Explanation:

The tradition of the performing arts in India goes back to the Vedic times, to the dramatic spectacles where priets assumed the roles of gods and sages, in order to recreate on earth the event of Cosmic Creation. Ritualistic and magical in intent, these trance-dances represented a remarkable and harmonious fusion of music, dance, drama, the spectacle and the colourful. The oldest treatise on the theory of the Indian performing arts is the ‘Natyashastra’ compiled by Bharata. According to this text, the gods approached Lord Brahma and urged him to create a fifth veda, which, unlike the other four, would not be the preserve of the three higher castes, but would be accessible to the fourth and the lower caste – the Shudra-s as well.
Lord Brahma then fashioned a new Veda, known as the ‘Natya Veda’ which would be conducive to moral and material welfare. That which should be read (paathya), the intellectual content, Brahma took from the Rig Veda; that which could be sung, the music (gaana), he took from the Sama veda; the abhinaya, the mimetic art, he took from yajur Veda and the ‘rasas’, the emotional content, he took from the Atharva Veda.  Lord Brahma then asked Vishwakarma, the divine architect to construct a playhouse in which Sage bharata was asked to put in practice the new ‘Veda'.