ago B.C., at the festivals of the native
gods, to which was afterwards added dialogue, and long before the
advent, out of which it grew, of the native drama itself.

The progenitors of the Indo-European race, the Aryans--in Sanscrit
meaning Agriculturists--who crossed the Indus from Amoo, where they
dwelt near the Oxus, some two thousand years before Christ, were the
original ancestors and people of India.

The Aryan race (Hindus and Persians only speak of themselves as Aryans)
laid the foundation of the Grecian and Roman Mythology, the dark and
more sombre legends of the Scandinavian and the Teuton; and all derived
from the various names grouped round the Sun god, which in the lighter
themes the Aryans associated with the rising and the setting of the sun,
in all its heavenly glory, and with the sombre legends the coming of the
winter, and marking the difference between lightness and darkness.

In India the origin of dramatic entertainments has been attributed to
the sage Bharata (meaning an actor), who received, it is said, a
communication from the god Brahma to introduce them, as the latter had
received his knowledge of them from the Vedas. Bharata was also said to
be the "Father of dramatic criticism." Pantomimic scenes derived from
the heathen Mythology of Vishnu--a collection of poems and hymns on the
Aryan religion--are even now in India occasionally enacted by the Jatras
of the Bengalis and the Rasas of the provinces in the west, and, just as
their forefathers did ages and ages ago. An episode from the history of
the god Vishnu, in relation to his marriage with Laxmi, was a favourite
subject for the early Indian Drama. Of Vedic Mythology Professor Max
Mueller observes that in it "There are no genealogies, no settled
marriages between gods and goddesses. The father is sometimes the son,
the brother, the husband, and she who in one hymn is the mother, is in
another the wife. As the conceptions of the poet vary so varies the
nature of these gods."

The Hindoo dramatic writer, Babhavnti--the Indian
Shakespeare--introduced with success in one of his dramas, like in our
"Hamlet," "a play within a play," and much in a similar way as our early
dramatists used in their plays, the "dumb shows."

Between the native Tragedy and Comedy, as in China, there was no
definite distinction, and, although both contained some of the best and
noblest sentiments, yet the racial philosophy of caste enters greatly
into the construc