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Many scholars are of the opinion that puppet theatre originated in India and
it is from here that the art along with the epic themes migrated to other Asi-
an countries. There are a number of evidences to prove that puppetry reached
great heights in India as long back as in the early centuries B.C. An unmist-
akable refereence to puppetry is found in the Tamil classic Silappadikaram wr-
itten around 2nd century B.C. Natyashastra,the masterly treatise on dramaturgy
was written by Bharata around the same time. He mentions two earlier dramatu-
rgists, namely, Krisasva and Shilalin, but their works are not extant. In Na-
tyashastra, puppetry has not been dealt with but the producer-cum-director of
the human theatre has been termed as Sutradhar which means `holder of strings'
The word must have found its place in threatre-terminology long before Natya-
shastra was written and there is no doubt that it came from marionette theatre
Prevalence of human theatre in India is traced back to 400 years before Christ
Puppetry therefore must have originted in India earlier than 5th century B.C.
No country can, perhaps, claim such a long tradition in this art. In Srimad
Bhagvata, the God Almighty has been likened to a puppeteer who with three str-
ings-Sattva, Rajas and Tamas-manipulates all the beings in the created uni-
verse.
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