Inder Sabha (Urdu: اندر سبھا, lit. "the Council of Indra") is an Urdu play and opera written by Agha Hasan Amanat, and first staged in 1853.[1] It is regarded as the first complete Urdu stage play ever written.[1][2] The play was translated into German in the 1880s as a doctoral thesis at the University of Leipzig by Friedrich Rosen, and published to positive critical reception in 1892.[1][2][3] A film, Indrasabha, based on the play was released by Madan Theatre in 1932.[4]
... some characters used masks and other make up their faces ... Fireworks were used ... published in German by Friedrich Rosen (1856-1935) in Leipzig which evoked considerable interest ... Khadim Husain Afsos's Inder Sabha (Agra, 1862) ...
... The history of the theatre of modern Pakistan is the history of the Urdu-language theatre which started in 1853 with the composition of Mirza Amanat's Inder Sabha performed at the court of Wajid Ali Shah of Oudh ... for at least two generations after that, actors and musicians of Oudh sang the songs of Inder Sabha ...
... in early experimentations with the technology of sound, narration in films like Indrasabha (The Court of Indra, JJ Madan, 1932) ... It would therefore be gratuitous to say that Indrasabha had seventy-one songs ...