. 1 (1978): 61-75.

65. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars , 126; Briggs, Gorakhnath , 6.

66. Briggs, Gorakhnath , 24-25, 55, 183-207.

67. K. Raghunathji, "Bombay Beggars and Criers," Indian Antiquary (Nov. 1880): 279.

68. M. A. Sherring, Hindu Tribes and Castes , 261.

69. Elwyn C. Lapoint, "The Epic of Guga," in Sylvia Vatuk, ed., American Studies in the Anthropology of India , 281-308. Daniel Gold and Ann Grodzins Gold, "The Fate of the Householder Nath," History of Religions 24, no. 2 (Nov. 1984): 113-132.

70. Jogis in Rajasthan sing the ballad of Amar Singh; see Ocora LP #31, "Inde—Rajasthan—Musiciens professionels populaires," recorded 1971-72. The importance of jogis in the medieval ballad traditions of the Punjab is mentioned by Adya Rangacharya, The Indian Theatre , 66. On the dominance of the Nath cult in Rajasthani folklore and the role of the jogis , see Ahuja, Folklore of Rajasthan , 47, 120. The Naths' singing of Pingla Jhurapo , a version of the tale of Raja Bhartari in Malawi, is mentioned in Shyam Parmar, Folklore of Madhya Pradesh , 93. Jogis' singing of the Nihalde legend in Haryana is reported by Devi Shankar Prabhakar, "Folk Entertainment in Haryana," in P. N. Chopra, ed., Folk Entertainment in India , 28.

71. J. Abbott, "On the Ballads and Legends of the Punjab," and "Rifacimento of the Legend of Russaloo," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal , nos. 1 & 2 (1854): 59-163. William Crooke, "A Version of the Guga Legend,'' Indian Antiquary (Feb. 1895):49-56. Flora Annie Steel and R. C. Temple, "How Raja Rasalu Was Born'' and other stories in Tales of the Punjab , 159-161. Charles Swynnerton, Romantic Tales from the Panjab , "The Love Story of Hir and Ranjha," 1-24; "Raja Rasalu," 51-151; "The Story of Puran Bhagat," 230-245.

72. William Ridgeway, The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races , 190.

73. Ibid., 194. The Svang of Puran is reported to be presented most commonly at Dashahara and Holi. The different styles of dramatic representation are described as follows: "The story of Hakikat Rai has been turned into a regular play and staged as such. But the accounts of Gopi Chand and Puran are mostly known in dialogue forms only, in which they are represented not only in the Punjab, but in the United Provinces and Rajputana as well. The difference is that the latter are staged on modern lines. There are, of course, actors representing the personages connected with the story, each taking his turn in time, but they may not come and go with scenes or curtains or other contrivances." Ibid., 197.

72. William Ridgeway, The Dramas and Dramatic Dances of Non-European Races , 190.

73. Ibid., 194. The Svang of Puran is reported to be presented most commonly at Dashahara and Holi. The different styles of dramatic representation are described as follows: "The story of Hakikat Rai has been turned into a regular play and staged as such. But the accounts of Gopi Chand and Puran are mostly known in dialogue forms only, in which they are represented not only in the Punjab, but in the United Provinces and Rajputana as well. The difference is that the latter are staged on modern lines. There are, of course, actors representing the personages connected with the story, each taking his turn in time, but they may not come and go with scenes or curtains or other contrivances." Ibid., 197.

74. Jagdish Chandra Mathur, "Hindi Drama and Theatre," in Indian Drama , 23.

75. Suniti Kumar Chatterji, introduction to Indian Drama , 8. Twenty-five of these plays in Devanagari with critical introductions by Jagdish Chandra Mathur and Dasharath Ojha are found in Mata Prasad Gupta, ed., Prachin bhasha natak samgrah .

76. A Bengali version of Gopichandra found in Nepal, written in 1712, is mentioned by Das Gupta, The Indian Theatre , 164.

77. Chatterji, introduction to Indian Drama , 8.

78. Hein, Miracle Plays , 121-123. According to Hein, three drama manuscripts from seventeenth-century Nepal, including the Harishchandra nrityam , are preserved in the library of the German Oriental Society.

79. Shardadevi Vedalankar, The Development of Hindi Prose Literature , 188-198. A manuscript of the play is reportedly contained in the Hodgson Collection in the India Office Library.

80. Joyce Lebra-Chapman, The Rani of Jhansi , 17.

81. Mahesh Anand, "Bharatenduyugin< rangmanch," in Nemichandra Jain, ed., Adhunik hindi natak aur rangmanch , 53, 61. See also Krishna Mohan Saksena, Bharatenduyugin natya-sahitya mem loktattva , 133-134.

82. Preoccupation with the arts has conventionally been viewed as the cause of Wajid Ali's loss of power, but recent historiography has reexamined the dynamics of the Awadh Nawabi and considered the role of cultural patronage in legitimizing rulership. See Richard B. Barnett, North India between Empires ; Michael H. Fisher, A Clash of Cultures ; and Carla Rae Petievich, "The Two School Theory of Urdu Literature." Also of interest is the controversy within India about Wajid Ali's actions vis-à-vis the British, as represented in Satyajit Ray's film based on the Premchand short story, "Shatranj ke khilari" (The chessplayers). Satyajit Ray, "My Wajid Ali Is Not 'Effete and Effeminate,'" Illustrated Weekly of India , Dec. 31, 1978, 49-51 (and Rajbans Khanna's rejoinder in the same issue, 53).

83. On thumri and Kathak, see Sharar, Lucknow: The Last Phase , 137-142; Peter Manuel, "The Evolution of Modern Thumri ," Ethnomusicology 30, no. 3 (Fall 1986): 470-490; Nirmala Joshi, "Wajidali Shah and the Music of His Time," Sangeet Natak Akademi Bulletin 6 (May 1957): 36-38; Ragini Devi, Dance Dialects of India , 167; Nandita Haksar, "Kathak," Indian Horizons 29, no. 3 (1980): 34-39.

84. Adib asserts that rahas or ras originally referred to the dances of Krishna and the gopis , but later it came to be a general term for drama and was used as such on the title pages of Amanat's Indarsabha . Masud Hasan Rizvi ("Adib"), Urdu drama aur istej , pt. 2: Lakhnau ka 'avami istej , 45-46. Platts's Dictionary of Urdu includes the following as meanings of the word rahas : "a secret, mystery, mystical or religious truth"; "sexual intercourse, copulation"; ''pleasantry, merriment, sportive sallies''; and "a kind of ballet or theatric representation of Krishna and the Gopis (a similar entertainment was invented by Wajid 'Ali Shah of Lakhnau and given in his court)" (609). In his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829) James Tod refers to the Rasdharis as Rahus-d'harees , an indication of the earlier pronunciation (cited in Hein, Miracle Plays , 133).

85. The text of Radha kanhaiya ka qissa is printed in Masud Hasan Rizvi ("Adib"), Urdu drama aur istej , pt. 1: Lakhnau ka shahi istej , 212-224.

86. The principal source on Wajid Ali Shah's involvement with the theatre is Rizvi, Urdu drama aur istej , pt. 1, especially 71-194. For a brief English synopsis, see Syed Masud Hasan Rizavi, "On Urdu Drama aur Stage," Indian Literature (Oct. 1959-Mar. 1960): 138-140. The issues are also discussed at length in M. Aslam Qureshi, Wajid Ali Shah's Theatrical Genius . A Hindi summary appears in Agraval, Sangit , 68-76. See also Sharar, Lucknow: The Last

Phase , 64, 85, 146; Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak , 115-117; and Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , 227-229.

87. Ram Babu Saksena, A History of Urdu Literature , 350-351; Somnath Gupta, Hindi natak sahitya , 8; Annemarie Schimmel, Classical Urdu Literature , 213-214. Saksena, however, does not claim complete reliability, suggesting that the story of the Nawab's participation was based on hearsay.

88. Rizvi, Urdu drama aur istej , pt. 2, 42-45.

89. Saksena states, "One of the French companions [of Wajid Ali Shah] mooted the idea of stage and presented the scheme of opera which was in the heyday of popularity in France." History of Urdu Literature , 351. Muhammad Sadiq declares, "Indar Sabha is a musical comedy modelled on European opera" (Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature , 2d ed., 607), and earlier he states, "The revival of drama in India in the middle of the nineteenth century owes nothing to the discovery of an indigenous tradition. It is essentially an exotic" (606).

90. John Pemble, The Raj, the Indian Mutiny, and the Kingdom of Oudh , 265; see also 23-24, 265-266.

91. Agraval argues that the Indarsabha ought not to be called an Urdu play ( natak ) but rather a folk play of the old rasak tradition. Sangit , 69-70, 78-79. The Indarsabha is commonly included in histories of Hindi dramatic literature and is discussed in the context of older Indian folk drama traditions. See Somnath Gupta, Hindi natak sahitya , 8; Tivari, Bharatendukalin natak , 117; Suresh Avasthi, "Indar sabha: ek rupgat adhyayan," Natrang 9 (1969): 23-29.

92. An illustration of Indra's court as symbolic of the Nayaks' reign in Madurai is given in David Dean Shulman, The King and the Clown , 229.

93. The dastan was coming to occupy an important place in the literature of nineteenth-century Urdu. See Frances W. Pritchett, Marvelous Encounters , 1-8.

94. Sadiq, A History of Urdu Literature , 607; and Schimmel, Classical Urdu Literature , 214.

95. By 1893, fifty-four editions had been published, in Devanagari and Gujarati scripts as well as in Urdu. James Fuller Blumhardt, Catalogue of Hindustani Printed Books , 1889, 29-30; James Fuller Blumhardt, Catalogue of the Library of the India Office , 1900.

96. The British Museum's first edition by Madarilal was published in Agra in 1860.

97. Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , 229-236.

98. A possibly incomplete edition of Bandar sabha is contained in Shivprasad Mishra, ed., Bharatendu granthavali , 1:729-731. Blumhardt 1889 catalogues Bandar sabha (47) but lists no author. This edition was printed in Gujarati script, published in Bombay in 1877, 24 pp.

99. I am grateful to Bruce Pray for a copy of the first edition of Friedrich Rosen's Die Indarsabha des Amanat , which became the basis for the operetta, Im Reiche des Indra . See Schimmel, Classical Urdu Literature , 214.

100. The Parsis practice the pre-Islamic Persian religion founded by Zoroaster. They emigrated from Iran to Gujarat in the eighth century and settled

in Bombay under British encouragement soon after 1660. In the nineteenth century Parsis achieved prominence in education, law, and business; they became one of the most Westernized communities in India. Eckehard Kulke, The Parsees in India , 26-34.

101. Y. K. Yajnik, The Indian Theatre , 93; Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , 245. See also Kulke, Parsees in India , 106-107.

102. Birendra Narayana, Hindi Drama and Stage , 38; Saksena, History of Urdu Literature , 354-355. Schimmel calls the Delhi company the "Balliwala Theatrical Company," in Classical Urdu Literature , 236.

103. Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , 14.

104. Ibid., 196. The Parsi Curzon Theatrical Company of Calcutta, in addition to its Indian tours, went to Burma, Straits Settlements, and Penang. See A. Yusuf Ali, "The Modern Hindustani Drama," Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature , 2d s., 35 (1917): 85.

103. Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , 14.

104. Ibid., 196. The Parsi Curzon Theatrical Company of Calcutta, in addition to its Indian tours, went to Burma, Straits Settlements, and Penang. See A. Yusuf Ali, "The Modern Hindustani Drama," Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature , 2d s., 35 (1917): 85.

105. Yajnik, Indian Theatre , 97-102.

106. Ibid., 113. Yusuf Ali, "Modern Hindustani Drama," 95-96.

105. Yajnik, Indian Theatre , 97-102.

106. Ibid., 113. Yusuf Ali, "Modern Hindustani Drama," 95-96.

107. Yajnik, Indian Theatre , 111-115.

108. See Kulke, Parsees in India , 105-108, regarding the "extensive anglicization" of the Parsis.

109. Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , 33-51.

110. At least four of some twenty-five plays of Raunaq's are housed in the British Museum collection. These were published in Bombay in 1879-1880 and are printed in Gujarati script. The four plays concern favorite themes found in the nineteenth-century Svang tradition: Hir ranjha, Benazir badr-e-munir, Laila majnun, Puran bhagat . According to Somnath Gupta, most of Zarif's plays are unavailable ( Parsi thiyetar , 60). Thirty plays are attributed to him by Saksena, following Nami ( History of Urdu Literature , 354).

111. For a discussion of Talib's works and examples of his language, see Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , 71-85. Gupta indicates that Talib's plays were published by Khurshedji Balliwala and bases his comments on personally owned manuscripts. On Betab see ibid., 85-86; and Vidyavati Lakshmanrao Namre, Hindi rangmanch aur pandit narayanprasad betab

110. At least four of some twenty-five plays of Raunaq's are housed in the British Museum collection. These were published in Bombay in 1879-1880 and are printed in Gujarati script. The four plays concern favorite themes found in the nineteenth-century Svang tradition: Hir ranjha, Benazir badr-e-munir, Laila majnun, Puran bhagat . According to Somnath Gupta, most of Zarif's plays are unavailable ( Parsi thiyetar , 60). Thirty plays are attributed to him by Saksena, following Nami ( History of Urdu Literature , 354).

111. For a discussion of Talib's works and examples of his language, see Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , 71-85. Gupta indicates that Talib's plays were published by Khurshedji Balliwala and bases his comments on personally owned manuscripts. On Betab see ibid., 85-86; and Vidyavati Lakshmanrao Namre, Hindi rangmanch aur pandit narayanprasad betab

112. Lakshmi Narayan Lal, Parsi-hindi rangmanch , 20. For a more detailed discussion of Urdu playwrights of the Parsi stage, see Saksena, History of Urdu Literature , 353-366.

113. Further information on Radheyshyam is found in Lakshmi Narayan Lal, Parsi-hindi rangmanch , 42-52.

114. Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , appendix 2, 13-17; Yajnik, Indian Theatre , 92-93.

115. Yajnik has an extensive discussion of Indian adaptations of Shakespeare in Indian Theatre , 125-216. His appendix C lists approximately two hundred versions of twenty-nine plays of Shakespeare translated or adapted into various Indian languages, 270-278.

116. Yusuf Ali, "Modern Hindustani Drama," 96.

117. Yajnik, Indian Theatre , 112.

118. Narayana, Hindi Drama and Stage , 40; Yajnik, Indian Theatre , 115.

119. Somnath Gupta, Parsi thiyetar , appendix 2, 40-50.

120. Yusuf Ali, "Modern Hindustani Drama," 96.

121. Narayana, Hindi Drama and Stage , 40-41.

122. Yajnik, Indian Theatre , 109-110.

123. These include Gopichandra, Harishchandra, Prahlad, Puran bhagat, Laila majnun, Shirin farhad, Gul bakavali, Benazir badr-e-munir, Nal daman, Sati savitri , and Shakuntala .

124. See Yajnik, Indian Theatre , 106: "The phenomenal success of Harish-chandra in all the provinces of India was largely due to Parsi effort in Urdu."

1. Ved Prakash Vatuk and Sylvia Vatuk, "The Ethnography of Sang , A North Indian Folk Opera," in Ved Prakash Vatuk, ed., Studies in Indian Folk Traditions , 33.

2. Robson reports that he acquired copies of the khyal plays he published from the Raja of Kishengarh and that "the different roles of some of them were written and were in the possession of the actors." John Robson, A Selection of Khyals or Marwari Plays , xiii, xv.

3. From street sellers of Delhi, Lucknow, Mathura, and Jaipur and from publishers' warehouses I accumulated a personal collection of ninety-nine contemporary Nautanki Sangits bearing cover dates between 1950 and 1982. For a catalogue of this collection, see appendix D.

4. See N. Gerald Barrier, Banned: Controversial Literature , 5.

5. A.J. Arberry, The India Office Library , 67.

6. Catalogues in the British Museum (BM) include James Fuller Blumhardt, Catalogues of the Hindi, Panjabi, Sindhi, and Pushtu Printed Books in the Library of the British Museum (1893); Blumhardt's supplement for Hindi books in 1913; a second supplement in 1957 by L. D. Barnett, J. F. Blumhardt, and J. V. S. Wilkinson; some Urdu Sangits and related items are in Blumhardt's Catalogue of Hindustani Printed Books (1889) and his 1899 catalogue of Hindi, Panjabi, and Hindustani manuscripts. Hindi acquisitions in the India Office Library (IOL) are listed in James Fuller Blumhardt, Catalogue of the Library of the India Office , vol. 2, pt. 3: Hindi, Panjabi, Pushtu, and Sindhi Books (1902); Hindustani books are listed in Blumhardt's vol. 2, pt. 2 (1900).

7. The early lithographed texts appear to be preserved with greater care in the British Museum, and facilities for photographing and photocopying are more readily available there. Publication details and library locations of Sangits cited in the notes are listed in appendix C.

8. George A. Grierson, "Two Versions of the Song of Gopi Chand," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 54, no. I (1885): 35.

9. Jaini Jiya Lal, Sangit raja harichandra ka (1877), 51. The poet then relates how the publisher Ambe Prasad requested him to correct a manuscript written earlier by Bhagvan Das, providing verses at the beginning and end to replace lost pages. Jiya Lal attests that his own work is limited to five chaubolas at the beginning and five chaubolas at the end, and thus he disclaims responsi-

bility for poetic flaws anywhere else in the play. This long explanation fills the place at the end of a composition where a poet normally asks forgiveness for any errors he may have committed.

10. Roger Chartier, "Culture as Appropriation: Popular Cultural Uses in Early Modern France," in Steven L. Kaplan, ed., Understanding Popular Culture , 229-253.

11. Thomas R. Metcalf, Land, Landlords, and the British Raj , 144.

12. "In the fortress market of Hatras buoyant growth maintained its momentum even after the great Raja had been driven from his dominions by British power in 1817. In 1830, it was 'bursting at the seams' and traders who had accumulated capital in the days of Diaram's opulence began to invest their resources in the purchase of land-rights in the vicinity." C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars , 208.

13. Ram Narayan Agraval, Sangit , 114.

14. On the history of the Indarman akhara , see Agraval, Sangit , 108-111, 280-281. Also Radhavallabh Gaur, "Hathras ki nautanki, svang va bhagat parampara," in Radheyshyam "Pragalbh," ed., Braj kala kendra ke varshik adhiveshan , 105-111; and Radhavallabh Gaur, newspaper article, Amar ujala (Agra), Jan. 20, 1980, 2.

15. The first instance is, "The servant of the people, Indraman, says: What the Creator wills is what will happen ( jandas indraman kahai karta karai hogi vahi )." Khyal puran mal ka (1892), 22.

16. Daur constitutes the closing four lines added to the standard six-line doha-chaubola. Daur is used extensively throughout the play in the same metric array as its later usage (13+13+13+28 matras ).

17. Chiranjilal Natharam, Chandravali ka jhula (1897), back cover.

18. This idea was also expressed by the current publisher of the Indarman akhara , Natharam's son, Radhavallabh Gaur, in an interview with Pritchett. Frances W. Pritchett, "Sit Basant: Oral Tale, Sangit, and Kissa," Asian Foklore Studies 42, no. I (1983): 47.

19. Publication list on back cover of Chiranjilal Natharam, Malkhan sangram (1902).

20. Chiranjilal Natharam, Udal ka byah (1902), 152.

21. Chiranjilal Natharam, Indal haran (1901), pt. 1,128.

22. The ustad govind chiranjilal shahr hathras mukam. Qatl jan alam , pt. 3 (1908), 76.

23. Sangit nautanki , for example, was first published in 1904 under both authors' names. The same play reprinted by Chiranjilal's son, Bankelal, in 1922 was credited to Chiranjilal alone (see fig. 2), whereas from 1925 on it was reprinted from Shyam Press as if it were a work by Natharam.

24. Ruparam also published at least two Sangits on his own, Chacha bhatija (1922) and Bap beta (1923), both published in Hathras.

25. Twenty-five of "Natharam's" texts examined bear Rupa's signature, and the total number of his compositions is without doubt much greater than Na-tharam's, although other poets may have been working under him, particularly in his later years. Agraval lists a total of 147 Sangits by Ruparam. Sangit , 272-273.

26. These entries include only Sangits in London collections and the personal collections of Hansen and Pritchett.

27. The Sangits attributed to Govind Chaman in the London collections include ten Alha episodes published between 1909 and 1916, plus Bhain bhaiya (4th ed., 1913), Dayaram gujar (6th ed., 1914), Nautanki (1915), Lakha banjara (1916), and others.

28. Tota Ram Govind Chaman, Malkhan ka byah (1913), 1-2.

29. Tota Ram Govind Chaman, Machhla haran (1916), 95-96.

30. Jo sajjan asli chahaim indarman krit khyal / likhau muhar mem lai padhi nam chiranjilal. Malkhan sangram (1902). For an illustration of a similar doha of Chiranjilal, see fig. 2.

31. Indarman krit khas jo chahat khyal amol / natharam padh muhar mem sajjan lo dil khol. Kishan rasiya amar simh rathor (1914).

32. The title page of Basudev's Sangit siyeposh explicitly mentions Muralidhar as Basam's disciple. Agraval says the Basam-Muralidhar akhara was the first to appear in Hathras, sometime around 1870, according to an oral account of Lala Khachermal Atevala that cites Basam's Syahposh as the first Svang ever performed there. Agraval, Sangit , 106-107. However, the printed text of Basam's Siyeposh in the London collections is dated 1907; as the akhara's other printed plays in London are dated from between 1907 and 1915, these texts cannot prove Agraval's assertion.

33. Agraval states that the name of Basam's guru was Saligram, but that he was better known as Sarju Das or Serhu. In the mangalacharan of Sangit siyeposh , the poet Basudev mentions his gurus Sedhu Singh and Salig as if they were two individuals. Pandit Basudev, Sangit siyeposh , 3d ed. (1907).

34. Muralidhar, Sangit samar malkhan (1907).

35. Shankargarh sangram (1911) is composed by Munshi Shaligram, master of the Tahsil school in Aligarh, but it contains no reference that might link it with Muralidhar's lineage. Another text is Alha ka byah (1913), published under the following heading: "The akhara of the famed poet of Hathras, Shri Muralidhar, composed by Ustad Sedhu Lal Pujari." The phrase "composed by" ( krit ) ordinarily refers to the guru or head of the akhara , not the actual author. The author in this case is named below the title as Pandit Ganeshi Lal, master of the branch high school in Hathras. In a lavani at the end of this text, Shaligram is mentioned as the brother of the bookseller, Master Nihalchand. Another play listed as composed by Sedhu Lal Pujari is Bahoran qatl (1911), which is marked in the catalogues "edited by Munshi Shaligram."

36. Muralidhar, Sangit bharat (1913), facing p. 1.

37. Niskalank nirman kiya shri ustad mukand, / bhanem chhand shivlal shuchi muralidhar harnand .

38 . Agraval, Sangit , 112-113. See opposite 76 for a photograph of the mandap erected by Hanna Singh.

39. Chintamani ko grahan kar mati kharidau kanch / asal nakal malum padai adi ant tak vanch . Batuknath Kalyan, Brahma ka byah (1902), title page.

40. Agraval, Sangit , 112.

41. Kale Khan ("Aziz"), Sangit bankabir amar simh rathaur (Aligarh: 1913), facing p. 1.

42. Shiv Narayan Lal, Sangit sundarkand rah nautanki (Etawah: 1913), 26. Within the play, the composition is said to be in rah chaubola , indicating that the unique style or manner ( rah ) of Nautanki is the use of the poetic and musical unit chaubola. Sundarkand rah chaubola tat raqam karta hum. Sangit sundarkand , 1.

43. For the historical background to the Dramatic Performances Act, see Hemendra Nath Das Gupta, The Indian Stage , 2/3:253-292, and Nikhat Kazmi, "Obsolete Theatre Act Stops the Action," in The Times of India , Apr. 15, 1990, 12. My thanks to Harjot Singh Oberoi for giving me a copy of the latter article.

44. Shaligram, Shankargarh sangram (1911), back cover.

45. Ibid., inside front cover.

44. Shaligram, Shankargarh sangram (1911), back cover.

45. Ibid., inside front cover.

46. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars , 216.

47. Ibid., 444.

46. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars , 216.

47. Ibid., 444.

48. Chandi Lal, Sangit jagdev kankali (1914).

49. His Sangits bear Indarman's name on their covers.

50. Agraval, Sangit , 131, 286.

51. Nakli pustak se bacho, idhar dijiye dhyan / asli ka hai yah pata, lo photu pahichan .

52. The London collections contain six Sangits by Trimohan Lal, all published in Kanpur between 1920 and 1924.

53. Agraval notes Yasin Khan was employed as the chief writer for Trimohan Lal. He lists twenty-nine plays published under Trimohan's name. Sangit , 273-274.

54. The London collections contain forty-five titles by Shrikrishna published between 1919 and 1938. The earliest Sangit by Shrikrishna may be the Chhatrapati shivaji attributed to one Shrikrishna Varma and published in Kanpur in 1916. This play and six others are listed on a back cover of a Sangit of Shrikrishna's published in 1920.

55. Shrikrishna Khatri Pahalvan, Maharani padmini (1919), 42.

56. For further information on the history of the Haryana Sang, see Agraval, Sangit , 121-124. A general treatment of contemporary Sang performance is contained in Vatuk and Vatuk, "The Ethnography of Sang ."

1. Based on Jaini Jiya Lal's Sangit raja harichandra ka (1877) and Natharam Sharma Gaur, Sangit harishchandra, urf gulshan ka nag (1981). On the dating of the Natharam Harishchandra , see Kathryn Hansen, " Sultana< the dacoit and Harishchandra : Two Popular Dramas of the Nautanki Tradition of North India," Modern Asian Studies 17, no. 2 (1983): 320.

2. The old story was first mentioned in the Mahabharata and recounted in detail in the Markandeya purana . See Cornelia Dimmitt and J. A. B. van Buitenen, eds. and trans., Classical Hindu Mythology , 274-286; John Dowson, A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology , 118-119.

3. The Harishchandra story first makes its appearance as a Sangit in both Hindi and Urdu in the late nineteenth century. Jaini Jiya Lal's version was published as Sangit raja harichandra ka in Devanagari in Banaras in 1877 and as

Svang rajah harichand in Urdu (Persian characters) in Delhi in 1881. Another Hindi Sangit edition is that of Kidha Mishra, published in Meerut in 1880. Temple's "Legend of Hari Chand," collected from a bard in Meerut district, is evidence of its circulation as an oral tale at this time. Ramabhadra Sarman's Harishchandra nrityam , written in 1651 in Maithili and other dialects, was performed in the Indrayatra festival in Kathmandu. A drama on the same theme was exhibited in the court at Jhansi, Madhya Pradesh, during the reign of Gangadhar Rao (1835-1853). It was known in the folk theatre of Rajasthan, as seen from Shivprasad Poddar's published Khyal dated 1886, and versions also circulated in Gujarati, Bengali, and other North Indian languages.

4. Trimohan Lai,

5. The two most influential Sangit versions, that of Lakshman Das dating to 1866 or earlier and that of Chiranjilal Natharam, perhaps written in 1925, are quite similar. The narrative presented above comes primarily from the Lakshman Das version but includes some differences from the later text where they clarify the meaning. For other versions and historical context, see discussion of narrative folklore in chapter 3 end of lithographed Sangits in chapter 4.

6. Hardev Sahay, Sangit raja raghuvir simh ka (1876).

7. Two Nautanki versions of the Puranmal story are Balakram Yogeshvar, Puranmal bhakt (n.d.); and Natharam Sharma Gaur, Puranmal (1981). On Risalu, see Balakram Yogeshvar, Sati shilade, raja risalu va divan mahte shah (n.d.).

8. Gandhi had personal contact with the story when theatrical troupes performed it during his childhood in Gujarat. His reaction must have been shared by thousands of spectators over the years: "To follow truth and go through all the ordeals Harishchandra went through was the one ideal it inspired in me. I literally believed in the story of Harishchandra. The thought of it all often made me weep." Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography , 7.

9. Shalini Reys, "Dancing on a String: Kathputlis, Marionettes of Rajas-than," The India Magazine 5, no. 3 (Feb. 1985): 52-59; D. R. Ahuja, Folklore of Rajasthan , 5, 122, 143-144.

10. Synopsis adapted from Natharam Gaur, Sangit amar simh rathor, sajild donom bhag (1979).

11. For a summary of the story, see George A. Grierson's introduction to the translation of William Waterfield, The Lay of Alha , 13-20.

12. In order to fit the Indian legal definition, a dacoit must operate with a gang of at least five. See Shyam Sunder Katare, Patterns of Dacoity in India , 6. A number of Indian studies discuss the various sociological aspects of the dacoit problem. These include R. P. Garg, Dacoit Problem in Chambal Valley ; Taroon Coomar Bhaduri, Chambal: The Valley of Terror ; R. G. Singh, Terror to Reform ; D. P. Jatar and M. Z. Khan, The Problem of Dacoity in Bundelkhand and the Chambal Valley ; and M. Z. Khan, Dacoity in Chambal Valley .

13. The synopsis is based on Natharam's text, Sangit dayaram gujar, urf bevafa dost (1981). The story first appears in the Sangit literature in a version by Tota Ram Govind Chaman, Dayaram gujar (1914), and in Gaddar Simh, Dayaram gujar (1916).

14. The text on which this synopsis is based is that of Natharam Sharma

Gaur, Sultana daku, urf garibom ka pyara (1982). Other Sangit versions of the play are Shrikrishna Pahalvan, Sultana daku, urf hay re paisa (1977); and Muralidhar, Sultana daku, hay re paisa (n.d.). For nondramatic versions, see Hansen, " Sultana the dacoit and Harishchandra ," 319.

15. Natharam, Sultana daku , 1, 8.

16. Ibid., 60.

15. Natharam, Sultana daku , 1, 8.

16. Ibid., 60.

17. Jim Corbett, My India , 98.

18. Shrikrishna Pahalvan, Sultana daku , 62.

19. The text used for this analysis is from Natharam's akhara, Sangit daku man simh (1963). A second version in my possession is that of Ustad Mangal Simh's akhara, Sangit man simh daku (n.d.).

20. Bhaduri, Chambal: The Valley of Terror , 28.

21. M. Radhakrishnan, Indian Police Journal , quoted in Bhaduri, Chambal: The Valley of Terror , 29.

22. Khan, Dacoity in Chambal Valley , 78.

23. Natharam, Daku man simh , 51.

24. The classic study of "social banditry" based on European folk and historical materials is Eric Hobsbawm's Bandits . For examples from the folklore of Gujarat, see Charles Augustus Kincaid, The Outlaws of Kathiawar and Other Studies ; Tara Bose, Folk Tales of Gujarat . For the Deccan, J. F. Richards and V. N. Rao, "Banditry in Mughal India: Historical and Folk Perceptions," Indian Economic and Social History Review 17, no. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1980): 95-120. For Tamilnadu, N. Vanamamalai, "Dacoits and Robbers in Tamil Ballads," Folklore 12, no. 2 (Feb. 1971): 66-72; Stuart H. Blackburn, ''The Folk Hero and Class Interests in Tamil Heroic Ballads," Asian Folklore Studies 37, no. 1 (1978): 131-149. For Kerala, Vilanilam, "Robinhood of Kerala," Folklore 13, no. 8 (Aug. 1972.): 308-317. And Bangladesh, Ashraf Siddiqui, Folkloric Bangladesh , 50-51.

1. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Laila majnum, urf maktab ki muhabbat (1981). Other Sangit editions include Baldev, Sangit laila majnun (1874); Devidas Chhedilal, Laila majnum yani hushn ki bulbul (1932); and Lakhmi Chand, Sangit laila majnu yani maktab ki yari (1937).

2. R. Gelpke, translator of the Persian poet Nizami's Layla and Majnun , considers the tale "probably the best known ... among the legendary love stories of the Islamic Orient." He mentions a book that has so far evaded my search, M. Gh. Hilal's The Development of the Majnun-Layla Theme in the Literatures of the Orient (Cairo: 1954). Nizami, The Story of Layla and Majnun , ed. and trans. R. Gelpke, 200-201.

3. Note the opening doha of the Nautanki: qissa hota shuru ab pak ishq rangin / nam amir damishq ke the ek ta kh t nashin . "Here begins the story of a delightful pure love . Once there was a king called Amir of Damascus" (emphasis mine). The Urdu phrase does not specify an avoidance of carnal attachment, as the English equivalent might. Although pak connotes something that is sa-

cred or clean, the phrase emphasizes the perfection of the spirit required to love with ideal intensity rather than physical relations or their absence.

4. A feud "dating back to generations" is mentioned in Gurbakhsh Singh's version in Immortal Lovers .

5. The Sang sorath of Dalchand is found in several editions in the IOL and the BM (1876, 1879, 1888).

6. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Sangit hir ranjha, urf sapne ka ashiq (1980). Folk retellings include those of Gurbakhsh Singh in Immortal Lovers , Masud ul-Hasan, Famous Folk Tales of Pakistan , 24-34, and Charles Swynnerton, Romantic Tales from the Panjab , 1-24. An oral ballad version by Asa Singh was recorded by H. A. Rose in Punjabi and translated into English in "A Version of Hir and Ranjha," Indian Antiquary (Sept. 1925): 176-179, (Nov. 1925): 210-219.

7. On the Damodar version, see Sant Singh Sekhon, trans., The Love of Hir and Ranjha (Waris Shah), 6-7. The version of the bard Sher, recited in Abbottabad to Swynnerton in 1889, similarly has the two lovers transported in the end on palkis to Mecca, where they lived happily for many years and may still be living. Swynnerton, Romantic Tales , 24.

8. The Waris Shah text is perhaps best known through the English translation of Charles Frederick Usborne, The Adventures of Hir and Ranjha .

9. The pattern of divine guidance for the hero and performance of magical feats en route to union with the beloved recapitulates the Persian dastan tradition, although it is not lacking in tales of Indian origin. See Frances W. Pritchett, Marvelous Encounters , 7-11.

10. Again events differ in the Waris Shah poem, but the characterization is essentially the same. Ranjha takes on the guise of a fakir or yogi after Hir has been married away, contriving a plan to elope with her when she supposedly falls victim to snakebite and is sent to him to be cured.

11. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Shirim farhad, urf gulshan ki mulaqat (1979). From the Kanpur school, Shrikrishna Pahalvan, Shirim farhad (1968). An early edition is Nathanlal Jadiya, Sang shirin farhad (1910).

12. Gurudayal Simh, Sangit saudagar vo syahposh ka , several copies in the IOL and BM (1875, 1876, 1878).

13. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Lakha banjara, urf anokhi dulhin (1982).

14. See discussion of the virangana in chapter 7, and Kathryn Hansen, "The Virangana in North Indian History, Myth and Popular Culture," Economic and Political Weekly 23, no. 18 (Apr. 30, 1988), WS25-33.

15. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Mali ka beta, urf shahzada firoz (1981).

16. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Andhi dulhin, urf jitendri jaypal (1980).

17. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Dharmvir haqiqat ray, urf sachchi qurbani (1976).

18. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Shrimati manjari, urf gamzada qaidi (1981).

19. Shrikrishna Pahalvan, Dhul ka phul, urf muhabbat ki bhul (1977). Another version is Natharam Sharma Gaur, Dhul ka phul, urf matlabi insan (1977).

1. The account of Jacobson's informant, Bhuri, a Brahmin village woman from Madhya Pradesh, suggests that the ''chaste wife" norm is honored more in the breach than otherwise. Doranne Jacobson, "The Chaste Wife: Cultural Norm and Individual Experience," in Sylvia Vatuk, ed., American Studies in the Anthropology of India , 94-138.

2. Kishwar and Vanita, pioneers of feminist journalism in India in the 1970s and 1980s, express dismay at the "pervasive popular cultural ideal of womanhood" conveyed through mythic role models such as Sita, Savitri, and Anusuya. Madhu Kishwar and Ruth Vanita, eds., In Search of Answers , 46.

3. For an introductory discussion of Hindu goddesses, see David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses .

4. Sandra P. Robinson proposes that the Hindu goddess's function may be best viewed as "revelatory," in contrast to the role played by the epic heroines as "exemplary" women. See her treatment of these two types in ''Hindu Paradigms of Women: Images and Values," in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, ed., Women, Religion, and Social Change , 181-215.

5. Liddie and Joshi go even further, connecting goddess worship with a strong self-image of women and a matriarchal worldview. Joanna Liddle and Rama Joshi, Daughters of Independence , 55-56.

6. Vatuk and Vatuk's study presents not only a useful survey of the worldwide spread of the motif but also an excellent analysis of the theme in the folklore of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana, based on a number of Sang librettos and ballads which they collected in 1970. See Ved Prakash Vatuk and Sylvia Vatuk, "The Lustful Stepmother in the Folklore of Northwestern India," Journal of South Asian Literature 11, nos. 1-2 (197.5): 19-44.

7. The synopsis is based on the version of Natharam Sharma Gaur, Bhakt puranmal, sajild panchom bhag (1982).

8. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Rup basant, sampurn tin bhag mem (1982).

9. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Sangit triya charitra, urf qatl-e shauhar (1982). Another version is Shrikrishna Khatri Pahalvan, Sangit triya charitra (1978).

10. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Bhain bhaiya (n.d.).

11. While this retelling follows the Natharam edition, it may be compared with the transcription and translation of the All-India Radio version of Indal haran , following the epilogue.

12. George A. Grierson, introduction to The Lay of Alha , trans. William Waterfield, 15.

13. Ibid., 18-19.

12. George A. Grierson, introduction to The Lay of Alha , trans. William Waterfield, 15.

13. Ibid., 18-19.

14. Kathryn Hansen, "The Virangana in North Indian History, Myth and Popular Culture," Economic and Political Weekly 23, no. 18 (Apr. 30, 1988), WS25-33.

15. History preserves the names of several of the warrior queens' lovers and companions. Razia Sultaua fell in love with Yaqut, an Abyssinian slave, and promoted him from master of horse to general in chief, an event that caused dissatisfaction among the nobles. Later she won over her captor Altuniya and married him. John J. Pool, Famous Women of India , 87-88; Swami Madha-

vananda and Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, eds., Great Women of India , 382. The Rani of Jhansi was always accompanied by a female companion, Mundar, who was with her when she died. Shyam Narain Sinha, Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi , 89; Madhavananda and Majumdar, eds., Great Women of India , 398; Joyce Lebra-Chapman, The Rani of Jhansi , 112, 116, 135, 147, 154.

16. The tale of Virmati and her husband, Jagdev, was first recorded in dramatic form in 1876, but it reached prominence in the 1920s when the two most commonly performed versions of it were published, those of Shrikrishna Khatri Pahalvan and of Natharam Sharma Gaur. The present discussion follows Natharam's text. Other narrative versions of it are contained in Richard Carnac Temple, The Legends of the Panjab , 2:182-203; and in Anil Rajkumar, Bharatiya viranganaem , 58-71.

17. Lebra-Chapman, Rani of Jhansi , 145-147.

18. This information is drawn from Firoze Rangoonwalla, Indian Filmography , and Rajendra Ojha, ed., Seventy-Five Glorious Years of Indian Cinema .

19. Girish Karnad, "This One is for Nadia," Cinema Vision India 1, no. 2 (Apr. 1980): 84-90.

20. Taroon Coomar Bhaduri, Chambal: The Valley of Terror , 54-66.

21. In addition to Nautanki versions, published folk texts and oral performances on Phulan Devi I have collected include the printed Barahmasi phulandevi , no author listed, courtesy of the Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology of the American Institute of Indian Studies, Delhi; oral performance of Phulan devi biraha by Ramji and Party of Ramman Akhara, Varanasi, and oral performance of Phulan devi biraha , by Hans Raj and Party, Varanasi, both courtesy of Scott Marcus.

22. "Phoolan Fever," Times of India , Oct. 24, 1984.

23. "The Bullet Queens," Times of India , Aug. 18, 1985; "Day of Reckoning," India Today , Oct. 31, 1986, 33.

24. Svaminath urf Nabinkumar Barvar, Sangit phulan debi (1982).

25. Ibid., 46.

24. Svaminath urf Nabinkumar Barvar, Sangit phulan debi (1982).

25. Ibid., 46.

26. Jon Bradshaw, "The Bandit Queen," Esquire , October 1985, 73.

27. Times of India , Aug. 18, 1985.

28. Bradshaw, "The Bandit Queen," 86.

29. An example is Hélène Cixous's operatic production of Phulan in Paris in 1988; I thank Françoise Burger for this information. Carel Moiseiwitsch, Fugitive , a site-specific work at the University of British Columbia Fine Arts Gallery, October 1987. "This Art Evokes Lost History," review by Oraf, The Georgia Straight , Sept. 25-Oct. 2, 1987, 20.

30. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Dukhiya vidhva (1951).

31. Natharam Sharma Gaur, Sati bindiya (1975).

1. Barbara Babcock, cited in Frank E. Manning, ed., The Celebration of Society , 27.

2. The authors of the "India" section in Stanley Sadie, ed., New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians include "representational music" as a Basic

Musical Category together with "ritual and ceremonial music" and "devotional songs" (9:73-75). Most musicological surveys, however, overlook the category.

3. For further information on the

4. Outside of theatre, the nagara has been replaced by its heir the tabla in most classical performance contexts and by the dholak in folk music. It is occasionally heard at temples, Sufi shrines, and weddings. See Komal Kothari, "Rural-Urban Transitions,"' in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Musicological Conference , 598. On the probable evolution of the nagara into the tabla , see "India," New Grove Dictionary , 9:137; and James Kippen, The Tabla of Lucknow , 17.

5. This technique is known as dat lagana ; and actors practice it by going down into a well and singing long notes for hours, according to my informant, Ram Dayal Sharma.

6. Indeed, some Nautanki shows today are essentially cabaret acts containing only vestiges of narrative material. In a short story published in 1988, a Nautanki troupe is named the "Shyam Dancing Party." A. Asaphal, "Nepathya ka git," Ganga , January 1988, 34.

7. Gargi mentions the singer doubling and quadrupling the tempo in the refrain portion of the bahr-e-tavil (Balwant Gargi, Folk Theater of India , 38); and Wade cites this feature as evidence of the shared rhythmic structures of classical and folk theatre music ("India: Folk Music," New Grove Dictionary , 9:149). However, none of my performance examples bear this out. Perhaps what Gargi refers to is the illusion of doubling and quadrupling the tempo by drumming in dugun and chaugun (two strokes per beat and four strokes per beat).

8. Kapila Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 144.

9. Gargi, Folk Theater , 77.

10. Ibid., 158.

9. Gargi, Folk Theater , 77.

10. Ibid., 158.

11. In Yakshagana, the bhagavatha conducts dialogues between himself and the leading actor (Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 40); in traditional Jatra, the singing was divided between the actors and the juri singers (Gargi, Folk Theater , 27; Vatsyayan, 145). See also Gargi, 173-174.

12. New Grove Dictionary , 9:148-149; Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 41, 61-62, 154; Gargi, Folk Theater , 66, 81,134, 159.

13. For a brief history of meters in Svang and Nautanki, see appendix E.

14. For a standard introduction to the principles of Hindi prosody, see S. H. Kellogg, A Grammar of the Hindi Language , 546-584.

15. A useful reference work on Urdu prosody is Frances W. Pritchett and Kh. A. Khaliq, Urdu Meter .

16. Appendix F pt. 1 lists the All-India Radio Nautanki performances I collected in the course of this research.

17. Platts's dictionary derives it from Sanskrit aksa + pata + kah , meaning "gambling table; place of contest, arena."

18. Sunil Kothari, "Gotipua Dancers of Orissa," Sangeet Natak 8 (April-June 1968): 33.

19. Gargi, Folk Theater , 179; Vatsyayan, Traditional Indian Theatre , 69.

20. On the akbaras of Biraha, see Scott L. Marcus, "The Rise of a Folk Music Genre: Biraha," in Sandria B. Freitag, ed., Culture and Power in Banaras , 93-113.

21. Chapter 3 discusses the Turra-Kalagi akharas and their historical relation to Svang and Nautanki.

22. Richard Schechner, "Performers and Spectators Transported and Transformed," in Performative Circumstances , 110.

23. Manomohan Ghosh, trans., The Natyasastra , 526-527.

24. Appendix F pts. 2, 3 contain lists of Nautanki performances on commercial disks and cassettes collected during my fieldwork in India.

25. Peter Manuel, Popular Music of the Non-Western World , 6-7.

1. Meredith Borthwick, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal , 117.

2. Kenneth W. Jones, Arya Dbarm , 95, 99. Vatuk and Vatuk state, "The movement's founder, Dayanand, was quite explicit in his writings about the evils of dramatic performances." Ved Prakash Vatuk and Sylvia Vatuk, "The Ethnography of Sang , A North Indian Folk Opera," in Ved Prakash Vatuk, ed., Studies in Indian Folk Traditions , 30.

3. Kathryn Hansen, "The Birth of Hindi Drama in Banaras," in Sandria B. Freitag, ed., Culture and Power in Banaras , 86.

4. Jonas Barish, The Antitheatrical Prejudice .

5. Sumanta Banerjee, "Marginalization of Women's Popular Culture in Nineteenth-Century Bengal," in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh Vaid, eds., Recasting Women , 131, 130.

6. " Zenana women were said to sustain the existence of the Calcutta theater. If men were to stop their wives from going, many theaters would have had to close down." Borthwick, Changing Role of Women , 268; see also 18, 269.

7. Banerjee, "Marginalization of Women's Popular Culture," 132.

8. Amrit Srinivasan, "The Hindu Temple-Dancer: Prostitute or Nun?" Cambridge Anthropology 8, no. 1 (1983): 73-99; Amrit Srinivasan, "Reform and Revival: The Devadasi and Her Dance," Economic and Political Weekly , Nov. 2, 1985, 1869-1876.

9. Srinivasan, "Reform and Revival," 1875.

10. "The transformation of Odissi from a regional traditional form of dance to a nationally recognized 'classical' form of dance... also meant the creation of a new ideological framework ... one that fitted the new national consciousness of the educated elite. That consciousness made it impossible for the revivalists to invite the devadasis to participate in the seminars which took place in the 1950s to establish Odissi as a classical.form of dance." Frédérique Apffel Marglin, Wives of the God-King , 28.

11. Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse, eds., The Ideology of Conduct , 21, 20.

12. Roger Chartier, Cultural History , 4-5.

13. Borthwick, Changing Role of Women , 194-197.

14. Malika Begam, personal interview by Kathryn Hansen and Jugal Kishor, Lucknow, July 15, 1982.

15. "It is indeed striking to observe how the political, psychological, and aesthetic discourse around the turn of the century consistently and obsessively genders mass culture and the masses as feminine, while high culture, whether traditional or modern, clearly remains the privileged realm of male activities." Andreas Huyssen, "Mass; Culture as Woman: Modernism's Other," in Tania Modleski, ed., Studies in Entertainment , 191.

16. Tania Modleski, introduction to Studies in Entertainment , xviii.

17. Huyssen, "Mass Culture as Woman," 205.

18. Raymond Williams, Culture , 187.

19. Carole M. Farber, "Performing Social and Cultural Change: The Jatra of West Bengal, India," South Asian Anthropologist 5, no. 2 (1984): 124.

20. Alf Hiltebeitel, The Cult of Draupadi , 1:153.

21. Girish Karnad, "Theatre in India," Daedalus 118, no. 4 (Fall 1989): 336.

22. Victor W. Turner:, The Ritual Process , chaps. 3-5, and From Ritual to Theatre .

23. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World , 10.

24. Ibid., 268-275.

23. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World , 10.

24. Ibid., 268-275.

25. David Hall summarizes and critiques these studies in his introduction to Steven L. Kaplan, ed., Understanding Popular Culture , 5-18.

26. Some familiar examples of status reversal include the king becoming an ascetic ( Gopichand, Raghuvir simh ), the king becoming an untouchable ( Harishchandra ), the child becoming a preacher to adults ( Prahlad, Dhuru ), the outlaw becoming a respected leader ( Sultana daku ), the man becoming a woman and the woman becoming a man ( Rani nautanki ).

27. Badal Sircar, The Third Theatre , 25-27.

28. Rajinder Nath, foreword to Girish Karnad, Hayavadana , trans. B. V. Karanth.

29. Safdar Hashmi, The Right to Perform .

30. Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France , 97.

31. Stephen Heath and Gillian Skirrow, "An Interview with Raymond Williams," in Tania Modleski, ed., Studies in Entertainment , 10.

32. Karnad, "Theatre in India," 338, 349.

33. For a discussion of their work, see Vasudha Dalmia-Lüderitz, "To Be More Brechtian is to be more Indian: On the Theatre of Habib Tanvir," in Erika Fischer-Lichte et al., eds., The Dramatic Touch of Difference , 221-235; Kathryn Hansen, "Indian Folk Traditions and the Modern Theatre," Asian Folklore Studies 42, no. 1 (1983): 77-89.

34. Natya Samaroh 1984 festival brochure.

35. James Christopher, "Going for Gogol," in Time Out (London), Jan. 11-18, 1989. This clipping and one by David Spark entitled "Indian theatre bridges cultural gulf" ( The Hindu , Feb. 28, 1989) were kindly given to me by Bill Buxton.

1. Interview with Chunnilal recorded for All-India Radio, Mathura; copy provided courtesy of Alan Entwistle. Transcription by Tara Sinha.

2. From a brochure for the performance of the Nautanki Bhikharin , played in Lucknow, July 7, 1982.

3. Personal interview by author with Pandit Kakkuji, Malika Begam, and Phakkar, conducted on July 15, 1982, in Lucknow. Television interview the same night on Doordarshan, Lucknow.