For many centuries, the Eastern Hemisphere was itself divided into
two distinct parts--the world of Asia and the world of Europe. We
have been dealing up to now with the theatre of Europe, and may
seem to have implied that no other existed. Quite to the contrary,
however, Asian lands developed, independently, unique and highly
civilized cultures, including remarkably advanced theatre. A form of
drama, roughly paralleling that of ancient Egypt, was evidently
extant in China about 2000 B.C. It seems to have been a dance-drama
commemorating religious festivals, military successes, and ancestors,
and was confined to the nobles and the priests. The epic period of
Hindu literature began about the same time as the institution by
Pisistratus of the Great Festival of Dionysus at Athens. The greatest
Hindu playwright, Kalidasa, flourished about 350 A.D. Chikamatsu,
the Shakespeare of Japan, was born about thirty-five years after
Shakespeare's death.

There were contacts, over many centuries, between these two
worlds. India saw its first Aryan invasion from the north about the
tenth century B.C., and Alexander the Great ( 356-323 B.C.) had con-
quered a large portion of that country before his death. In the eighth
century A.D. the Arabs and Mohammedanism came to India. In the
thirteenth century, it was threatened by the greatest conqueror of
them all, Genghis Khan, who took his Mongol hordes even into
Europe after consolidating his conquests throughout most of Asia.

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