Bhattanarayan

Bhattanarayan (8th century AD) Sanskrit dramatist who, according to the kulaji text (historical accounts of Bengali Brahmin families), was one of the five Brahmin Pundits who were invited to Bengal to perform Vedic rites by Adishura (c 700-850), a renowned king of Bengal. Bhattanarayan's Venisanghara, a sanskrit play in six acts, is a famous work in which the incidents of four cantos of the mahabharata have been dramatised. It is one of the best plays portraying the vir ras or heroic sentiment. The dramatist has added some incidents and characters to the original story. The play was very popular among Sanskrit scholars who accepted it as a model of Sanskrit drama. The play is included in the Sanskrit curriculum at the university level. [Dhirendranath Bandyopadhyay]