sūtra-dhāra

The sutra-dhara was the stage manager in classical Sanskrit drama. This role was crucial in setting the scene and interpreting the actors' moods for the audience. The sutra-dhara would enter with his wife at the beginning of a play and describe the setting and the context of the unfolding action. His final words in this prologue would then transition the audience into the main part of the play. This tradition of a narrator figure, like the sutra-dhara, continued in various forms of folk theatre even after the decline of Sanskrit drama. The term "sutra" itself refers to concise, aphoristic compositions intended for memorization, originally used for ritualistic procedures but later applied to various fields of knowledge, including grammar and philosophy.1234