Adya Rangacharya (26 September 1904 – 17 October 1984), popularly known by his pen nameSriranga, was an Indian Kannada writer, actor and scholar, and a member of the Adya Jahagirdar family.[4] He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship in 1967 and the Sahitya Akademi Award for literature in 1971 for Kalidasa, a literary criticism in Kannada.
He was a recipient of the civilian honour of the Padma Bhushan.[5]
Life
Adya Rangacharya birth name was R. V. Jagirdar [6] and was born in Agarkhed, Bijapur district. He has his education at Bombay and London Universities. His writings made him a trend-setter among Kannada and Indian writers. His works include twelve novels and a number of scholarly books on the theatre, on Sanskrit drama and the Bhagavadgita; but it was as a dramatist that he made his mark (47 full-length and 68 one-act plays).[7] He is known for his English translation of the classic work on Indian classical theatre, the Natyasastra[6]
Works
Rangacharya's works include twelve novels and a number of scholarly books on the Theatre, on Sanskrit drama and the Bhagavadgita. He also wrote 71 plays and acted in 47.[4] Besides a translation of Natyasastra,[8] his other works in English include Drama in Sanskrit Literature, Indian Theatre, Introduction to Bharata’s Natyasastra, and Introduction to the Comparative Philosophy and Indo-Aryan Languages. He use the pseudonym Sriranga when writing most of his plays and literary work.[4]
His works in English are:
Bharata, Muni, and Śrīraṅga. The Nāṭyaśāstra: English Translation with Critical Notes. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1996.
Drama in Sanskrit Literature, and Introduction to the Comparative Philosophy and Indo-Aryan Languages.
Rangacharya, Adya. Introduction to Bharata's Nātya-Śāstra. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1966.[9]
Rangacharya, Adya. The Indian Theatre. New Delhi: National Book Trust, India, 1971.
Śrīraṅga, . Drama in Sanskrit Literature. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1967 (2nd ed.)
Śrīraṅga, . The Quest for Wisdom, Thoughts on the Bhagawadgita. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1993. (translation of two Kannada works Gītagāmbhīrya and Gītādarpaṇa
Among his works translated into English are
Rangacharya, Adya, (transl. by G S. Amur).Listen Janamejaya and Other Plays. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2005.
Śrīraṅga, (transl. by Shashi Deshpande) Opening Scene: Early Memoirs of a Dramatist and a Play. New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2006.
Rangacharya, Adya, (transl. by Usha Desai). Shadows in the Dark: Four Plays. Bangalore, India: Unisun Publications, 2007.
Sriranga, . These Tombs Alone Remain: A Novel Bangalore: Shriranga Saraswat Prakashana, 1959.
^"Padma Awards"(PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Archived from the original(PDF) on 15 November 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
