Abhinaya Dharma in Hinduism is codes of dance-drama. Dharma means a code and abhinaya, literally enactment, also denotes dance-drama. Natyadharma and lokadharma are the principal codes of Indian dance-drama. Natyadharma is a code or rule of conduct for the artist. It teaches him deportment and the means of creating sincere appreciation in the audience. Lokadharma exhorts the player to employ realism for the purpose of swaying his audience. He is called upon not merely to feign sorrow but to work up his emotions to a pitch that will produce genuine grief. The chief difference between natyadharma and lokadharma is that he former advocates imaginativeness and the latter follows local modes and practices.
Bharata Muni consolidated and codified various traditions in dance, mime and drama. His Natyashastra gives all conceivable details of makeup and costumes, notes on direction and production, the theory of aesthetics, and analyzes various sentiments and their portrayal. Natyashastra describes ten classifications of drama, ranging from one act to ten acts. The text is placed sometime between 200 BCE and 200 CE. It is addressed to the playwright, the director and the actor because, to Bharata Muni, these three were inseparable in the creation of a drama. The Sanskrit word for drama, nataka, derives from the word meaning ‘dance’. In traditional Hindu drama, expression was achieved through music and dancing as well as through acting, so that a play could be a combination of opera, ballet and drama.
Hindu theorists from the earliest days conceived of plays in terms of two types of production – lokadharmi – realistic, which was meant to be the reproduction of human behavior on the stage and the natural presentation of objects, and natyadharmi – conventional, the presentation of a play through the use of stylized gestures and symbolism and more artistic than realistic.
Drama and the art of dancing have an ancient origin. As recorded in Abhinayadarpana, Bharata performed natya, nritya and nritta with the help of gandharvas and apsaras in the presence of Mahadev Shiva. Pleased by his dance performance, Shiva added his own tandava and lasya form of Parvati. In ancient India, the theater was the center of all artistic activity, blend by branch of art of craft. Bharata’s Natyashastra was the first book which gives details about the technique and forms of dance. Abhinayadarpana is another book on dance. It gives the fundamental principles for every technique.