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Title: The Sanskrit drama
in its origin, development, theory and practice
Author: A. Berriedale Keith
Release date: August 25, 2024 [eBook #74314]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Oxford University Press, 1924
Credits: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SANSKRIT DRAMA ***
THE
SANSKRIT DRAMA
IN ITS
ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT
THEORY & PRACTICE
BY
A. BERRIEDALE KEITH, D.C.L., D.Litt.
Of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law, and of the Scottish Bar
Regius Professor of Sanskrit & Comparative Philology
at the University of Edinburgh
Author of ‘Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon’, &c.
GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
PREFACE
Thirty-two years have elapsed since the appearance of Professor Sylvain
Lévi’s admirable treatise, Le théâtre indien, the first adequate sketch
of the origin and development of the Indian drama and of Indian
dramatic theory. Since then the discovery of important fragments of the
dramas of the great Buddhist poet Açvaghoṣa, and of the plays of the
famous Bhāsa, has thrown unexpected light on the early history of the
drama in India; the question of the origin of the drama has been the
subject of elaborate investigation by Professors von Schroeder,
Pischel, Hertel, Sir W. Ridgeway, Lüders, Konow, and myself; and the
real significance and value of the Indian theory of the dramatic art
have been brought out by the labours of Professor Jacobi. The time is
therefore ripe for a fresh investigation of the origin and development
of the drama in the light of the new materials available.
To bring the subject matter within moderate compass, I have confined it
to the drama in Sanskrit or Prākrit, omitting any reference to
vernacular dramas. I have also omitted from the account of the theory
of drama all minor detail which appeared to have no more than the
interest of ingenuity in subdivision and classification; I have had the
less hesitation in doing so, because I have no doubt that the value and
depth of the Indian theory of poetics have failed to receive
recognition, simply because in the original sources what is important
and what is valueless are presented in almost inextricable confusion.
In tracing the development of the drama, I have laid stress only on the
great writers and on dramatists who wrote before the end of the first
millennium; of later works I have selected a few typical specimens for
description; it seemed needless to dwell on plays which in the main
show an excessive dependence on older models and on the text-books of
dramatic theory, and whose chief merit, when they have any, lies in
skill and taste in versification. Valuable bibliographies of the dramas
are contained in Mr. Montgomery Schuyler’s Bibliography of the Sanskrit
Drama (1906), and in Professor Konow’s treatise, and it has seemed
needless to do more than refer to the most important and accessible
editions of the plays mentioned and to treatises which have appeared
since the publication of these works.
Though the limits of space available have precluded any full
investigation of the style of the dramatists, I have not followed
Professor Lévi in leaving this aspect out of consideration. The
translations given of the passages cited are intended merely to convey
the main sense; I have therefore left without discussion difficulties
of interpretation and allusion, and have resorted to prose. Verse
translations from Sanskrit sometimes attain very real merit, but
normally only in a way which has little affinity with Sanskrit poetry.
H. H. Wilson’s versions of Sanskrit dramas in his Theatre of the Hindus
for this reason, and also because the prose of the dramas is turned
into verse, thus fail, despite their many intrinsic merits, to convey
any precise idea of the effect of a Sanskrit drama.
I am indebted to my wife for much assistance and criticism.
A. BERRIEDALE KEITH.
Edinburgh University,
April, 1923.
CONTENTS
PART I. THE ORIGIN OF THE SANSKRIT DRAMA
PAGE
I. Dramatic Elements in Vedic Literature.
1. The Indian Tradition of the Origin of the Drama 12
2. The Dialogues of the Veda 13
3. Dramatic Elements in Vedic Ritual 23
II. Post-Vedic Literature and the Origin of the Drama.
1. The Epics 28
2. The Grammarians 31
3. Religion and the Drama 36
4. Theories of the Secular Origin of the Drama 49
5. Greek Influence on the Sanskrit Drama 57
6. The Çakas and the Sanskrit Drama 69
7. The Evidence of the Prākrits 72
8. The Literary Antecedents of the Drama 75
PART II. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SANSKRIT DRAMA
III. Açvaghoṣa and the Buddhist Drama.
1. The Çāriputraprakaraṇa 80
2. The Allegorical and the Hetaera Dramas 83
3. The Language of the Dramas 85
4. The Metres 89
IV. Bhāsa.
1. The Authenticity of Bhāsa’s Dramas 91
2. The Date of Bhāsa’s Dramas 93
3. The Dramas and their Sources 95
4. Bhāsa’s Art and Technique 105
5. Bhāsa’s Style 114
6. The Language of the Plays 120
7. The Metres of the Dramas 123
V. The Precursors of Kālidāsa and Çūdraka.
1. The Precursors of Kālidāsa 127
2. The Authorship and Age of the Mṛcchakaṭikā 128
3. The Mṛcchakaṭikā 131
4. The Prākrits 140
5. The Metres 142
VI. Kālidāsa.
1. The Date of Kālidāsa 143
2. The Three Dramas of Kālidāsa 147
3. Kālidāsa’s Dramatic Art 155
4. The Style 160
5. The Language and the Metres 166
VII. Candra, Harṣa, and Mahendravikramavarman.
1. Candra or Candraka 168
2. The Authorship of the Dramas ascribed to Harṣa 170
3. The Three Dramas 171
4. Harṣa’s Art and Style 175
5. The Language and the Metres of Harṣa’s Dramas 181
6. Mahendravikramavarman 182
VIII. Bhavabhūti.
1. The Date of Bhavabhūti 186
2. The Three Plays 187
3. Bhavabhūti’s Dramatic Art and Style 192
4. The Language and the Metres 203
IX. Viçākhadatta and Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa.
1. The Date of Viçākhadatta 204
2. The Mudrārākṣasa 205
3. The Language and the Metres of the Mudrārākṣasa 211
4. The Date of Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa 212
5. The Veṇīsaṁhāra 212
6. The Language and the Metres of the Veṇīsaṁhāra 219
X. Murāri, Rājaçekhara, their Predecessors and Successors.
1. The Predecessors of Murāri 220
2. Murāri 225
3. The Anargharāghava 226
4. The Date of Rājaçekhara 231
5. The Dramas of Rājaçekhara 232
6. Bhīmaṭa and Kṣemīçvara 239
XI. The Decline of the Sanskrit Drama.
1. The Decadence of the Drama 242
2. The Nāṭaka 244
3. The Allegorical Nāṭaka 251
4. The Nāṭikā and the Saṭṭaka 256
5. The Prakaraṇa 257
6. The Prahasana and the Bhāṇa 260
7. Minor Dramatic Types 264
8. The Shadow Play 269
9. Dramas of Irregular Type 270
XII. The Characteristics and Achievement of the Sanskrit Drama 276
PART III. DRAMATIC THEORY
XIII. The Theory of the Dramatic Art.
1. The Treatises on Dramatic Art 290
2. The Nature and the Types of the Drama 295
3. The Subject Matter and the Plot 296
4. The Characters 305
5. The Sentiments 314
6. The Dramatic Styles and Languages 326
7. The Dance, Song, and Music 338
8. The Preliminaries and the Prologue 339
9. The Types of Drama 345
10. The Influence of Theory on Practice 352
11. Aristotle and the Indian Theory of Poetics 355
PART IV. DRAMATIC PRACTICE
XIV. The Indian Theatre.
1. The Theatre 358
2. The Actors 360
3. The Mise-en-scène and Representation of the Drama 364
4. The Audience 369
ABBREVIATIONS
AID. Über die Anfänge des indischen Dramas, Munich, 1914.
AJP. American Journal of Philology.
AP. Agni Purāṇa, ed. BI.
BI. Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta.
BS. Bhāsa-Studien, Leipzig, 1918.
BSS. Bombay Sanskrit Series.
CHI. Cambridge History of India.
DR. Daçarūpa, cited from Hall’s ed. BI.
EI. Epigraphia Indica.
GGA. Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen.
GIL. Geschichte der indischen Litteratur, by M. Winternitz,
Leipzig, 1904–22.
GN. Nachrichten der königl. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu
Göttingen.
GOS. Gaekwad’s Oriental Series.
GSAI. Giornale della Società Asiatica Italiana.
HOS. Harvard Oriental Series.
IA. Indian Antiquary.
ID. Das indische Drama, Berlin, 1920.
IS. Indische Studien.
JA. Journal Asiatique.
JAOS. Journal of the American Oriental Society.
JBRAS. Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
JPASB. Journal and Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
JRAS. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.
KF. Aufsätze zur Kultur- und Sprachgeschichte Ernst Kuhn gewidmet.
Breslau, 1916.
KM. Kāvyamālā series, Bombay.
N. Nāṭyaçāstra.
R. Rasārṇavasudhākara, ed. TSS. 1916.
SBAW. Sitzungsberichte der königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu
Berlin.
SD. Sāhityadarpaṇa, cited by the sections of the BI. ed.
SP. Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics, I, London, 1923.
TI. Le théâtre indien, Paris, 1890.
TSS. Trivandrum Sanskrit Series.
VOJ. Vienna Oriental Journal.
ZDMG. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.
PART I
THE ORIGIN OF THE SANSKRIT DRAMA
I
DRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN VEDIC LITERATURE
1. THE INDIAN TRADITION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA
Indian tradition, preserved in the Nāṭyaçāstra, [1] the oldest of the
texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin,
and a close connexion with the sacred Vedas themselves. The golden age
had no need for such amusements: ignorant of all pain, the sorrow,
which is as essential to the art as joy itself, was inconceivable. The
creation of the new form of literature was reserved to the silver age,
when the gods approached the all-father and bade him produce something
to give pleasure to the ears and eyes alike, a fifth Veda which, unlike
the other four, would not be the jealous preserve of the three
twice-born castes, but might be shared by the Çūdras also. Brahmā gave
ear to the pleading, and designed to fashion a Veda in which tradition
(itihāsa) should be combined with instruction in all the ends of men.
To accomplish his task he took from the Ṛgveda the element of
recitation, from the Sāmaveda song, from the Yajurveda the mimetic art,
and from the Atharvaveda sentiment. Then he bade Viçvakarman, the
divine architect, build a playhouse in which the sage Bharata was
instructed to carry into practice the art thus created. The gods
accepted with joy the new creation; Çiva contributed to it the Tāṇḍava
dance, expressing violent emotion, Pārvatī, his spouse, the tender and
voluptuous Lāsya, while Viṣṇu was responsible for the invention of the
four dramatic styles, essential to the effect of any play. To Bharata
fell the duty of transferring to earth this celestial Veda in the
inferior and truncated form of the Nāṭyaçāstra.
The legend is interesting for its determination to secure the
participation of every member of the Hindu Trinity in the creation of
the new art, and for its effort to claim that the fifth Veda of
tradition was the Veda of the dramatic art. The older tradition,
recorded and exploited by the epic, [2] recognizes as the fifth Veda
the mass of traditions, and the Nāṭyaçāstra tacitly concedes this by
representing the Nāṭyaveda as including these traditions. The legend,
therefore, is not of great antiquity, nor need we place it long before
the compilation of the Nāṭyaçāstra itself. The date of that text is
uncertain, but we cannot with any assurance place it before the third
century A.D. With the Indian tendency to find divine origins, it may
well be that the tradition existed much earlier, but in the absence of
any corroboration that must remain a mere hypothesis, for which no
conclusive ground can be adduced. What is important is that none of the
theorists on the drama appeal to any Vedic texts as representing
dramas, whence it is natural to draw the conclusion that there was no
Indian tradition extant in their time which pointed to the preservation
among the sacred texts of dramas. Indeed, if it were worth while, the
conclusion might legitimately be drawn that the absence of any drama in
the Vedic literature was recognized, since it was necessary for the
gods to ask Brahmā to create a completely new type of literature,
suitable for an age posterior to that in which the Vedas already
existed.
2. THE DIALOGUES OF THE VEDA
The silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because
there do exist in the Ṛgveda itself a number of hymns which are
obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by
early Indian tradition. [3] The number of such hymns is uncertain, for
it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others
whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of
persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as
dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked
interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in
the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate; the poet,
with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this
primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless
so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her
proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the
same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph
Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her
refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava
utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply.
Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a
conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā,
and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and
Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28;
and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi,
and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between
Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of
which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors
but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of
the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the
messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes
to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108).
The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the
living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them
the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is
vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into
portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their
historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii.
33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii.
33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of
the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who
had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of
his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating
his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by
summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods
for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with
the assertion that the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in
search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their
priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and
Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence,
is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may
be suspected even where it is not essential.
Now it is clear that the tradition of the ritual literature did not
know what to make of the dialogues of the Ṛgveda. The genre of
composition was one which died out in the later Vedic age; it is
significant that the Atharvaveda knows but one hymn of that type (v.
11) in which the priest, Atharvan, begs the god for the payment due, a
cow; the god is little inclined to accord his prayer, but finally is
induced to relent and to add to the guerdon due the promise of eternal
friendship. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, if we find
that Yāska and Çaunaka in the fifth century B.C. were at variance as to
whether the hymn x. 95 was a dialogue, as the former held, or a mere
legend, as the latter believed. [4] In the commentary of Sāyaṇa we find
that the tradition was unable to ascribe any ritual use for nearly all
the hymns; the case of x. 86 is an exception, but it is significant
that that hymn has little of a true dialogue, the three speakers rather
uttering enigmas than conversing, and it was therefore easier to fit it
into the inconspicuous part it occupies in the later ritual. We must,
therefore, admit that we have in these dialogues the remnant of a style
of poetry which died out in the later Vedic period.
Its original purpose is obscure, but a very interesting suggestion was
made in 1869 by Max Müller in connexion with his version of Ṛgveda i.
165. [5] He conjectured that the ‘dialogue was repeated at sacrifices
in honour of the Maruts or that possibly it was acted by two parties,
one representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers’. In
1890 the suggestion was repeated with approval by Professor Lévi, [6]
who added to it the argument that the Sāmaveda shows that the art of
music had been fully developed by the Vedic age. Moreover the Ṛgveda
[7] already knows maidens who, decked in splendid raiment, dance and
attract lovers, and the Atharvaveda [8] tells how men dance and sing to
music. There is, therefore, a priori no fatal objection to assuming
that the period of the Ṛgveda knew dramatic spectacles, religious in
character, in which the priests assumed the rôles of gods and sages in
order to imitate on earth the events of the heavens.
The logical consequence of this doctrine is seen in Professor von
Schroeder’s elaborate theory [9] that the dialogue hymns, and also
certain monologues, for instance x. 119, in which Indra appears as
glorifying himself in the intoxication of his favourite Soma drink, are
relics of Vedic mysteries, an inheritance in germ from Indo-European
times. Ethnology shows us the close relation of music, dance, and drama
among many peoples, and the curious phenomenon that Vedic religion
knows of gods as dancers cannot be explained satisfactorily save on the
assumption that the priests were used to see performed ritual dances,
in themselves imitations of the cosmic dance in which the world was, on
one view, created. Such dances partake of the nature of sympathetic
magic, and they have an obvious parallel in the great sacrificial
rites, which in the Brāhmaṇa period are undertaken in order to
represent on earth the cosmic creation. It is true that we do not find
in the Ṛgveda the phallic dances which in Greece and Mexico alike are
held to be closely connected with the origin of drama, but that was
because the priests of the Ṛgveda were in many respects austere, and
disapproved of phallic deities of any kind. The dramas of the ritual,
therefore, are in a sense somewhat out of the main line of the
development of the drama; the popular side has survived through the
ages in a rough way in the Yātrās well known in the literature of
Bengal, while the refined and sacerdotalized Vedic drama passed away
without a direct descendant.
Independent support for the view of the dialogues as mystery plays in
nuce is given by Dr. Hertel, [10] whose argument is largely based on
the doctrine that the Vedic hymns were always sung, and that in singing
it would have been impossible for a single singer to make the necessary
distinction between the different speakers, which would have been
possible if the hymns had not been sung. The hymns, therefore,
represent the beginnings of a dramatic art, which may be compared with
the form of the Gītagovinda. [11] But, what is more important, he seeks
to find an actual drama on an extended scale in the Suparṇādhyāya, [12]
a curious and comparatively late Vedic text. In his view, accordingly,
the Vedic drama does not stand isolated; it is seen in the Ṛgveda only
in its beginnings; the Suparṇādhyāya displays it en route to further
development, and in the Yātrās we can see a continuation of the old
type, which aids us in following the growth from the Vedic drama of the
classical drama of India. In this regard there is a distinct divergence
of view between the two supporters of the dramatic theory, for
Professor von Schroeder regards the Yātrās as genuinely connected with
the later drama, being developed in close connexion with the cult of
Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa and Rudra-Çiva, but as representing a different development
from the same root as the Vedic dialogues. Of this other side of the
drama he finds hints in the traditional connexion of the Gandharvas and
Apsarases with the drama, for these in his view are essentially phallic
deities.
There is, of course, no doubt of the possibility of the dialogues
really representing portions of the old ritual in which the priests
assumed the character of gods or demons, for there are abundant
parallels for such a supposition. But there is no sufficient ground to
compel us to seek for such an explanation of these hymns; that the
Ṛgveda contains nothing save what is connected with ritual is a
postulate which is not made by the Indians themselves, and has no
justification save in the desire for symmetry. On the contrary, it is
perfectly legitimate and much more natural to regard the Ṛgveda as a
collection of hymns, in the vast majority of cases of ritual origin,
but including some more secular poetry, to which genus alone can we
reasonably attribute the battle hymns of Viçvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha. The
fact that such hymns disappear in the later Vedic literature is then
natural, for that literature represents unquestionably hymns collected
definitely for ritual uses, and therefore nothing was admitted which
could not be employed therein. To assume, therefore, that a ritual
explanation must be found, and to find it in ritual drama is
illegitimate, and the only justification for accepting the view in any
case must lie in the fact that it affords a better explanation of the
hymn than any which can be given otherwise.
It is impossible to feel any certainty that the necessary proof has
been brought in any case. The hymn ix. 112, which describes in four
stanzas in a rather humorous style the various ends of men, ending with
the refrain in each case, ‘O Soma, flow for Indra’, is transformed into
the marching song of a popular festival at which mummers represent
vegetation deities and symbols of fertility are carried. The tradition
knows nothing of these happenings, and the hymn certainly suggests none
to the average intelligence. On the contrary, it seems a very natural
piece of witty sarcasm, to which point is lent by the use of the
refrain, and to deny the possibility of sarcasm to the thinkers who
produce the advanced and sceptical views expressed in the Ṛgveda is
certainly unwise. [13] To explain the Vṛṣākapi hymn (x. 86) as a piece
of fertility magic in dramatic form is ingenious, but unluckily it in
no way contributes towards the explanation of the hymn, and, therefore,
is as valueless as the other possible explanations which have been
offered. The same condemnation must be passed on the effort to find a
mimic race at a festival described in the strange Mudgala hymn (x. 102)
which if it is intelligible at all, seems to have a mythological
reference, and not to refer either to actual or mimic races.
An ingenious effort is that made to adduce ethnological parallels to
prove that the hymn x. 119, which is a straightforward monologue,
placed in the mouth of Indra, celebrating the effect of drinking the
Soma, must be regarded as part of a ritual in which at the close of the
drinking of the Soma in the rite, a priest comes forward, assuming the
rôle of Indra, and celebrates in monologue the strength of the juice of
the holy plant. Among the Cora Indians, after a wine festival, a god is
introduced showing the effects of the drink, while a singer celebrates
its potent merits. There is, however, a fatal hiatus in the proof; the
poem by itself is perfectly clear, and to seek for an explanation so
far-fetched is idle expenditure of energy. The same condemnation must
be expressed of the effort to find in the frog hymn (vii. 103) a song
sung by men masked as frogs, dancing as a spell to secure rain. If we
grant that the hymn is really intended as a rain spell, which is
moderately probable though not proved, it needs no further explanation
whatever, and, if we do not accept this suggestion but adopt the older
view that it satyrizes in an amusing way the antics of certain
performers of the ritual, the character of the hymn as a fertility
spell vanishes at once. The errors of method are seen excellently in
the fantastic conclusion that the gambler’s hymn (x. 34), in which a
gambler deplores the fatal love for the dice which has led to his
reducing even his beloved wife to ruin, is a dramatic monologue in
which dancers represent the leaping and falling dice. The dialogue of
Yama and Yamī reduces itself to a fertility drama, from which the
prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of
the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural
birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven
are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case
presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves
absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in
interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in
the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by
two different parties, and thus was a ritual drama in nuce; what is
certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a
practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x.
86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic
whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its
fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya
and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after
the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of
disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic
language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative [14]
of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To
explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are
to hold that we have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which
takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over
the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by
youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation
ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the
foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the
Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be
justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are
taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?
It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel’s arguments
from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns
were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the
interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be
inclined to admit a priori that the song would tend to be accompanied
by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to
development. But we do not know that the hymns of the Ṛgveda were
always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that,
while the verses of the Sāmaveda were sung (gai), the verses of the
Ṛgveda were recited (çaṅs). True, we do not have precise information of
the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest
ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences
in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different
interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument
is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as
to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of
these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and
the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns
were used. We find in the Ṛgveda a number of philosophic hymns; why
should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama
and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of
ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the
dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we
insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that
ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately
following the disposal of the dead, and that during the pauses in the
great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the
king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may
legitimately assume that in the Ṛgveda we have hymns of other than
directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler’s hymn cannot by any
reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual. [15]
It is also impossible to accept the view that the Vedic drama died out
under the chilling effect of the disapproval of the priests of
fertility ritual. We find, on the contrary, that fertility ritual is
fully recognized later in the Mahāvrata ceremonial, and also in the
horse sacrifice, which are both known to the other Vedic Saṁhitās,
though this feature of the rite is not referred to, directly at least,
in the Ṛgveda. Moreover, even if the disapproval of fertility rites had
been real, why should it have brought to a close the drama? The
dialogues of Agni and the gods, of Saramā and the Paṇis, of Varuṇa and
Indra, of Indra and the singer—and perhaps Vāyu also (viii. 100), have
no connexion with fertility, and this aspect of drama need not have
perished. Dr. Hertel is certainly right in demanding traces of
development, not of decadence, but his great effort to find a full
drama in the Suparṇādhyāya must definitely be pronounced a failure. It
involves an elaborate invention of stage directions, the preparation of
a list of dramatis personae largely on the basis of imagination, and a
translation of the piece based on this theory, which can be shown in
detail to be open to the certainty of error. Add to this the fact that
there is no hint in Indian tradition that the Suparṇādhyāya, on the
face of it a late imitation of Vedic work proper, had ever any dramatic
intention or use.
A very different theory of the purpose of these hymns is that which we
owe to Professors Windisch, [16] Oldenberg, [17] and Pischel. [18] They
represent an old type, Indo-European in antiquity, of composition of
epic character, in which the verses, representing the points of highest
emotion, were preserved, and the connecting links were in prose which
was not stereotyped, and therefore has not come down to us. The theory
is capable of combination with the suggestion that these hymns in
dialogue were dramatic; thus Prof. Pischel explained the combination of
prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama as a relic of this early form of
literature, which thus might serve both epic and dramatic ends. [19]
Despite the considerable vogue which the theory has at one time or
other attained, and the energetic defence of it by Professor Oldenberg,
who has based upon it an elaborate theory of the development of Indian
prose, it is doubtful whether we can accept the view. [20] It is a very
real difficulty here also that the tradition shows no trace of
knowledge of this characteristic of the hymns, and we do not find any
work actually in this form in the whole of the Vedic literature. The
alleged instances of this type, such as those of the tale of Çunaḥçepa
in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, or the working up in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa
of the legend of Purūravas and Urvaçī cannot possibly be made to fit
the theory. In the latter case we have a tale, which manifestly does
not agree with the verses of the Ṛgveda, and which is openly and
obviously an attempt to work that hymn into the explanation of the
ritual; in the former we have the use of gnomic verses to illustrate a
theme, a form of literature which is preserved through the history of
Sanskrit prose, and portions of a verse narrative. The true type,
verses used at the point of emotion, especially, therefore, to give the
vital speeches and replies, is thus not represented by any text of the
Vedic literature. Whether it ever existed at all in the sense
postulated by the theory, whether there are traces of it in the Pāli
Jātakas, or whether its existence even there is a misunderstanding, are
questions which are not in vital connexion with the origin of Sanskrit
drama, and may, therefore, here be left undiscussed. One consideration,
however, is germane; if it were necessary to explain the Vedic
dialogues by this theory, it would certainly be possible to do so far
more effectively and simply than by the theory of their being the
remains of ritual dramas. The most serious objection to both theories
is that they are not really necessary. Professor Geldner [21] who
formerly patronized the theory of Oldenberg has sought to explain the
hymns in question as ballads. [22]
Nor of course is it necessary to make any use of this theory in order
to explain the mixture of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama. The
use of prose needs no defence or explanation; that of verse is what was
essentially to be expected, in view of the importance of song as a form
of amusement as well as in worship both in Vedic times and later, and
of the fact that our extant dramas draw so largely on epic tradition,
preserved in versified texts. Nothing indeed is more noteworthy in
Sanskrit literature than the determination to turn everything, law,
astronomy, architecture, rhetoric, even philosophy into a metrical
form. The theorists on the drama give no suggestion that the prose was
regarded as any less fixed in character than the verses, or that it was
not the duty of the author of the drama to be as careful in preparing
the one as the other, and the manuscript tradition of the drama does
not hint at any distinction of the two elements as regards source.
3. DRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN VEDIC RITUAL
When we leave out of account the enigmatic dialogues of the Ṛgveda we
can see that the Vedic ritual contained within itself the germs of
drama, as is the case with practically every primitive form of worship.
The ritual did not consist merely of the singing of songs or
recitations in honour of the gods; it involved a complex round of
ceremonies in some of which there was undoubtedly present the element
of dramatic representation; that is the performers of the rites assumed
for the time being personalities other than their own. There is an
interesting instance of this in the ritual of the Soma purchase for the
Soma sacrifice. The seller is in some versions at the close of the
ceremony deprived of his price, and beaten or pelted with clods. Now
there can be no doubt that we have here, not a reflex of a disapproval
of trafficking in Soma, but a mimic account of the obtaining of Soma
from its guardians the Gandharvas, and there is some truth in the
comparison drawn between the Çūdra who plays the rôle of the mishandled
seller and the much misused Devil of the mediaeval mystery plays. [23]
But we must not exaggerate the amount of representation; it falls very
far short of an approach to drama, a point which is overlooked by
Professor von Schroeder throughout his discussions. A drama proper can
only be said to come into being when the actors perform parts
deliberately for the sake of the performance, to give pleasure to
themselves and others, if not profit also; if a ritual includes
elements of representation, the aim is not the representation, but the
actors are seeking a direct religious or magic result. It would be
absurd, for instance, to treat the identification in the marriage
ritual of the husband and wife with the sky and the earth as in any
sense dramatic or to see any drama in the performance of the royal
consecration, which is based carefully on the divine consecration of
Indra, doubtless in the view that thus the king was for the time being
identified with the great god, and so acquired some measure of his
prowess.
In the Mahāvrata [24] we find elements which are of importance as
indicating the materials from which the drama might develop. The
Mahāvrata is plainly a rite intended to strengthen at the winter
solstice the sun, so that it may resume its vigour and make fruitful
the earth. Now an essential part of the rite is a struggle between a
Vaiçya, whose colour is to be white, and a Çūdra, black in colour, over
a round white skin, which ultimately falls to the victorious Vaiçya. It
is impossible, without ignoring the obvious nature of this rite, not to
see in it a mimic contest to gain the sun, the power of light, the
Aryan, striving against that of darkness, the Çūdra. In the face of the
ethnological parallels it is impossible also to sever this episode from
the numerous forms of the contest of summer and winter, the first
represented by the white Aryan, the second by the dark Çūdra. We have
in fact a primitive dramatic ritual, and one which it may be added was
popular throughout the Vedic age. The same ceremony is also marked by a
curious episode; a Brahmin student and a hetaera are introduced as
engaged in coarse abuse of each other, and in the older form of the
ritual we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is
permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable.
The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at
producing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable
language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the
unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse,
in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for
the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated. [25]
There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable
certainty that no drama was known. In the Yajurveda we have long lists
of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation,
and the term Naṭa, which is normally the designation of the actor in
the later literature is unknown. We find but one term [26] which later
ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show
that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for
both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity.
Professor Hillebrandt, [27] on the other hand, is satisfied that we
have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow [28] insists
that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the
ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have
known dialogue, abusive conversation and blows, but of which the chief
parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in the Kauṣītaki
Brāhmaṇa [29] as the arts, but of which the Pāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra [30]
disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence
for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely
significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Naṭa, [31] whose activity
belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of
course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though
the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable
enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the
Puruṣamedha sections of the Yajurveda, where in the imaginary sacrifice
of men the imagination of the Brahmins appears to have laboured to
enumerate every form of human activity. But in the absence of any proof
that secular pantomime is older than religious throughout the world,
and in the absence of anything to indicate that it was so in the case
of India, it seems quite impossible to accept Professor Konow’s
suggested origin of drama.
Of other elements which enter into drama we find the songs of the
Sāmaveda, and the use of ceremonial dances. Thus at the Mahāvrata
maidens dance round the fire as a spell to bring down rain for the
crops, and to secure the prosperity of the herds. Before the marriage
ceremony is completed [32] there is a dance of matrons whose husbands
are still alive, obviously to secure that the marriage shall endure and
be fruitful. When a death takes place, and the ashes of the deceased
are collected, to be laid away, the mourners move round the vase which
contains the last relics of the dead, and dancers are present who dance
to the sound of the lute and the flute; dance, music, and song fill the
whole day of mourning. [33] Dancing is closely associated throughout
the history of the Indian theatre with the drama, and in the ritual of
Çiva and Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa it has an important part. Hence the doctrine which
has the approval of Professor Oldenberg [34] and which finds the origin
of drama in the sacred dance, a dance, of course, accompanied by
gesture of pantomimic character; combined with song, and later enriched
by dialogue, this would give rise to the drama. If we further accept
the view that the dialogue in prose was added from the ritual element
seen in the abuse at the horse sacrifice and the Mahāvrata, then within
the Vedic ritual we may discern all the elements for the growth of
drama present.
In this sense we may speak of the drama as having its origin in the
Vedic period, but it may be doubted whether anything is gained by such
a proposition. Unless the hymns of the Ṛgveda present us with real
drama, which is most implausible, we have not the slightest evidence
that the essential synthesis of elements and development of plot, which
constitute a true drama, were made in the Vedic age. On the contrary,
there is every reason to believe that it was through the use of epic
recitations that the latent possibilities of drama were evoked, and the
literary form created. One very important point in this regard has
certainly often been neglected. The Sanskrit drama does not consist, as
the theory suggests, of song and prose as its vital elements; the vast
majority of the stanzas, which are one of its chief features, were
recited, not sung, and it was doubtless from the epic that the practice
of recitation was in the main derived. Professor Oldenberg [35] admits
in fact the great importance of the epic on the development of drama,
but it may be more accurate to say that without epic recitation there
would and could have been no drama at all. Assuredly we have no clear
proof of such a thing as drama existing until later than we have
assurance of the recitation of epic passages by Granthikas, as will be
seen below.
II
POST-VEDIC LITERATURE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA
1. THE EPICS
The great epic of India, the Mahābhārata, in the whole extent of its
older portions, does not recognize in any explicit manner the existence
of the drama. [36] The term Naṭa indeed occurs, and, if it meant actor,
the existence of the drama would be proved, but it may equally well
merely denote pantomimist. This conclusion, moreover, is strongly
supported by the strange fact that, if the epic knew the drama, it
should never mention any of its characteristics or such a standing
character as the Vidūṣaka. There is, what is still more significant,
even in the later parts of the epic, such as the Çānti and Anuçāsana
Parvans, no clear allusion to the art, for the passage in the Çānti
[37] in which Professor Hillebrandt has found an allusion to dramatic
artists can perfectly well apply to pantomimes, and in the latter text
[38] the passage in which the commentator Nīlakaṇṭha finds comedians
and dancers (naṭa-nartakāḥ) yields perfectly good senses as
pantomimists and dancers, both occupations there repudiated by
Brahmins. To find the drama we are compelled to have recourse to the
Harivaṅça, [39] which is a deliberate continuation of the Mahābhārata,
and there we have explicit evidence, for we learn of players who made a
drama out of the Rāmāyaṇa legend. But this is of no importance for the
purpose of determining the date of the drama; the Harivaṅça is of
uncertain date, but in all probability, as we have it, it cannot be
placed earlier than the second or third century A.D., long after the
time when there is no doubt of the existence of a Sanskrit drama.
The Rāmāyaṇa lends no aid to the attempt to establish an early
existence of drama; we hear of festivals and concourses (samāja) where
Naṭas and Nartakas delight themselves, [40] and even of the speaking of
Nāṭakas; [41] in another passage the term Vyāmiçraka [42] denotes, if
we believe the commentator, plays in mingled languages. But, accepting
all these references as genuine, which we are not obliged to do, the
passages have manifestly no claim to early date, for other reasons than
the allusions, and leave us again without any early evidence.
But, while the epics cannot be said to know the drama, there is
abundant evidence of the strong influence on the development of the
drama exercised by the recitation of the epics. The long continued
popularity of these recitations is attested throughout the literature;
at the beginning of the seventh century A.D. [43] a Brahmin,
Somaçarman, akin to the royal house of Cambodia, presented to a temple
in that far-off outpost of Indian civilization a complete copy of the
Bhārata, in order that regular recitations might take place, and almost
contemporaneously Bāṇa in the Kādambarī depicts the queen as hastening
to the temple of Çiva to hear the recitation of the epic. Four
centuries later Kṣemendra reproaches his contemporaries with their
equal eagerness to hear such recitations, and their reluctance to carry
out in practice the excellent advice contained in them. We have vivid
accounts from recent time of such recitations not only in temples but
in villages, when the generosity of some rich man has secured the
presence, if need be, for three months or longer of the reciters,
Kathakas, to go over the huge poem, which claims to be an encyclopaedia
of all useful knowledge as well as the best of poems. The reciters
divide themselves into two classes, the Pāṭhakas, who repeat the poem,
and the Dhārakas, who expound it in the vernacular for the edification
of the people, whose deep interest in the recitations is attested; if
the Rāmāyaṇa is the epic chosen for recitation, the departure of the
hero into exile excites their tears and sobs, even to the interruption
of the recital; when he returns and ascends the throne the village is
illuminated and garlanded. [44] Fortunately we have in a bas-relief
[45] from Sānchi, which may safely be placed before the Christian era,
a representation of a group of these Kathakas. We see in it that they
accompanied with music in some degree their recitations, danced, and
indicated by gestures the sentiments of the characters they presented.
We have thus something which in its nature is far from undramatic;
given the use of dialogue, the drama would be present in embryo. This
step is foreshadowed but not actually taken in the account given in the
later additions to the Rāmāyaṇa [46] of the first recitation of that
poem. Vālmīki, the author of the narrative of Rāma’s deeds, teaches the
poem to Kuça and Lava, the children whom Sītā in exile bears to Rāma;
they enter Ayodhyā at the moment when the king performs the horse
sacrifice, and excite the curiosity of the king himself, who hears the
recitation of his own deeds by the two rhapsodes, and recognizes them
for his own sons.
The term Bhārata, [47] which is an appellation of the comedian in the
later texts, attests doubtless the connexion of the rhapsodes with the
growth of the drama. It has survived in the modern form of Bhāṭ
denoting a class of reciters, who are the inheritors of a tradition of
recitation of the epics, and who are expert in genealogy, enjoy general
consideration, and by their mere presence with a caravan assure its
passage in safety. The Bhāratas must be the rhapsodes of the Bhārata
tribe, [48] whose fame is great in the early history of India, whose
special fire is known to the Ṛgveda, and who have a special offering
(hotrā) of their own. The Mahābhārata is the great epic of the family,
preserved by their care. With the passage of time the rhapsodes
doubtless took upon them the newer art of drama. Bhavabhūti in the
Uttararāmacarita shows himself conscious of the debts owed by the drama
to the epic, and the clearest proof is now available in the dramas of
Bhāsa, with their wide indebtedness to the great epic itself.
The term Kuçīlava, which occasionally denotes actor, is apparently
derived from the Kuça and Lava of the Rāmāyaṇa; the mode of formation
of the compound is indeed strange, for it is not obvious why it should
have been formed on the mode of compounds in which the first member
represents a woman’s name, but it is equally, if not more difficult, to
imagine how it could be derived from the prefix ku and çīla manners,
denoting ‘of bad morals’. Weber’s attempt to compare this name with
Çailūṣa of the Vedic texts and Çilālin, who is connected with a Sūtra
for Naṭas, is obviously impossible, and it may be that the name,
derived originally from Kuça and Lava, was later by a witticism altered
to Kuçīlava as a hit against the morals of the actors, which were
recognized on every hand to be bad. [49]
2. THE GRAMMARIANS
In Pāṇini [50] we find mention of Naṭasūtras, text-books for Naṭas,
ascribed to Çilālin and Kṛçāçva; the fact is recorded because of the
formation of the names assumed by their followers, Çailālins and
Kṛçāçvins. The names are curious; it has been suggested by Professor
Lévi to see in them ironical appellations; the Kṛçāçvins are those
whose horses are meagre, with an ironic reference to the great
Indo-Iranian hero Kṛçāçva, while the Çailālins have nothing but stones
for their beds in pitiful contrast with the fame of the Vedic school of
that name, whose Çailāli Brāhmaṇa is known to us. But we unfortunately
are here as ever in no position to establish the meaning of Naṭa, which
may mean no more than a pantomime. The conclusion is important, for
Pāṇini’s date is most probably the fourth century B.C., and the fact
that he has no term certainly denoting drama is of significance.
In Patañjali, [51] the author of the Mahābhāṣya, whose date is
certainly to be placed with reasonable assurance about 140 B.C., we
find much more effective evidence bearing on the existence of drama. We
learn from his criticism on a rule laid down by his predecessor
Kātyāyana, as to the use of the imperfect tense of things which a
person has himself seen, that it was normal to use in his time phrases
describing a past event as if it had occurred before the eyes of the
speaker; we can understand this only of a character in a dramatic
performance of some kind, and it is significant that the phrase cited
in illustration of the usage is ‘Vāsudeva has slain Kaṅsa’. The
reference is to the famous legend of Kṛṣṇa, son of Vasudeva, and his
wicked uncle Kaṅsa, who first sought to destroy him in his childhood,
and afterward paid the penalty of his evil deeds by death at the hands
of Kṛṣṇa. This notice receives further elucidation by a famous passage,
first adduced by Weber, in which Patañjali explains the justification
of the use of phrases such as ‘He causes the death of Kaṅsa’, and ‘He
causes the binding of Bali’. [52] Both these deeds, the actual killing,
the actual binding, are deeds of the remote past; how then can the
present be in place? The answer, we learn, is that the events are
described in the present because the sense is, not that they are being
actually done, but that they are being described. Of the modes of
description no less than three are then set out. In the first place we
have the case of the Çaubhikas or Çobhanikas, who before the eyes of
the spectators actually carry out—naturally in appearance only in the
first case—the killing of Kaṅsa and the binding of Bali; they represent
in fact by action, without words, so far as this passage formally tells
us, the slaying of the wicked Kaṅsa, the binding of the evil Bali.
Secondly, we have the painters; they describe by their paintings, for
on the canvases themselves we see the blows rained on Kaṅsa and the
dragging of him about; a painter, that is to say, kills Kaṅsa and has
Bali bound by painting a scene describing these incidents. Thirdly, we
have those who use words, and not action of the Çaubhika type, the
Granthikas; they also, while relating the fortunes of their subjects
from their birth to their death, make them real to the minds of their
audience, for they divide themselves into two parties, one set adhering
to Kṛṣṇa, and one to Kaṅsa, and they adopt different colours, the
adherents of Kaṅsa black, and those of Kṛṣṇa red, though, by what is
probably an erroneous correction, the colours are ascribed in the
inverse order by many of the manuscripts.
This is clear and intelligible, and it is unfortunate that it has
recently been misunderstood by Professor Lüders, [53] with disastrous
results for the comprehension of the notice. The Çaubhikas are made to
be persons who explain to the audience shadow pictures, a view which
has not even the merit of Indian tradition, and, as will be seen below,
contradicts entirely the facts known as to the shadow play in India,
where it is recorded only in late mediaeval times. The traditional
rendering in India of the statement is recorded by Kaiyaṭa, more than a
thousand years later; it is frankly obscure; Professor Lévi [54]
renders it as meaning that the Çaubhikas are those who teach actors,
representing Kaṅsa, and so on, the mode of recitation, a version which
is doubtless very difficult. The sense accorded to it by Professor
Lüders is that the Çaubhikas explain to the audience dumb actors, a
form of drama which is recorded as performed by the Jhāṁkīs of Bombay
and Mathurā in modern India, but of which in ancient times we have no
certainty, since this is the only passage which even remotely can be
supposed to allude to it. The obvious view, that of Weber, [55] that we
have a reference to a pantomimic killing and binding, seems
irresistible; the use of the causative is explained by this fact; if
Bali and Kaṅsa were persons of to-day the simple verb would express
their binding and slaying; because it is mere actors, the causative is
used, and its use denotes that the act is not now real but an
exposition of a past act. ‘He causes the binding of Bali’ means ‘he
describes the binding of Bali’. The only legitimate doubt on the
passage is that regarding the exact mode of performance of the
Çaubhikas; the word pratyakṣam in the text insists that it is done
before the eyes of the audience, and we may justly assume that the
Çaubhikas performed manual acts. Did they also use dialogue? There is
nothing in the passage either to show that they did or that they did
not; the contrast which follows later with Granthikas, whose medium was
words, is sufficiently pointed if they used action as well as words.
The most that can be said is that Çaubhika or Çobhanika does not obtain
currency later as denoting an actor, which may tell against the view
that Patañjali is here actually alluding to drama proper. Further we
cannot go; to argue that, if he had known drama proper, he must have
clearly mentioned it, is to ignore entirely the manner of Patañjali,
whose silence as to what he must have known is as common as his
incidental mention of current topics.
The error of Professor Lüders in insisting on a literal interpretation
of the passage as referring to different sorts of narrators by words
comes out with special clearness as regards the second class of persons
alluded to by Patañjali. That they are painters whose canvases are
living speeches was clearly recognized by the commentators in India.
Haradatta tells us in the simplest and plainest language that when men
look at a picture on which is shown the death of Kaṅsa at the hands of
Vāsudeva they interpret the picture as the slaying of the wicked Kaṅsa
by the blessed Vāsudeva, and thus by the pictured Vāsudeva cause to be
slain the pictured Kaṅsa, for this is the conception which they form as
they gaze, and he adds, very naturally, that this explains the practice
of saying of artists that they cause the slaying of Kaṅsa, the binding
of Bali. [56] It would be difficult to see how the idea could have been
more forcibly expressed, but Professor Lüders interprets it in the
sense that artists occasionally explain their own pictures to others,
an idea which is not merely wholly impossible, but renders Haradatta’s
language nonsense. On this basis he finds that the Çaubhikas added to
their business of explaining shadow pictures that of showing and
explaining other pictures, in this respect again without any support
from tradition.
Finally Professor Lüders denies any division of parties among the
Granthikas, whose name he derives, like the scholiasts, from the use of
manuscript books in recitation, rejecting the idea of cyclic rhapsodes
suggested by Dr. Dahlmann. [57] The derivation is too speculative in
sense to be relied upon, but there is no doubt that the Granthikas were
reciters. Their exact means of expressing the sense is not quite clear
owing to the unlucky divergence of reading in the text, and the fact
that the precise meaning of the second word in the most probable
reading (çabda-gaḍu-mātram) [58] is wholly unknown. It is, accordingly,
wholly illegitimate to assert that they used words alone, and on the
score of that to deny that they could be said to divide themselves into
two parties, one of followers of Kaṅsa, one of adherents of Kṛṣṇa,
bearing appropriate colours. This view reduces us to the impossible
theory that the division of parties refers to the audience. Apart from
all questions of regard for the Sanskrit language, which Patañjali
should be assumed capable of writing, the ludicrous result is achieved
that among a pious audience of Kṛṣṇa adorers we are to suppose that
there were many who favoured Kaṅsa, the cruel uncle whose vices are
redeemed by not a single virtue, and for whose fate Sanskrit
literature, pious and devout, shows not a sign of regret. The change of
colour, which is asserted to be the only possible sense of the term
varṇānyatvam, wholly without ground, is referred to the spectators, who
turn red with anger if supporters of Kaṅsa, black with fear if they
support Vāsudeva. Professor Hillebrandt, who has unfortunately accepted
the new theory to the extent that he believes that there were persons
who carried round pictures and explained them for a living, justly
declines to believe in the possibility of a Hindu audience containing
persons who wished the success of Kaṅsa, and he accepts the plain fact
that the Granthikas took parts. The colours he explains, however, as
indicating the sentiments which the two parties feel, a view for which
there is the authority of the Nāṭyaçāstra which ascribes to each
sentiment an appropriate colour, and, accepting the reading of
Kielhorn, he is compelled to assume that the supporters of Kaṅsa on the
stage showed as the dominant sentiment fury, while those of Kṛṣṇa are
reduced to manifest fear as the sentiment of their side. But it is
frankly incredible that the followers of Kṛṣṇa, the invincible, who
calmly and coolly proceeds from victory to victory culminating in the
overthrow of his wicked uncle, accomplished with ease and celerity,
should show fear as the dominant sentiment, and it is clear that on
this view we should accept the reading which inverts the descriptions,
[59] thus allotting to the supporters of Kaṅsa the fear, to those of
Kṛṣṇa the fury of slaughter and revenge. But in this trait it is more
probable, as will be seen below, that we have a trace of the religious
origin of the drama. [60]
3. RELIGION AND THE DRAMA
We seem in fact to have in the Mahābhāṣya evidence of a stage in which
all the elements of drama were present; we have acting in dumb show, if
not with words also; we have recitations divided between two parties.
Moreover, we hear of Naṭas who not only recite but also sing; we find
that in the days of the Mahābhāṣya the Naṭa’s hunger is as proverbial
as the dancing of the peacock, that it was no rare thing for him to
receive blows, and that a special term, Bhrūkuṅsa, existed to name him
who played women’s parts, appropriately made up. [61] The Mahābhāṣya
does not seem to recognize women as other than dancers or singers, [62]
so that it may well be that in the infancy of the dramatic art the
rôles of women were reserved for men, though in the classical drama
this was by no means necessarily the case. We cannot absolutely prove
that in Patañjali’s time the drama in its full form of action allied to
speech was present, but we know that all its elements existed, and we
may legitimately and properly accept its existence in a primitive form.
That form, from the express mention of the subjects of the dramatic
exhibitions, we may deduce to have been of the nature of a religious
drama. It is difficult not to see in the Kaṅsavadha, the death of Kaṅsa
at the hands of Kṛṣṇa, the refined version of an older vegetation
ritual in which the representative of the outworn spirit of vegetation
is destroyed. Colour is given to this theory by the remarkable fact
that in one reading the partisans of the young Kṛṣṇa are red in hue,
those of Kaṅsa are black. Now as Kṛṣṇa’s name indicates black, it would
be almost inevitable that the original attribution of red to his
followers should be corrected by well-meaning scribes to black, and
this explains effectively the transposition found in the bulk of the
manuscripts. In the red hue of Kṛṣṇa’s supporters as against the black
of those of Kaṅsa we probably have a distinct reminiscence of another
side of the slaying of the vegetation spirit. [63] The contest is often
presented as one between summer and winter, and we have seen in the
Mahāvrata what is probably a primitive form of this contest; the white
Vaiçya fights with the black Çūdra for the sun, and attains possession
of its symbolical form. The red of Kṛṣṇa’s following then proclaims him
as the genius of summer who overcomes the darkness of the winter.
With this view accords most interestingly the theory of the origin of
the Greek drama from a mimic conflict of summer and winter, as
developed by Dr. Farnell. [64] In the legend of the conflict between
the Boiotian Xanthos and the Neleid Melanthos we hear that at the
moment of conflict Melanthos descried a form beside his foe, whom he
taunted with bringing a friend to aid him. Xanthos turned round, and
Melanthos slew him. The form was that of Dionysos Melanaigis, and for
his intervention the Athenians rewarded him by admission to the
Apatouria, the festival of deceit. Thus the black Melanthos with the
aid of Dionysos of the black goatskin slays the fair; the dark winter
destroys the light of summer. Even in modern times in Northern Thrace
[65] is celebrated a popular festival in which a man clad in a goatskin
is hailed as king, scatters seed over the crowd—obviously to secure
fertility—and ultimately is cast into the river, the usual fate for the
outworn spirit of vegetation. In a similar mummery performed near the
ancient Thracian capital there is a band of mummers, clad in goatskins,
of whom one is killed and lamented by his wife. It is natural to deduce
hence that tragedy had its origin in a primitive passion-play performed
by men in goatskins, in which an incarnation of a divine spirit was
slain and lamented, whence the dirge-like nature of the Greek drama.
The primitive Indian play differs in one essential from this suggested
origin of tragedy; the victory lies, as we have seen, with Kṛṣṇa, with
the Vaiçya, not with the dark Kaṅsa, the black Çūdra. We have,
therefore, not sorrow, though there is death, and the fact that the
Sanskrit drama insists on a happy ending is unquestionably most
effectively explained if it be brought into connexion with the fact of
the origin of the drama in a passion play whose end was happiness
through death, not grief. This view has received a remarkable measure
of confirmation from the discovery of the plays of Bhāsa; that
dramatist does not conform to the rule of the later theory that there
must be no slaying on the stage, but he most assuredly conforms to the
principle of the Kaṅsavadha that the slaying is to be of an enemy of
the god; the Ūrubhan̄ga, which has erroneously [66] been treated as a
tragedy is, on the contrary, the depicting of the deplorable fate of an
enemy of Kṛṣṇa, and we have from Bhāsa himself the Bālacarita which
describes the death of several monsters at Kṛṣṇa’s hands, and finally
of Kaṅsa himself.
In the recitation of the Granthikas divided into two parties we have an
interesting parallel to the place played according to Aristotle [67] by
the dithyramb in the development of the Greek drama. Action was
required neither of the singers of the dithyramb nor of the Granthikas,
but it was only necessary in one case and the other to introduce
action, and the form of the drama would be complete.
Both in the Greek and the Sanskrit drama the essential fact in the
contest, from which their origin may thus be traced, is the existence
of a conflict. In the Greek drama in its development this conflict came
to dominate the play, and in the Indian drama this characteristic is
far less prominent. But it is distinctly present in all the higher
forms of the art, and we can hardly doubt that it was from this
conflict that these higher forms were evolved from the simplicity of
the early material out of which the drama rose.
For the religious origin of drama a further fact can be adduced, the
character of the Vidūṣaka, the constant and trusted companion of the
king, who is the normal hero of an Indian play. The name denotes him as
given to abuse, [68] and not rarely in the dramas he and one of the
attendants on the queen engage in contests of acrid repartee, in which
he certainly does not fare the better. It would be absurd to ignore in
this regard the dialogue between the Brahmin and the hetaera in the
Mahāvrata, where the exchange of coarse abuse is intended as a
fertility charm.
Another religious element may, it has been suggested, be conjectured as
present in the Vidūṣaka, the reminiscence of the figure of the Çūdra
who is beaten in the ceremony of the purchase of the Soma; possibly it
is to this that the hideous appearance attributed to the Vidūṣaka is
due. Professor Hillebrandt [69] compares the history of the Harlequin
who was originally a representative of the Devil and not a figure of
mirth. It may be that these factors concurred in shaping the character
of the Vidūṣaka, but the fact that he is treated as a Brahmin is
conclusive that the abusive side of his character is the more
important. It is to this doubtless that his use of Prākrit is due; it
cannot be conceived that a dialogue of abuse was carried on by the
Brahmin in the sacred language, which the hetaera of the primitive
social conditions of the Mahāvrata could not possibly be expected to
appreciate. Professor Hillebrandt suggests indeed that there is change
in the character of the Vidūṣaka in the literature as compared with the
account given in the Nāṭyaçāstra, but there is clearly no adequate
ground for this view.
There is further abundant evidence of the close connexion of the drama
with religion; it is attested in the legend of Kṛṣṇa whose feat of
slaying Kaṅsa is carried out in the amphitheatre in the presence of the
public, where he defeats the wrestlers of his uncle’s court, and
finally slays the tyrant. The festival of his nativity is essentially a
popular spectacle; as developed later, in detail which has often evoked
comparison with the Nativity, [70] the young mother, Devakī, is shown
on a couch in a stable, with her infant clinging to her; Yaçodā is also
there with the little girl, who in the legend meets the fate intended
for Kṛṣṇa by Kaṅsa; gods and spirits surround them; Vasudeva stands
sword in hand to guard them; the Apsarases sing, the Gandharvas dance,
the shepherdesses celebrate the birth, and all night is spent by the
audience in gazing at the gay scene. Kṛṣṇa, again, is the lover of the
shepherdesses and the inventor of the ardent dance of love, the
Rāsamaṇḍala. Of great importance in this regard is the persistence in
popularity of the Yātrās, which have survived the decadence of the
regular Sanskrit drama. They tell of the loves of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, his
favourite among the Gopīs, for cowherdesses replace in the pastoral the
shepherdesses of European idyllic poetry. Kṛṣṇa is by no means a
faithful lover, but the end is always the fruition of Rādhā’s love for
him. And in Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda we have in literary form [71] the
expression of the substance of the Yātrā, lyric songs, to which must be
added the charms of music and the dance. A further consideration of the
highest importance attests the influence of the Kṛṣṇa cult: the normal
prose language of the drama is Çaurasenī Prākrit, and we can only
suppose that it is so because it was the ordinary speech of the people
among whom the drama first developed into definite shape. Once this was
established, we may feel assured, the usage would be continued wherever
the drama spread; we have modern evidence of the persistence of the
Brajbhāshā, the language of the revival of the Kṛṣṇa cult after the
Mahomedan invasions in the ancient home of Çaurasenī, as the language
of Kṛṣṇa devotion beyond the limits of its natural home. [72] Mathurā,
the great centre of Kṛṣṇa worship, still celebrates the Holi festival
with rites which resemble the May-day merriment of older England, and
still more the phallic orgies of pagan Rome as described by Juvenal. It
is an interesting coincidence with the comparison made by Growse [73]
of the Holi and the May-day rites that Haraprasād Śāstrin should have
found an explanation of the origin of the Indian drama in the fact that
at the preliminaries of the play there is special attention devoted to
the salutation of Indra’s banner, which is a flagstaff decorated with
colours and bunting. [74] The Indian legend of the origin of drama
tells that, when Bharata was bidden teach on earth the divine art
invented by Brahmā, the occasion decided upon was the banner festival
(dhvajamaha) of Indra. The Asuras rose in wrath, but Indra seized the
staff of his banner and beat them off, whence the staff of the banner
(jarjara) is used as a protection at the beginning of the drama. The
drama was, therefore, once connected with the ceremonies of bringing in
the Maypole from the woods at the close of the winter, but in India
this rite fell at the close of the rainy season, and the ceremony was
converted into a festival of thanksgiving for Indra’s victory over the
clouds, the Asuras. The theory in itself is inadequate, but the
preliminaries of the drama are sufficient to show the extraordinary
importance attached to propitiation of the gods, a relic of the old
religious service, which would be quite out of place if the origin of
the drama had been secular.
The importance of Kṛṣṇa must not cause us to ignore the prominent place
occupied by Çiva in the history of the drama. To him and his spouse are
ascribed the invention of the Tāṇḍava [75] and the Lāsya, the violent
and the tender and seductive dances, which are so important an element
in the representation of a play. Nor is it surprising that a god who in
the Vedic period itself is hailed as the patron of men of every
profession and occupation should be regarded as the special patron of
the artists. But it is probable that this importance in the drama is
later than that of Kṛṣṇa, and it is not without significance that
Bhāsa, who is older than any of the other classical dramatists, unlike
them, celebrates in full Kṛṣṇa, and is a Vaiṣṇava, while Çūdraka,
Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti alike are adorers of Çiva in their
prefaces. The Mālavikāgnimitra of Kālidāsa introduces a dancing-master
who speaks of the creation of the dance by the god and its close
connexion with the drama. The sect of the Pāçupatas, adorers of Çiva as
lord of creatures, include in their ritual the song and the dance, the
latter consisting in expressing the sentiments of the devotees by means
of corporeal movement in accord with the rules of the Nāṭyaçāstra. In
the decadent ceremonial of the Tantras the ritual includes the
representation of Çiva by men, and of his spouse as Çakti, female
energy, by women.
The part of Rāma in the growth of drama was certainly not less
important than that of Kṛṣṇa himself, for the recitation of the
Rāmāyaṇa was popular throughout the country, and has persisted in
vogue. The popularity of the story is proved to the full by the effect
of the Rām-Līlā or Daçārha festival, at which the story is presented in
dumb show, children taking the places of Rāma, Sītā, and Lakṣmaṇa
before a vast concourse of pilgrims and others. No effort is made to
speak the parts, but a series of tableaux recalls to the minds of the
devotees, to whom the whole tale is familiar, the course of the history
of the hero, his banishment, his search for Sītā, and his final
triumph. In Rāma’s case the influence of the epic on the drama appears
in its full development. [76]
The religious importance of the drama is seen distinctly in the
attitude of the Buddhists towards it. [77] The extreme dubiety of the
date of the Buddhist Suttas renders it impossible to come to any
satisfactory decision regarding the existence of drama at any early
date, while the terms employed, such as Visūkadassana, Nacca, and
Pekkhā, and the reference to Samajjas leave us wholly without any
ground for belief in an actual drama. We see, however, that the
objection of the sacred Canon to monks engaging in the amusement of
watching these shows, whatever their nature, was gradually overcome,
and it is an important fact that the earliest dramas known to us by
fragments are the Buddhist dramas of Açvaghoṣa. With the acceptance of
the drama, the Lalitavistara [78] does not hesitate to speak of the
Buddha as including knowledge of the drama as among his
accomplishments; the Buddha is even called one who has entered to gaze
on the drama of the Great Law. The legend is willing to admit that even
in Buddha’s time there were dramas, for Bimbisāra had one performed in
honour of a pair of Nāga kings, [79] and the Avadānaçataka, [80] a
collection of pious tales, places the drama in remote antiquity. It was
performed by the bidding of Krakucchanda, a far distant Buddha in the
city Çobhāvatī by a troupe of actors; the director undertook the rôle
of the Buddha himself, while the other members of the troupe took the
rôle of monks; the same troupe in a later age, under Gautama the Buddha
himself, performed at Rājagṛha, the actress Kuvalayā gaining enormous
fame, and seducing the monks, until the Buddha terminated her career by
turning her into a hideous old woman. She then repented and attained
the rank of a saint. The same idea of a play bearing on the life of the
Buddha himself is preserved in another tale in Tibet where an actor
from the south sets up in rivalry with the monks in giving
representations of the life of the Buddha. These Buddhist dramas have
left their imprint on the form of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka, the Lotus of
the Good Law, itself, which has none of the epic character of the
Lalitavistara, but is presented as a series of dialogues in which the
Buddha himself, now supernatural, is the chief, but not the only
interlocutor. The same love of the Buddhists for artistic effects is
seen in the use of music, song, dance, and some scenic effects in the
ceremonial attaching to the foundation of Thūpas in Ceylon by a prince
of the royal house; the Mahāvaṅsa assumes that dramas were displayed on
such occasions, though this may be an anachronism. The frescoes of
Ajantā show the keen appreciation felt for music, song, and the dance,
though they date from a time when there is certain evidence of the full
existence of the drama. We find also in Tibet [81] the relics of
ancient popular religious plays in the contests between the spirits of
good and those of evil for mankind, which are part of the spring and
autumn festivals. The actors wear strange garments and masks; monks
represent the good spirits, laymen the evil spirits of men. The whole
company first sings prayers and benedictions; then an evil spirit seeks
to seduce into evil a man; he would yield but for the intervention of
his friends; the evil spirits then arrive in force, a struggle ensues,
in which the men would be defeated but for the intervention of the good
spirits, and the whole ends with the chasing away with blows of the
representatives of the spirits of evil.
With Jainism it is as with Buddhism; we find censure of such ideal
enjoyments as the arts akin to the drama, but also recognition of song,
music, dance, and scenic presentations in the Canon. [82] But it is
hopeless, in view of the utter uncertainty of the date of that
collection, to draw any conclusion from it as to the age of the drama.
As in the case of Buddhism, Jainism in its development was glad to have
recourse to the drama as a means of propagating its beliefs. [83]
The evidence is conclusive on the close connexion of religion and the
drama, and it strongly suggests that it was from religion that the
decisive impulse to dramatic creation was given. The importance of the
epic is doubtless enormous, but the mere recitation of the epics,
however closely it might approach to the drama, does not overstep the
bounds. The element which fails to be added is that of the dramatic
contest, the Agon of the Greek drama. That this was supplied by the
development of such primitive vegetation rituals as that of the
Mahāvrata, until they assumed the concrete and human form of the Kṛṣṇa
and Kaṅsa legend would be a conjecture worth consideration, but without
possibility of proof if we had not the notice of the Mahābhāṣya which
expressly shows that the story of Kṛṣṇa and Kaṅsa could both be
represented by Granthikas, who coloured their faces and expressed
vividly the emotions of those whom they represented, but also, in dumb
show seemingly, by Çaubhikas. If there did not exist an Indian drama
proper, in which these sides were combined when Patañjali wrote, it is
fair to say that it would be surprising if it did not develop shortly
afterwards, and we have perfectly certain proof that the Naṭas of
Patañjali were much more than dancers or acrobats; they sang and
recited. The balance of probability, therefore, is that the Sanskrit
drama came into being shortly after, if not before, the middle of the
second century B.C., and that it was evoked by the combination of epic
recitations with the dramatic moment of the Kṛṣṇa legend, in which a
young god strives against and overcomes enemies.
The drama which was nascent in Patañjali’s time must be taken to have
been, like the classical drama, one in which Sanskrit was mingled with
Prākrit in the speeches of the characters. The epic recitations of the
slaying of Kaṅsa which he records must have been in Sanskrit, but, if
the drama was to be popular—and the Nāṭyaçāstra in its tale of the
origin of the art recognizes both its epic and popular characteristics,
the humble people who figured in it must have been allowed to speak in
their own vernacular; this accords brilliantly with the presence of
Çaurasenī as the normal prose of the drama of the classical stage. A
different view is taken by Professor Lévi, [84] who conceives that the
drama sprang first into being in Prākrit, while Sanskrit was only later
applied at the time when Sanskrit, long reserved as a sacred language,
re-entered into use as the language of literature; India, he contends,
was never anxious for contact with reality, and it is absurd to suppose
that the mixture of languages was adopted as a representation of the
actual speech-usage of the time and circles in which drama came into
being. This contention is supported by the observation that a number of
the technical terms of the Nāṭyaçāstra are of strange appearance, and
the frequency of cerebral letters in them suggests Prākrit origin. The
contention can hardly be treated as satisfactory, nor is it clear how
it can possibly be reconciled with the evidence of Patañjali. The early
drama, it seems clear, was not secular in origin, and Professor Lévi
emphasizes its dependence on the cult of Kṛṣṇa; to refuse to use
Sanskrit in it, therefore, would be extremely strange, unless we are to
assume that the existence of true drama goes back to a period
considerably earlier than Patañjali, and that it came into being among
a milieu which was not Brahminical. There are very serious difficulties
in such a theory; we may legitimately hold that such a literary form as
the true drama was not created until the Brahmin genius fused the ethic
and religious agonistic motives into a new creation of the highest
importance for the literary history of India. The presence of a number
of Prākrit terms in the Nāṭyaçāstra is probable, but it does not mean
that a theory of drama was first excogitated in Prākrit; the main
theory in all its essentials is expressed in Sanskrit, and all that is
borrowed from Prākrit is some technical terms of subsidiary importance,
borrowed, doubtless, from the minor arts, which go to aid but do not
constitute the drama, song, music, dancing, and the mimetic art.
The religious origin of the Sanskrit drama in Kṛṣṇa worship is also
admitted as part, however, of a wider thesis by Dr. Ridgeway, [85] who
contends that Greek drama, and drama all over the world, are the
outcome of the reverence paid to the spirits of the dead, which again
is the source of all religion, a revival in fact of the doctrine of
animism in one of its connotations. The contention as applied to the
Indian drama involves the view that the actors in the primitive drama
were representatives of the spirits of the dead, and that the
performance was meant to gratify the dead. It is supported by the
doctrine that not only Rāma and Kṛṣṇa were believed once to be men, but
that Çiva himself had this origin; [86] all gods indeed are derived
from the memory of noble men. The evidence adduced for this thesis is
simply non-existent. A valuable collection of material due to Sir J. H.
Marshall proves the prevalence throughout India of popular dramatic
performances celebrating the deeds of Rāma and Kṛṣṇa, and the modern
Indian drama deals also with the lives of distinguished historical
characters such as Açoka or Candragupta. But there is nothing to show
that the idea of gratifying the dead by the performances of dramatic
scenes based on their history was ever present to any mind in India,
either early or late. Rāma and Kṛṣṇa to their worshippers were long
before the rise of so late an art as drama, just like Çiva, great gods,
of whom it would be absurd to think as dead men requiring funeral rites
to give them pleasure. Nor is it necessary further to criticize his
reconstruction of Vedic religion on the basis of his animistic theory,
for these issues of origins have no possible relevance to the specific
question of the origin of the Indian drama. Whether elsewhere the
worship of the dead resulted in drama is a matter open to grave doubt;
certainly in the case of the Greek drama, which offers the most
interesting parallel to that of India, the evidence of derivation from
funeral games is wholly defective.
Definite support for this view of the origin of drama may be found in
the accounts of dramatic performances which are given in the Harivaṅça,
the supplement of the Mahābhārata. That work cannot, as has been
mentioned, be dated with any certainty or probability earlier than the
dramas of Açvaghoṣa, and, therefore, it cannot be appealed to as the
earliest mention now extant of the dramatic art. But it is of value as
showing how closely connected the drama was in early times with the
Kṛṣṇa cult, thus supplementing the conclusions to be derived from the
Mahābhāṣya, and falling into line with the evidence of Bhāsa.
At the festival performed by the Yādavas after the death of Andhaka, we
find that the women of the place danced and sang to music, while Kṛṣṇa
induced celestial nymphs to aid the merriment by similar exhibitions,
including a representation by the Apsarases, apparently by dancing, of
the death of Kaṅsa and Pralamba, the fall of Cāṇūra in the
amphitheatre, and various other exploits of Kṛṣṇa. After they had
performed, the sage Nārada amused the audience by a series of what may
fairly be called comic turns; he imitated the gestures, the movements,
and even the laughter of such distinguished personages as Satyabhāmā,
Keçava, Arjuna, Baladeva, and the young princess, the daughter of
Revata, causing infinite amusement to the audience, and reminding us of
the part played by the Vidūṣaka in the drama. The Yādavas then supped,
and this enjoyment was followed by further songs and dances by the
Apsarases, whose performance thus resembled a modern ballet with songs
interspersed. [87]
In a later passage [88] in connexion with the story of the demon
Vajranābha, whom Indra asked Kṛṣṇa to dispose of, we learn of an actor
Bhadra who delighted all by his excellent power of representation;
Vajranābha is induced to demand his presence in his abode, and Kṛṣṇa’s
son Pradyumna and his friends disguise themselves to penetrate there;
Pradyumna is to be the hero, Sāmba the Vidūṣaka, and Gada the assistant
of the stage director, while maidens, skilled in song, dance, and
music, are the actresses; they delight the demons by presenting the
story of Viṣṇu’s descent on earth to slay the chief of the Rākṣasas, a
dramatised version of the Rāmāyaṇa, presenting the figures of Rāma, his
brother, and in special the episode of Ṛṣyaçṛn̄ga and Çāntā, that
curious old legend based on a fertility- and rain-ritual. [89] After
the play the actors showed their skill in depicting situations
suggested by their hosts, and Vajranābha himself induces them to
perform an episode from the legend of Kubera, the rendezvous of Rambhā;
after music from the orchestra the actresses sing, Pradyumna enters and
recites the benediction, and then a verse on the descent of the Ganges,
which is connected with the subject-matter of the piece; he then
assumes the rôle of Nalakūbara, Sāmba is his Vidūṣaka, Çūra plays
Rāvaṇa, Manovatī Rambhā. Nalakūbara curses Rāvaṇa, and consoles Rambhā,
and the audience was delighted by the skilled acting of the Yādavas,
who by a magic illusion had presented mount Kailāsa on the stage.
4. THEORIES OF THE SECULAR ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA
Professors Hillebrandt [90] and Konow [91] agree in the main in
maintaining the view that it is an error to look to religious
ceremonies as explaining the origin of the drama. True, these
ceremonies have a share in the development of the drama, but they
themselves are merely the introduction into the ritual of elements
which have a popular origin. We are to believe that a popular mime
existed, which, with the epic, lies at the bottom of the Sanskrit
drama.
It must be admitted at once that we have extremely little authentic
information regarding the performers of these mimes, believed to have
existed before the origin of drama. The statements made by Professor
Konow, who finds in them experts in song, dance, music, but also in
matters such as jugglery, pantomime, and the allied arts, all rest on
evidence which is either contemporary with the Mahābhāṣya or later than
it; the fact that Naṭas sang is recorded for us in the Mahābhāṣya,
which of course may refer to genuine actors, and not to professors of
the mime, and their connexion with sweet words is attested in the
Jātaka prose only, which dates several centuries after the existence of
the true drama. We need not, of course, doubt that music, song, and
dance, popular in the Vedic age, preserved that character throughout
the later period, and we have evidence from Açoka’s time onwards of the
existence of Samājas which he condemned, doubtless because of the
fights of animals which took place at them. [92] That Naṭas and
Nartakas were present at such festivals we learn from the Rāmāyaṇa; but
we cannot say whether pantomimes and dancers or actors and dancers are
referred to. Our knowledge, in fact, of the primitive mime is
hypothetical, and it rests in effect on certain considerations which
Professor Hillebrandt adduces to show a popular as opposed to a
religious origin for drama. His view is supported by the general
argument that the drama as comedy is a natural expression of man’s
primitive life of pleasure and appreciation of humour and wit. It is,
however, unnecessary to enter into any examination of this general
principle, which he defends against the theory accepted by Dr. Gray
that it is highly problematical whether any view of pleasure to the
actors or audience is associated with primitive drama. [93] These
ultimate origins are a matter of indifference to the concrete question
of the origin of so late a production as the classical drama of India.
That the mimetic character is natural to man may be granted; the
essential point in question is whether the Sanskrit drama in its
characteristics shows signs of religious or secular origin.
Of the points adduced by Professor Hillebrandt most have clearly no
relevance in the argument. The use of Sanskrit and dialects in the
classical drama is claimed as a proof of popular origin; as has been
explained above, the Prākrit element is due to the fact that the drama
contains an essential popular, but also religious, element, the Kṛṣṇa
worship. The mixture of prose and song, and the union of both with
music and the dance, are as natural on the theory of religious origin
as on that of secular derivation. The simplicity of the Indian stage,
which knows no arrangements for providing changes of scenery, is
certainly no proof of secular origin; the Vedic religion is singularly
sparing in any external apparatus, and there is the strongest
similarity between its practice to mark out altars for its great
sacrifices at pleasure, and to have no regular sacrificial buildings,
and the tradition throughout the Sanskrit dramas which neither requires
nor needs fixed theatres.
The popular origin of the Vidūṣaka is obvious, but the point is whether
this origin is religious or secular, and we have seen that the Vedic
literature offers us in the Brahmin of the Mahāvrata the prototype,
possibly with reminiscences of the Çūdra in the Soma sale, of this
figure, a fact admitted by the supporters of the theory of secular
origin. It is manifestly unnecessary and illegitimate, when the descent
of this figure from the Vedic literature is clear, to insist that it
was borrowed directly from popular usage, for which there is no proof,
but only conjecture.
There remains the argument derived from the fact that the classical
drama usually begins with a dialogue between the Sūtradhāra and the
Naṭī, who is usually represented as his wife; in this we have, it is
said, a reflex of the old popular mime. But an examination of the
practice and theory, as found in Bhāsa and the Nāṭyaçāstra, shows that
we have no simple or naïve arrangement, but a very elaborate literary
device by which the actors bridge over the transition from the
preliminaries of the drama to the drama itself. The preliminaries are
essentially popular religion, and the detail was left largely in the
hands of the Sūtradhāra and his assistants, aided by a chorus of
dancers and by musicians; they are doubtless older than the drama, and
it was an ingenious and happy device which was invented to carry on the
preliminaries, so that the transition to the drama was effective and
satisfactory. It is, however, a perversion of all probability to find
in this item the trace of a primitive popular secular performance.
The evidence, therefore, for a secular origin disappears; it is
curious, indeed, that Professor Hillebrandt [94] himself adduces proof
that the western parallel of the Vidūṣaka is connected with religious
ceremonies rather than a secular creation. But what is most remarkable
of all is that Professor Konow adduces as evidence of the secular
origin of the drama the Yātrās, which are essentially bound up with the
religion of Kṛṣṇa, and the rough dramatic sketches performed at Almora
at the Holi festival, also essentially religious. [95] It is indeed to
ignore how essentially religion enters into the life of the Hindu to
imagine that it is possible to trace the beginnings of drama to a
detached love of amusement. It is apparently difficult for the modern
mind to appreciate that religion may cover matters which to us appear
scarcely connected with it or even repugnant; but this is a delusion
largely due to the narrower and more exalted conception of religion of
the northern and western lands of Europe.
Less plausible still is the attempt of Pischel [96] to find evidence
that the puppet-play is the source of the Sanskrit drama, and that
moreover it has its home in India, whence it has spread over the world.
The curious and odd art may indeed have an Indian origin, but it would
be wholly unwise to suppose that the drama is due to it, nor is the
theory apparently accepted on any side at the present time. The
existence of such a play is attested by the Mahābhārata, [97] though
the antiquity of the device is not thus made clear; in the
Kathāsaritsāgara, following perhaps the Bṛhatkathā of Guṇāḍhya,
possibly of the third century A.D., we hear of a damsel, daughter of
the wonderful craftsman Asura Maya, who amused her companion with
puppets which could speak, dance, fly, fetch water, or pluck and bring
a garland. In the Bālarāmāyaṇa of Rājaçekhara Rāvaṇa is represented as
deceived by a puppet made to resemble Sītā, in whose mouth a parrot was
placed to give his entreaties suitable replies. Shaṅkar Pāṇḍuraṅg
Paṇḍit [98] records of his time that in the Marāṭha and Kanarese
country there are travelling marionette theatres, the only form of
drama known in the villages; the puppets made of wood or paper are
managed by the director, whose style is Sūtradhāra; they can stand or
lie, dance or fight. From this puppet-play, it was suggested, the names
of the Sūtradhāra, as the puller of the strings, and of the Sthāpaka,
arranger, his assistant, passed over to the legitimate drama. The
Vidūṣaka, in Pischel’s view, owed also his origin to the puppet-play.
Professor Hillebrandt [99] has argued against this theory on the ground
that the puppet-play assumes the pre-existence of the drama, on which
it must essentially be based, and he then uses the early date of the
puppet-play as a proof of the still earlier existence of the drama. The
latter argument, however, is unsatisfactory on various grounds. Apart
from the fact that we cannot date the epic references or prove them
earlier than the Mahābhāṣya, we have the doubt whether such a
contention can possibly be justified. The use of puppets is primarily,
of course, derived from the make-belief of children in playing with
dolls; the terms for puppets which denote ‘little daughter’ (putrikā,
puttalī, puttalikā, duhitṛkā), show this clearly enough, and the
popularity of puppets is indicated by the erotic game known as the
imitation of puppets, where the word for puppet (pāñcālī) suggests that
the home of the puppet-play in India was the Pañcāla country. The
growth of the drama doubtless brought with it the use of puppets to
imitate it in brief, and from the drama came the Vidūṣaka, and not vice
versa.
Though Pischel’s theory [100] of the puppet-play as the origin of drama
has failed to find supporters, the shadow play, on whose importance in
India he was the first to lay stress, has emerged in lieu in the hands
of Professor Lüders [101] as an essential element in the development of
the Sanskrit drama, a position accepted by Professor Konow. The place
found for the drama is in connexion with the displays of the Çaubhikas
of the Mahābhāṣya. Owing to the misinterpretation of that passage it is
held that the Çaubhikas were persons who explained matters to the
audience to supplement either dumb actors [102] or shadow figures. It
is admitted by Professor Lüders that there is no proof which of these
two eventualities is correct, but he endeavours both to prove the
existence of the shadow-play in early India and to show that the
Çaubhikas had the function of showing them. Based on this
misinterpretation of the Mahābhāṣya and on the hypotheses—wholly in the
air—which it necessitates, is his view that the influence of the epic
on the drama was conveyed through the use of shadow-figures to
illustrate the epic recitation; this, united with the art of the old
Naṭas, gave birth to drama, though he is not certain whether such a
real drama existed or not at the time of Patañjali, and Konow sets its
appearance much later.
The early evidence adduced for the existence of the shadow-drama is
wholly unreliable. Professor Konow suggests that the term Rūpa used in
the fourth Rock Edict of Açoka, where he speaks of exhibiting
spectacles of the dwellings of the gods, of elephants and bonfires,
refers to a shadow device, in apparent ignorance of the true sense
abundantly illustrated by the attested facts as to the mode of such
representations in Buddhist literature; [103] he accepts the wholly
absurd view that Rūpaka as a name of the drama is derived from such
shadow projections, while in fact it obviously denotes the visible
presentation, the normal and early sense of Rūpa. Equally unfortunate
is the effort to discover that the Sītābengā cave [104] shows signs of
grooves in front, which might have served in connexion with the curtain
necessary for a shadow play, and much more so is the effort to explain
Nepathya, the name of the tiring-room behind the curtain in the
Sanskrit drama, from a misunderstood Prākrit nevaccha, which in its
turn might represent a Sanskrit naipāṭhya—never found—denoting the
place for the reader; apparently the shadows are in this view explained
by some person behind the curtain. The philological combination is
quite impossible.
Pischel’s evidence for the early existence of the shadow-drama is all
of it without value. The term rupparūpakam occurs in v. 394 of the
comparatively old Therīgāthā of the Buddhist Canon, but it may indicate
a puppet-play, and this is rendered very probable by the mention of a
puppet only just before in the text; if not, it doubtless means, as
taken by the commentator, a piece of jugglery, an art always loved in
India; unfortunately the age of the text is uncertain, so that even for
the puppet-play it gives no precise date. It is certain that
rūpadakkha, a term used in the Milindapañha [105]—a work of dubious
date—has no such reference, nor lūpadakha in a cave at Jogīmārā. To
find rūpopajīvana in the Mahābhārata used in the sense of shadow-play
is impossible; the explanation is given by Nīlakaṇṭha, [106] and proves
the existence in his time, the seventeenth century A.D., of the custom,
but the term is used in close proximity with appearing on the stage
(ran̄gāvataraṇa), and there is conclusive evidence that the word refers
to the deplorable immorality of the players, who actually have as a
synonym in the lexicons the style of ‘living by (the dishonour of)
their wives (jāyājīva)’. The same fact explains the term rūpopajīvin
used by Varāhamihira in the sixth century A.D. in proximity to
painters, writers, and singers: the actor is essentially mercenary.
[107] It is impossible to accept the suggestion that the Aindrajālikas,
who appear working magic results in the Ratnāvalī, the
Prabodhacandrodaya, and the Pūrvapīṭhikā of the Daçakumāracarita, were
really shadow-dramatists; Indian magicians are well known even at
present, and the illusions which to some extent they produce have
nothing whatever to do with shadow-plays. The scenes which the magician
describes to the king in the Ratnāvalī were doubtless left to the
imagination of the audience, just as was the apparent fire which burned
the inner apartments and enveloped the princess. To believe in realism
in these cases runs contrary to the stage directions of the play
itself. From the name Çaubhika, with its Prākrit equivalent Sobhiya,
nothing whatever can be made out; the word has no relation to shadows
and is never explained by any authority in that sense.
We are left, therefore, with the evidence to be derived from the term
Chāyānāṭaka, which is interpreted by Pischel as a ‘shadow-drama’, and
is applied to several dramas, among which the oldest which can be dated
with sufficient certainty is the Dūtān̄gada of Subhaṭa in the thirteenth
century A.D. The exact meaning of the term is uncertain, as it might
denote a ‘drama in the state of a shadow’, and this would accord
perfectly with the Dūtān̄gada itself. That such a drama was a
shadow-drama is best supported by the Dharmābhyudaya of
Meghaprabhācārya, [108] which is styled a Chāyānāṭyaprabandha, and in
which a definite stage direction is found directing that, when the king
expresses his intention to become an ascetic, a puppet is to be placed
inside the curtain in the attire of an ascetic. But the date of this
play is uncertain, and it is extremely difficult to argue with any
certainty from it to the Dūtān̄gada; why, it is inevitable to ask,
should the latter play contain no stage direction of this kind? We know
that the shadow-drama arose in some part of India, for Nīlakaṇṭha
recognizes it, but we have no evidence that it existed at the time of
the Dūtān̄gada.
Whatever judgement be passed on this view, [109] and the matter must be
left undecided in the absence of any effective evidence, it is wholly
impossible to accept the argument of Professor Lüders which would take
the Dūtān̄gada as the type of Chāyānāṭaka, and thence deduce that the
Mahānāṭaka and the Haridūta are shadow-dramas. The one Chāyānāṭya which
we know to have been a shadow-drama in fact is an ordinary play without
kinship to the Dūtān̄gada, and the same remark applies to the other
dramas known to us which are styled Chāyānāṭakas. There are, however,
points of similarity between the Dūtān̄gada and the Mahānāṭaka; the
prevalence of verse, often epic in character, over prose, the absence
of Prākrit, the large number of characters, and the omission of the
Vidūṣaka, which explain themselves easily in the latter case by the
assumption that we have literary drama before us, a play never intended
to be acted. The conviction is strengthened by the shameless
plagiarisms of the plays from earlier Rāma dramas. In any case,
however, we are dealing with the late developments of the Sanskrit
drama, and it is clear that nothing can be gained from any assumption
of a part played by the shadow-play in the evolution of the Sanskrit
drama. Even on Professor Lüders’s own interpretation of the Mahābhāṣya,
all that is requisite is dumb players, and this form of drama is
attested for India in modern times.
That the Sūtradhāra and Sthāpaka derive their names from manipulating
the puppets for either the puppet- or the shadow-drama is a suggestion
which, though recently repeated by Dr. Hultzsch, cannot be regarded as
plausible. [110] The term Sthāpaka is colourless, and may merely denote
‘performer’; if it comes from the puppet-play, it is difficult to see
why such a person was needed beside the Sūtradhāra, who moved the
strings. Moreover, the theory recognizes the Sūtradhāra clearly as the
man who lays out the temporary playhouse needed for the exhibition, and
this sense passes easily over into that of director; this derivation is
preferable on the whole to the other, accepted by Professor
Hillebrandt, [111] which would make him the man who knows the rules of
his art.
The shadow-play, we have seen, cannot have influenced the progress of
the early drama, and we may, therefore, leave aside the question
whether it does not essentially presuppose the drama, as Professor
Hillebrandt contends; the parallel from Java adduced to refute this
opinion is clearly wholly inadequate, unless and until it can be proved
that the shadow play sprang up in Java without any previous knowledge
of real drama.
5. GREEK INFLUENCE ON THE SANSKRIT DRAMA
It is undoubtedly a matter far from easy for any people to create from
materials such as existed in India a true drama, and it was a perfectly
legitimate suggestion of Weber’s [112] that the necessary impetus to
creation may have been given by the contact of Greece with India,
through the representation of Greek plays at the courts of the kings in
Baktria, the Punjab, and Gujarāt, who brought with them Greek culture
as well as Greek forces. This view suffered modification in view of
further consideration of the evidence of an Indian drama in the
Mahābhāṣya, and the final opinion of Weber was content with the view
that a certain influence might have been exerted by the Greek on the
Sanskrit drama. The vehement repudiation of this opinion by Pischel
[113] was followed by the elaborate effort of Windisch [114] to trace
the extent of the influence which he believed he could establish.
Windisch’s attitude is of special importance because he recognizes
fully the elements which made for the development of an independent
Indian drama, the epic recitations and the mimetic art of the Naṭa,
whose name indicated, as a Prākritism of the root nṛt, dance, that he
was at first a dancer, in the Indian sense of the term, that is one who
represents by his postures and gestures emotions of varied kinds, or,
in the terminology of the Greek and Roman stage, a pantomime. But he
insists on the distinction between the dramatization of the epic
material suggested by the Mahābhāṣya, and the features of the classical
form of the drama. The subject-matter differs, heroic and mythic
figures are presented in the relations of everyday life, the chief
theme is a comedy of love, the plot is artistically developed and the
action divided into scenes, character types are developed, the epic
element recedes before the development of dialogue, verse is mingled
with prose, Sanskrit with Prākrit. The change is remarkable; was it
aided by the influence of the Greek drama? Admittedly on any theory we
must allow for powerful causes to produce so splendid a development,
and it would be idle to ignore the possibility of such influence.
Since Windisch wrote, the extent of Greek influence on India before and
after the Christian era has been the subject of much investigation,
which has yielded its richest fruits in the sphere of art. That India
borrowed the incitement to the art of Gandhāra from Greece as its
ultimate source is undeniable, and it is equally clear that the
Buddhist adoption of the practice of depicting the human form of the
Buddha, in lieu of merely indicating his presence by some symbol such
as his seat, was due to Greek artistic influences. The extent to which
the rise of the Mahāyāna school of Buddhism was furthered by the influx
of religious and philosophical ideas from the west is still uncertain;
but it is noteworthy that Professor Lévi, [115] who most strongly
opposed the theory of Windisch, has himself attributed to western
influences the development of the new spirit in Buddhism which he
traces in Açvaghoṣa, whom he places in the entourage of Kaniṣka, dating
the former in the first century B.C. If this were the case, there would
be decided difficulties in maintaining any chronological objections
such as Professor Lévi [116] originally urged to the theory of
Windisch; when he attacked that theory he could place the earliest
Sanskrit dramas preserved, those of Kālidāsa in his view, five or six
centuries A.D. But now we have dramas of about A.D. 100 which are
certainly not the earliest of their type, and it is impossible to deny
that the Sanskrit drama came into being during the period when Greek
influence was present in India. The highest point of that influence
politically was doubtless attained under Menander; in the middle of the
first century B.C., roughly a century after Menander’s conquests, the
Greek princes were on the verge of being absorbed by new influences
culminating in the establishment of the Kuṣana [117] domination, but
there is nothing chronologically difficult in assuming the influence of
Greek drama on the drama in India.
The question, however, arises how far there was actual presentation at
the courts of Greek princes in India of dramatic entertainments. On
this topic the evidence is no doubt scanty. [118] We know indeed that
Alexander was fond of theatrical spectacles with which he amused
himself in the intervals allowed by his victories, and we hear that at
Ekbatana there were no fewer than three thousand Greek artists who had
come from Greece. We are told also that the children of the Persians,
the Gedrosians and the people of Susa, sang the dramas of Euripides and
Sophokles; if we are to believe Philostratos’s Life of Apollonios of
Tyana, [119] a Brahmin boasted that he had read the Herakleidai of
Euripides, and Plutarch has described in inimitable fashion the strange
scene at the court of Orodes of Parthia when the messenger arrived,
bearing the head of Crassus, and the actor Iason substituted the
ghastly relic for the head of Pentheus in the Bakchai, which he was
then performing. We need not doubt from these and other passages the
existence of performances of Greek dramas throughout the provinces
which formed the Empire of Alexander; the scepticism of Professor Lévi
[120] in this regard is clearly inadmissible. It is perfectly true that
of dramatic performances in India we have no express mention, but in
view of the miserably scanty information we possess regarding these
principalities of the Greeks in India there is nothing surprising in
the fact. Nor is it likely that princes who could employ artists of
sufficient ability to produce beautiful coins would be indifferent to
what is after all the greatest literary creation of Greece.
Nor can we lay much stress on the difficulty of India borrowing
anything from the Greek drama, owing to the great difference between
the two civilizations, Indian exclusiveness, Indian ignorance of
foreign languages, or similar general considerations, because we have
really no evidence of value of the feelings and actions of the Indians
during the period when the Greek invasion was only the forerunner of
invasions by Parthians, Çakas, and Kuṣanas, followed by other less
famous but not unimportant immigrants, whose advent vitally affected
the population and civilization of the north-west of India. It is plain
that in the Gupta dynasty of the fourth century A.D. we find a great
Hindu revival, but a revival which evidently drew strength primarily
from the east, and we do not know anything definite to enable us to
reason a priori on what was, or was not, possible as regards
assimilation of the drama. The only decisive evidence possible is that
of the actual plays, and unfortunately the results to be attained by
examination of them are not at all satisfactory.
It is held by Windisch that the New Attic Comedy, which flourished from
340–260 B.C., must be deemed the source of influence on Indian drama;
the fact that no mention of this comedy is specifically made in the few
notices we have of drama in the east is doubtless not of importance. On
the other hand, we know that Alexandria under the Lagidai became a
great centre of Greek learning, and that between Alexandria and
Ujjayinī through the port of Barygaza [121] there was a brisk exchange
of trade which may have aided in intellectual contact, [122] perhaps
especially in the period when Menander’s conquests gave Greek products
of every sort a special vogue. The new comedy by its making its subject
of the everyday life of man was far more suited than any other form of
drama to attract imitation.
The actual points of contact between the New Comedy and the Sanskrit
drama are, however, scanty. The division of both the Roman drama [123]
and the Sanskrit into acts, distinguished by the departure of all the
actors from the stage and the number of five as normal, though often
exceeded in India, are facts which need not be more than casual
coincidences: the divisions in the Sanskrit drama rest on an analysis
of the action which is not recorded in Greece or Rome. There is
similarity in the scenic conventions, in the asides, in the entry and
exit of characters, more notably in the practice that the advent of a
new character is usually expressly notified to the audience by a remark
from one of the actors already on the stage. But these are all matters
which must almost inevitably coincide in theatrical performances
produced under approximately similar conditions. Even in the modern
theatre with its programmes the necessity of indicating at once the
identity of the new comers to the stage is keenly felt.
More value attaches to the argument from the use of Yavanikā, [124] or
its Prākrit form Javanikā, for the name of the curtain which covered
the tiring room and formed the background of the stage. The word
primarily is an adjective meaning Ionian, the Greeks with whom India
first came into contact. But it was not confined to what was Greek in
the strict sense of the word; it applies to anything connected with the
Hellenized Persian Empire, Egypt, Syria, Bactria, and it therefore
cannot be rigidly limited to what is Greek. As applied to the curtain
it is an adjective, and describes doubtless the material of the curtain
(paṭī, apaṭī) as foreign, possibly as Lévi suggests, Persian tapestry
brought to India by Greek ships and merchants. The word Yavanikā has no
special application to the curtain of the theatre, as would be the
case, if it were borrowed as a detail of stage arrangement from Greece.
Nor in fact was there any curtain in the case of Greek drama, so far as
is known, from which it could be borrowed; Windisch’s contention merely
was that the curtain was called Greek because it took the place of the
painted scenery at the back of the Greek stage.
As little can any conclusion of Greek borrowing be drawn from the
Yavanīs, Greek maidens, who are represented as among the body-guard of
the king; [125] for this the Greek drama offers no parallel; it
represents the fondness of the princes of India [126] for the
fascinating hetaerae of Greece, and the readiness of Greek traders to
make the high profits to be derived from shipping these youthful
cargoes.
The points of resemblance in regard to the plot are of interest. There
is some similarity between the stock theme of the Nāṭikā, the love of a
king for a maiden, hindered by various obstacles, and finally
successful through events which reveal her as a princess, destined for
him in marriage but concealed in this aspect by some accident, and the
New Comedy picture of the youth whose affection for a fair lady,
apparently of status which forbids marriage by Attic law, but in
reality of equal birth, is finally rewarded by the discovery of the
mark which leads to her identification. The use of a mark of
recognition is undoubtedly common in both dramas. We have in the
Çakuntalā the ring [127] which gives part of the title of the play
Abhijñāna-Çakuntalā, and in the Vikramorvaçī the stone of reunion
(saṁgamamaṇi) which enables Purūravas to recognise his beloved despite
her change into a creeper. In the Ratnāvalī we have the necklace which
permits the identification of the heroine; in the Nāgānanda, the jewel
which, falling from the sky, denotes the fate of the prince; in the
Mālatīmādhava the garland plucked by Mādhava, worn by Mālatī, which
Saudāminī produces at the dénouement as a sign of recognition; and in
the Mṛcchakaṭikā the clay cart in which are placed the jewels used as
evidence against the hero. In the same general category fall the ring
of the queen in the Mālavikāgnimitra, which the Vidūṣaka obtains from
her in order to cure a snake-bite, and employs to bring about the
release of Mālavikā; the arrow of Āyus, in the Vikramorvaçī, which
reveals to Purūravas his son; and the seal of Rākṣasa in the
Mudrārākṣasa of which Cāṇakya makes use to confound his schemes. In
some cases the similarity of use of these emblems is close; Mālavikā,
taken away by brigands, and Ratnāvalī, rescued from the sea, are real
parallels to the heroine of the Rudens, stolen from her father by a
brigand, sold to a leno and wrecked on the Sicilian coast, whose
recognition is brought about by the discovery of her childish
ornaments.
These are striking facts, and the only way to meet them is to show that
the motifs in Sanskrit drama have an earlier history in the literature,
and can, therefore, be regarded as natural developments. The difficulty
presented here is that the literature available consists either of
tales, which in any form available to us are later than the period of
the supposed Greek influence, or the epic which is of uncertain date,
so that no strict proof is available that any of its minor issues
antedates the Christian era. But we do find in the epic indications
that it was not necessary for Greece to give to India the ideas
presented in the drama. The story of the love of Kīcaka for Draupadī,
when disguised as handmaiden she served Sudeṣṇā, wife of the king
Virāṭa, has a tragic outcome, for his love is repulsed, but it has
undoubted affinities with the plot of the Nāṭikā. In the case of the
old tale of Nala and Damayantī, the heroine is more happy, for, when
separated from her husband who has abandoned her in the distraction of
losing his kingdom at dice, she lives in peace, guarded securely from
interference; at last she is recognized by a birthmark. In the Rāmāyaṇa
the use of signs of this sort is extended to artificial modes: Sītā,
stolen away from Rāma, drops her jewels to the ground; the monkeys bear
them to their king, who hands them to Rāma, and the hero thus knows
beyond a peradventure the identity of the ravisher. To console her in
her detention pending his efforts at rescue he sends Hanumant to her,
bearing his messages, and gives him his ring to serve to identify him;
Sītā sees it and takes heart. We may admit that such incidents are
almost inevitable in a primitive society, in which the means of
identification were necessarily material, or personal. Nor in the
Sanskrit drama is there any preponderant use of this factor; the letter
and the portrait [128] are other means, the use of which is recognized
in the theory.
The evidence of borrowing based on the Mṛcchakaṭikā by Windisch
requires reconsideration in the light of the facts now known regarding
the authority of that drama for the early Sanskrit drama. To Windisch
it seemed to present every appearance of an early age, and to show
close relations to a Greek model. The title he compared with the
Cistellaria, ‘little chest’, or the Aulularia, ‘little pot’; the
mixture of a political intrigue and a love drama with the mention—only
incidental however—of political events contemporaneous with the action
in Plautus’s Epidicus and Captivi; the court scene he held to be of
Greek inspiration; the meeting of Cārudatta and Vasantasenā he compared
with that of the hero and heroine of the Cistellaria; the theft of
Çarvilaka, in order to buy the freedom of the slave girl he loves, to
the dishonest means adopted by the hero in the new comedy to procure
means to purchase his inamorata; the setting free of the slave by
Vasantasenā with the attaining of the position of a freedwoman in the
Greek drama; finally the elevation of Vasantasenā to the rank of a
woman of good character to permit of her legal marriage to Cārudatta is
compared with the discovery in the Greek drama of the existence of a
free status as the birthright of the maiden whom the hero loves. The
Mṛcchakaṭikā, however, is not an early representative of the Indian
drama in the sense held by Windisch; it is based on the Cārudatta of
Bhāsa, in which there is no mingling of the political and love
intrigue, at any rate as we have that play; the title Mṛcchakaṭikā,
which departs from the usual model, was probably deliberately chosen to
distinguish the new drama from the old. The plays cited have no real
combination of political and love intrigues, and the other parallels
are far too vague to be taken seriously. The raising of Vasantasenā to
a new status is an extraordinary event, which is dependent on an action
of the new king Āryaka, who, as an overthrower of the former monarch,
exercises the supreme right of sovereignty in favour of the lady, in
defiance of the rules of caste. The political intrigue thus becomes a
vital element in the play.
Nor can any special value be ascribed to the rule, which is laid down
in the theory, and observed in practice, and which confines the events
in an act to the limits of a single day, as compared with the rule of
Aristotle [129] that the events of a drama should not exceed, or only
by a little, the duration of a day. If the rule was borrowed, it was
greatly changed in sense by permitting long periods, up to a year, to
elapse between the acts in the Sanskrit drama, and the mere moral needs
of the approximation to reality requisite for illusion would produce
the state of the Sanskrit drama without external influence.
The characters of the drama present problems which are not solved by
the theory of borrowing. The figure of the queen, loving her husband,
noble and dignified, is compared by Windisch with that of the matrona
of the Roman comedy, while her attempts to prevent the union of her
husband and the new love are compared to the efforts of the senex to
dissuade his son from a rash marriage or intrigue. But it is clear that
the comparisons are idle; the rivalry of the old love and the new is an
incident of the life of the harem inevitable in polygamy, while it
affords an admirable opportunity for the poet to depict the contrast of
types and the different aspects of love, his chief theme. Windisch,
however, lays most stress on his comparison of the three figures of the
Viṭa, Vidūṣaka, and Çakāra, with the parasite, the servus currens, and
the miles gloriosus of the Greek drama, and his arguments have a
certain weight. It is true that these three, with the Sūtradhāra and
his assistant, are given by the Nāṭyaçāstra in a list of actors, and
that the five correspond fairly closely with the male personnel of a
Greek drama; it is also true that, while Kālidāsa and the Mṛcchakaṭikā
with the Cārudatta know the Çakāra, he vanishes from the later drama,
and the Viṭa shows comparatively little life, suggesting that the Greek
borrowings were gradually felt unsuited to India and died a natural
death. But the argument is inadequate to prove borrowing. The Viṭa is,
indeed, more closely akin to the parasite than to any other character
of the Greek or Roman comedy, but the parasite is lacking in the
refinement and culture of his Indian counterpart, who is clearly drawn
from life, the witty and accomplished companion who is paid to amuse
his patron, but whose dependence does not make him the object of
insolence and bad jokes. The Vidūṣaka has, in all likelihood, as has
been seen, his origin in the religious drama; his Brahmin caste, and
his use of Prākrit can best thus be explained. The alternative views
all present far more difficulties; the transformance of the slave into
a Brahmin is far too violent a change to be credible, while Lévi’s
[130] view which makes him a borrowing from the Prākrit drama, which
depicted with truth the type of Brahmin who serves as go-between in
love affairs, masking his degraded trade under the cloak of religion,
renders it unintelligible why the Brahmins should have consented to
maintain him in the Sanskrit drama. Equally unconvincing is Professor
Konow’s [131] effort to explain him as a figure of the popular drama,
which loved to make fun of the higher classes, especially the Brahmins.
There was no conceivable reason why the Brahmins should have kept such
a figure in a drama which never appealed to the lower classes, and it
is significant that there is no trace of a comic figure of the Kṣatriya
class, although the populace doubtless was as willing to make fun of
the rulers as of the priests. The similarity between the Çakāra and the
miles gloriosus is by no means small, but the argument from borrowing
is refuted by the reflexion that such a figure can be explained
perfectly easily from the actual life of India in the period of Bhāsa
and the Mṛcchakaṭikā, when mercenary soldiers must have been painfully
familiar to Indians.
The number of actors is certainly not in accord with the Greek
practice; not only has Bhāsa large numbers, but the Çakuntalā has
thirty, the Mṛcchakaṭikā twenty-nine, the Vikramorvaçī eighteen, the
Mudrārākṣasa twenty-four, and it is only in the later and less
inventive Bhavabhūti that we find but thirteen in the Mālatīmādhava and
eleven in the Uttararāmacarita.
The prologue in both dramas serves the purpose of announcing the
author’s name, the title of the play, and the desire of the dramatist
for a sympathetic reception, but the Indian prologue is closely
attached to the preliminaries, and has a definite and independent
character of its own in the conversation between the Sūtradhāra and his
wife, the chief actress, so that borrowing is out of the question. Nor
does any importance attach to the fact that Çiva, who is in a special
sense the patron of drama, is the nearest Indian representative of
Dionysos, or that the time of the festival at which plays were often
shown was spring, as in the case of the Great Dionysia at Athens when
new plays were usually presented. There is similarity between the
Protagonist and the Sūtradhāra, for both undertake the leading parts in
the drama, but this and other minor points such as can be adduced are
of no value as proofs of historical connexion.
Windisch admitted that in regard to the theatrical buildings there was
no possibility of comparison, as the Indian theatre was not permanent,
but Bloch [132] has endeavoured to show that the Sītābengā cave theatre
has marked affinities to the Greek. The attempt, however, is clearly a
failure; the construction of the whole is merely that of a small
amphitheatre cut out in the rock for a small audience without any
special similarity to the Greek theatre of any period.
More recently the tendency of those who seek to find Greek influence in
the making of the Sanskrit drama has turned to the mime as the form of
art which exercised influence on India, and the older arguments of
Windisch have been given a new shape and in part strengthened in this
regard. [133] The mime was performed without masks and buskins, as was
the Indian drama. Moreover the mime, at any rate in Roman hands, had a
curtain (siparium), which may be compared with the curtain of India.
There was also no scene painting in the mime; different dialects were
used, and the number of actors was considerable. Further, some of the
standing types of the mime may be paralleled in the Indian drama; the
zēlotypos has some similarity to the Çakāra, the mōkos to the Vidūṣaka.
Some of the arguments adduced against this theory of Reich’s are
admittedly untenable. It is impossible to argue as does Professor Konow
that the use of the Mṛcchakaṭikā as a work of early date is a mistake,
since the oldest dramas preserved are of quite another type and have no
similarity with Greek works. True, the Mṛcchakaṭikā is not as old as it
was thought, but the Cārudatta can be substituted in lieu, and there
are no dramas older than it, save those of the same author and some
fragments of Buddhist drama. Nor have we any very satisfactory evidence
of a mime in India at an early date, for a mime means a great deal more
than the mere work of a Naṭa. But there are adequate grounds for
disregarding the theory. The similarity of types is not at all
convincing; the borrowing of the idea of using different dialects from
the mime is really absurd, and the large number of actors is equally
natural in either case. The argument from the curtain is wholly without
probative power; as we have seen, the term Yavanikā refers to material
only; it would be very remarkable that the term Greek should be
confined to the curtain alone, if the stage were really a Greek
borrowing, and, last not least, we have no proof that the Greek mime
had the curtain. The new form of the theory must, therefore, claim no
more credence than the old. We cannot assuredly deny [134] the
possibility of Greek influence, in the sense that Weber admitted the
probability; the drama, or the mime, may, as played at Greek courts,
have aided in the development of a true drama, but the evidence leaves
only a negative answer to the search for positive signs of influence.
There are, undoubtedly, certain considerations which a priori tell
against borrowing; to judge from the Roman borrowings from Greece and
those of France from the classics, the trace of imitation if it were
real would be clear and emphatic. But we can hardly place very great
faith in arguments from analogy; India has a strange genius for
converting what it borrows and assimilating it, as it did in the case
of the image of the Buddha which it fabricated from Greek models. More
important is the possibility of tracing the sources of the dramas in
the epic and the tales, though here the difficulty of dates prevents
the demonstration being complete. The epic and undramatic character of
the Sanskrit drama is true enough, but not universally applicable, and
the argument is liable to be turned by adopting the view that only
Greek influence is contended for, not the exclusion of Indian native
influences. The typical nature of the characters, adduced by Professor
Konow as a point of difference, seems to indicate a forgetfulness that
the Greek drama, and especially the New Comedy, is rich in types, and
that the mime depicts types. Nor in that comedy do we find any
particularly effective heightening of interest or development of the
situation from the characters of the persons, or solutions produced
without recourse to cutting the knot by artificial means. In all these
matters indeed the Indian drama rather is akin to the Greek than
otherwise.
6. THE ÇAKAS AND THE SANSKRIT DRAMA
Professor Lévi, [135] whose opposition to Windisch regarding the
possibility of Greek influence on the Indian drama has been noted, is
himself responsible for the suggestion that the rise of the Sanskrit
drama, as opposed to the more popular religious drama in Prākrit, is to
be attributed to the Çakas, whose advent to India was one of the causes
of the rapid decadence of the Greek principalities in the north-west.
The theory is based on a general view of the elevation of Sanskrit to
the rank of the language of literature, as opposed to its restriction
to use as the learned and sacred language of the Brahmins. The
inscriptions, on the whole, show that Sanskrit as an epigraphic
language was introduced by Rudradāman whose Girnār inscription of A.D.
150 is wholly in Sanskrit, though Sanskrit appears in part in
Uṣavadāta’s inscription of A.D. 124. The Western Kṣatrapas, of Çaka
origin, were, he holds, the first to bring Sanskrit down to earth,
while not vulgarizing it, as contrasted with the Hindu and orthodox
Çātakarṇis of the Deccan who retained Prākrit in their inscriptions
down to the third century A.D. The character of the Çakāra may be
regarded in this light; in its hostility to the Çakas it reveals a
period when either a prince was opposed to the Çaka rule, or the Çaka
dominion had just fallen and was fresh in the minds of the people. The
Mṛcchakaṭikā may retain a confused version of the events of the second
century A.D. A specific connexion between the Çakas and the creation of
drama may be seen in the terminology of the Nāṭyaçāstra, and that of
their inscriptions. Rudradāman refers to his grandfather Caṣṭana as
Svāmin and Sugṛhītanāman, and Svāmin is freely used in the epigraphic
records of the kings of the line from Nahapāna (A.D. 78) onwards.
Further Rudrasena in A.D. 205, in referring to his royal ancestors,
Caṣṭana, Jayadāman, Rudradāman, and Rudrasena, gives them the epithet
of Bhadramukha, ‘of gracious countenance’. These terms, Lévi argues,
correspond with the use laid down in the Nāṭyaçāstra, which must have
borrowed from contemporary official usage. Further, Rudradāman uses the
term Rāṣṭriya as applying to Puṣyagupta, who under Candragupta, the
Maurya, some four and a half centuries earlier established the
reservoir which he had repaired, and this term occurs in the Çakuntalā
and the Mṛcchakaṭikā in the sense of brother-in-law of the king, the
sense given to it in the Amarakoça, the earliest Sanskrit lexicon of
established authority. To these considerations may be added that
Ujjayinī, the capital of the Western Kṣatrapas of Mālava, is a centre,
round which as a fan radiate the three great literary Prākrits of the
drama, Çaurasenī, Māgadhī, and Māhārāṣṭrī, thus accounting for their
use, which else would be difficult to explain.
Lévi’s suggestion, which was accompanied by an admission that the
Mṛcchakaṭikā or its source was older than he had formerly argued, and
that the possibility of Greek influence was thus increased, has been
accepted by Professor Konow [136] with the important modification that
in face of the fact that the oldest dramas known to us, the fragments
of Açvaghoṣa and those of Bhāsa, ignore Māhārāṣṭrī and that Çaurasenī
is the normal prose tongue, he accepts Mathurā as the home of the
drama, and ascribes it to about the middle of the first century A.D.
This view he supports by the fact that the rulers of Mathurā were also
Çaka Kṣatrapas, or Satraps, whose control extends back at least to the
beginning of the first century A.D.
It may be feared that neither theory will stand critical investigation,
however tempting it may be to obtain an exact date for the Sanskrit
drama. The discovery of Açvaghoṣa’s fragments shows that the drama has
already attained a very definite and complete form, and we really
cannot with any probability assume that the creation of drama preceded
this by no more than a century. Even a century, however, brings us
further back than the middle of the first century A.D., for Konow’s
date of Kaniṣka, about A.D. 150, [137] is probably considerably too
late, and should be placed fifty years earlier at least. We are thus
separated from Rudradāman by a period of 150 years, probably more, and
the theory that the Western Kṣatrapas introduced Sanskrit into the
drama falls hopelessly to the ground on chronological considerations
alone.
The argument from the use of technical terms is clearly untenable. That
Rāṣṭriya in Rudradāman’s inscription has the sense of ‘brother-in-law’
is not supported by the slightest evidence, and is most improbable; the
term doubtless denotes governor, and the restricted use is a later
development. The use of Svāmin as the mode of addressing the king is
not recorded in the Nāṭyaçāstra, and to argue that it, being given in
the Daçarūpa and the Sāhityadarpaṇa, must be borrowed from Bharata, as
Konow does, is quite impossible. On the contrary, Bharata [138] gives
the style to the Yuvarāja, or Crown Prince, presumably as distinct from
the king. In the extant dramas after Bhāsa it is not used of the king
or Crown Prince. Sugṛhītanāman, denoting perhaps ‘whose name is uttered
with respect’, has no parallel in Bharata; only in the later theory do
we find Sugṛhītābhidha, which, however, is prescribed merely for the
address of a pupil, child, or younger brother to a teacher, father, or
elder brother, and therefore stands in no conceivable relation to the
term used by Rudradāman. Bhadramukha is the address to a royal prince
in Bharata; it is used of kings by Rudrasena, and the literature
ignores the specific or royal use. The lack of accord is complete and
convincing; if the drama had originated under the Western Kṣatrapas of
Ujjayinī, it would not have been so flagrantly out of harmony with the
official language.
The whole error of these arguments rests in the belief that the drama
developed as a Prākrit drama before it was turned into Sanskrit. The
same theory has been applied to every department of secular Sanskrit
literature without either plausibility or success; the Mahābhāṣya knows
Sanskrit Kāvya before any Prākrit Kāvya is recorded. [139] But, apart
from this, it is essential to remember that the drama was religious in
origin and essentially connected with epic recitations, and that for
both reasons Sanskrit claimed in it a rightful place from the
inception. It is certain that the recitations known by Patañjali were
in Sanskrit, and it is difficult in the extreme to understand how in
the view of Lévi and Konow a Prākrit drama proper ever came into being.
Before the coalescence of the epic recitation and the primitive mime
believed in by Konow, there cannot have been any drama on his own
theory; when they coalesced, Sanskrit must have from the first been
present.
The discovery of Açvaghoṣa’s fragments undoubtedly helps greatly to
bring the creation of the drama very close up to the time of Patañjali,
if not to that date. The first century B.C. can with fair certainty be
assumed to be the very latest period at which the appearance of a
genuine Sanskrit drama can be placed. If indeed Professor Lüders’s
former date for Kaniṣka were correct and he were the founder of the
Vikrama era of 57 B.C., [140] then the Sanskrit drama must be dated a
century at least earlier, and we would have the paradoxical position
that on Professor Lüders’s date of Açvaghoṣa he must place the drama at
not later than Patañjali, while when dealing with the Mahābhāṣya
evidence he doubts the existence of the drama. Professor Lüders has
overlooked this dilemma, which, however, we may evade on his behalf by
recognising that he erred in assigning to Kaniṣka a date which the
evidence available in 1911 already showed to be quite untenable.
7. THE EVIDENCE OF THE PRĀKRITS
The discovery of Açvaghoṣa’s fragments not only disposes effectively of
Professor Lévi’s dating of the rise of Sanskrit drama, since he
probably preceded Rudradāman by at least half a century, but it casts a
vivid light on the question of the Prākrits and Sanskrit. It must be
remembered that Açvaghoṣa was the exponent of a faith which had
originally insisted on the use of the vernacular as opposed to
Sanskrit, and that it is absurd to imagine that it would have occurred
to him to use Sanskrit in dramas of Buddhist inspiration and aim, had
not the use of that language been established in the drama of the day.
This leads us back once more to the conclusion that the drama from the
outset was written in part at least in Sanskrit, and that, therefore,
it stands in genetic relation with the dramatic recitations described
by Patañjali which were in Sanskrit.
That the drama was also in part in Prākrit from the outset seems
extremely probable. The mere recitation of the epic indeed did not
demand any intervention of Prākrit, but that such recitations by
themselves would produce a true drama is most improbable, and we may
legitimately hold that it was only the union of these recitations with
action from the religious contest that produced the drama. In that
contest we may assume that the lower classes were represented and spoke
their own language; in the Vedic Mahāvrata we cannot suppose that the
Çūdra who contested the right of the Vaiçya to the symbol of the sun
spoke in Sanskrit, nor that the Brahmin and the hetaera exchanged their
ritual abuse in the classical tongue, or its Vedic antecedent. The
religious festival in which Kṛṣṇa appeared as slaying Kaṅsa must
similarly have demanded the use of the vernacular by the humbler
members of those who took part in it. The fact that Prākrit appears
mainly in the dialogue, Sanskrit pre-eminently in verses, strengthens
the view that the new drama derived its verse in the main from the epic
recitation, its prose dialogue from the religious contest. The two
elements never entirely merged; the Vidūṣaka who comes from one side of
the religious ceremonial, that which in Greece lies at the basis of
comedy as opposed to tragedy, is not a figure normal in the dramas of
mainly epic inspiration; but this is not enough to prove that the drama
ever in its early days was merely in Sanskrit. It may indeed have been
the case; Bhāsa’s Dūtavākya has no Prākrit, and so far the probability
is rather for than against it, as an alternative form.
The question how many Prākrits were used in the primitive Sanskrit
drama presents difficulties. The obvious conclusion is that the
vernacular employed would be that of the region where the drama came
into being, and that this was the Çūrasena country is not to be denied.
Çaurasenī in fact appears throughout as the normal prose of the drama;
it is the language of the Vidūṣaka and the hetaera and normally of all
the characters of a play who are born in Āryāvarta, and no other
dialect even in theory vies with it in importance. The theory and the
practice after Bhāsa ascribe to Māhārāṣṭrī the honour of the language
of verses sung by maidens who would in prose speak Çaurasenī. There can
be no doubt that this is not primitive, but is a reflex of the growth
and development of the fame of the artificial lyric poetry of which we
have an anthology under the name of Hāla, perhaps to be ascribed to the
third or fifth century A.D. [141]
To what extent any other Prākrit was used in the earliest drama we
cannot effectively determine. Bhāsa has only, besides Çaurasenī,
Māgadhī of two kinds, and a few hints of what may be styled
Ardha-Māgadhī, while Açvaghoṣa has three dialects which suggest much
older forms of Çaurasenī, Māgadhī, and Ardha-Māgadhī. The use of these
dialects for characters by Açvaghoṣa explains itself naturally from his
familiarity with the Buddhist scriptures whose original was very
probably in something approximating to the Ardha-Māgadhī [142] he knew,
and the fact that the speaker of Old Māgadhī is the Duṣṭa, or bad man,
reminds us of the bad character enjoyed [143] by the Magadha. Lévi’s
[144] suggestion that the Māgadhī of the drama comes from its epic
element, and that the Māgadhas were the reciters of Prākrit epic
compositions, is clearly untenable, and indeed seems to have been later
abandoned by its author in favour of the suggestion that the Prākrits
of the drama were evolved, because the drama was produced at Ujjayinī,
which was a meeting place of different dialectical forms. This theory
might be revised to adapt it to making Mathurā the headquarters of the
drama and Māgadhī and Ardha-Māgadhī the other dialects, but the
restricted use of anything but Çaurasenī by Bhāsa suggests that the
introduction of other Prākrits was a gradual process. In point of fact
it never attained great vitality, and in the developed drama Çaurasenī
and Māhārāṣṭrī alone play any real part. The ground for the more
extended use of dialects when found may be attributed to literary
purposes rather than to any attempt to imitate the speech of the day,
as Sir George Grierson [145] has suggested. The ground for this
conclusion, apart from the improbability of so great an effort at
realism, is that the dialects used for instance even in the
Mṛcchakaṭikā are clearly literary and not attempts to reproduce true
vernaculars.
The stage reached by the Prākrits of Açvaghoṣa shows clearly how late
are the Prākrits of the orthodox classical drama, [146] and reminds us
how much more closely akin to Sanskrit must have been the Prākrit of
the drama of the time of, or shortly after, Patañjali. The classical
drama with its broken-down forms of Prākrit gives a false impression of
the original dramatic form in which either perhaps Sanskrit alone, if
the matter were epic, or both Sanskrit and a closely akin Çaurasenī
appeared.
8. THE LITERARY ANTECEDENTS OF THE DRAMA
The drama owes in part its origin to the epics of India; from them
throughout its history it derives largely its inspiration, far more
truly so indeed than Greek tragedy as compared with the Greek epic.
[147] From the epics also developed the Kāvya, the refined and polished
epic, which appears at its best in the Kumārasambhava and Raghuvaṅça of
Kālidāsa. The parallelism between the developed form of both is close
and striking. The Sāhityadarpaṇa [148] lays down that it is a
composition in several cantos, the hero a god or Kṣatriya of high race,
of the type noble and superior; if there are several heroes, they are
persons of royal rank of one family. The sentiment which predominates
is the erotic, the heroic, or occasionally that of calm; the others
serve in a subsidiary rôle. The subject-matter is either taken from
tradition or not, but the heroes must be virtuous. The work begins with
a prayer, a benediction, or an indication of the subject-matter. The
development of the story employs the same five junctures as the theory
prescribes for the drama. One or other of the four aims of man, wealth,
love, performance of duty, or release, is to be attained by the action.
The number of cantos is not to be less than eight; each should end in a
different metre, and should announce the subject of the following act.
Descriptions of every kind are essential; objects of these are the
different times of day, the sun, the moon, night, the dawn, twilight,
darkness, morning, midday, the hunt, mountains, the seasons, forests,
the ocean, the sky, a town, the pleasures of love, the misery of
separation from one’s beloved, a sacrifice, a battle, the march of an
army, a marriage, the birth of a son, all of which should be developed
in appropriate detail.
The essential feature of these little epics is the enormous development
of the art of description, and the feature occurs in the other forms of
narrative literature, the Kathā, tale, and the Ākhyāyikā, romance,
types which blend with each other. Whether the subject be an imaginary
theme, as is the Vāsavadattā of Subandhu, or a historical one, as in
the Harṣacarita of Bāṇa, we find nothing treated as really important
save the descriptions as contrasted with the narrative. The Sanskrit
lyric also, in Kālidāsa’s masterpiece, the Meghadūta, is essentially
descriptive, as is the Prākrit lyric preserved in the collection of
Hāla, which is based on the model of an older lyric in Sanskrit, whose
existence is revealed to us by the Mahābhāṣya.
The love of description, however, is not new; it is a characteristic of
the epic itself, and the Rāmāyaṇa in special shows us how the way for
the court poetry was being prepared. [149] Hence the fact that the
verses of the drama are overwhelmingly descriptive, when not gnomic in
character, is no matter for surprise. The peculiarity is a direct
inheritance from the epic.
This fact has one important bearing on the history of the drama. The
suggestion of Pischel [150] that the verses alone were once preserved,
and the prose left to be improvised would have been plausible only if
the verses had been essentially the important elements in the dialogue,
as in the supposed Vedic Ākhyāna hymns. But this is assuredly not the
case; the verses do little to help on the action; as in the epic, they
express descriptions of situations and emotions; when movement of the
play is requisite recourse is had to prose. Or the verses serve to set
out maxims, as is natural in view of the great fondness of India for
gnomic poetry, seen already in the verses introduced into the legend of
Çunaḥçepa in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa. In this again there is a close
parallel with the epic, nor is it surprising that the epic poet, like
Açvaghoṣa and Kālidāsa, was often devoted to the drama.
A further source of literary inspiration must undoubtedly be seen in
the work of the lyric poets, of whose work clear evidence, as well as
some scattered fragments, is preserved to us in the Mahābhāṣya of
Patañjali. [151] Moreover, to these lyric writers it is probable that
the drama owed some of its metrical variety; in the development of the
metres with a fixed number of syllables, each of determined length,
from the older and freer Vedic and epic forms, it may be taken as
certain that the erotic poets, who had a narrow theme to handle, and
had every motive to aim at variety of form and effect, must have
contributed largely, a conclusion which is also strongly suggested, if
not proved, by the very names of the metres with their erotic
suggestion. [152]
PART II
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SANSKRIT DRAMA
III
AÇVAGHOṢA AND THE BUDDHIST DRAMA
1. THE ÇĀRIPUTRAPRAKARAṆA
The discovery of fragments of manuscripts on palm-leaf, of great
antiquity, at Turfan, has through the energy of Professor Lüders
revealed to us the existence of at least three Buddhist dramas. Of one
of these the authorship is happily certain, for the colophon of the
last act has been preserved, and it records that the drama was the
Çāriputraprakaraṇa of Açvaghoṣa, son of Suvarṇākṣī; it gives also the
fuller title Çāradvatīputraprakaraṇa and the number of acts as nine.
Açvaghoṣa is an author whose fame, thanks to his error in being a
Buddhist long lost in India, has recently attained renewal by the
discovery and publication of his Buddhacarita, a court epic in
excellent style and spirit on the life of the Buddha. His Sūtrālaṁkāra
is also known through the medium of a Tibetan translation, and
illustrates his ability in turning the tale into an instrument for
propaganda in support of the Buddhist faith. If the tradition which
ascribes to him the Mahāyānaçraddhotpāda is correct, he was also the
founder or expounder of a subtle system of metaphysics akin to the
Vijñānavāda of the Mahāyāna school, and the Vajrasūcī seems to preserve
in some measure the record of his onslaught on the caste system, which
exalted the Brahmins at the expense of the Kṣatriyas, and condemned
Buddhism on the score that it was unfitting that a Kṣatriya like the
Buddha should give instructions to Brahmins. Certainly genuine is the
Saundarananda, in the epic manner, which like all his works is devoted
to the effective exposition of Buddhism in the language of polite
literature, and also of the Brahmin schools. We recognize in him one
who appreciated that it would never do to allow Buddhism to remain
buried in a form inferior to the best that Brahminism could produce,
and it is curious that fate should have preserved the work of the rival
of the Brahmins, while it has permitted his models to disappear. That
he had abundant precedent to guide him is clear from the classical form
already assumed by his dramas; the argument of Professor Konow [153] to
the contrary, on the ground that many of the standing formulae and
characters are derived from the popular drama, and show that the
artistic drama had not developed yet full independence, is
unintelligible, since these features persist throughout the history of
the Sanskrit drama. Nor does any weight attach to the argument that the
Nāṭyaçāstra, assumed to be of about the same period as Açvaghoṣa, shows
knowledge of only a limited variety of dramas. On the contrary it is
amazing how much literature must have preceded to permit of the setting
up of the main types of drama, some of which were evidently represented
by many specimens, though others doubtless rested on a small basis of
practice.
The brief fragments preserved of the drama of Açvaghoṣa give us the
certainty of his authorship if any doubt could exist after the
colophon, for one verse is taken bodily from the Buddhacarita, just as
he twice refers in the Sūtrālaṁkāra to that important work. The story
of the play is clear; it deals with the events which led up to the
conversion of the young Maudgalyāyana and Çāriputra by the Buddha, and
some of the incidents are certain. Çāriputra had an interview with
Açvajit; then he discussed the question of the claims of the Buddha to
be a teacher with his friend, the Vidūṣaka, who raised the objection
that a Brahmin like his master should not accept the teaching of a
Kṣatriya; Çāriputra repels the objection by reminding his friend that
medicine aids the sick though given by one of inferior caste, as does
water one aheat. Maudgalyāyana greets Çāriputra, inquiring of him the
cause of his glad appearance, and learns his reasons. The two go to the
Buddha, who receives them, and who foretells to them that they will be
the highest in knowledge and magic power of his disciples. In this
point there is a deliberate and certainly artistic deviation from the
ordinary version of the incident, followed in the Buddhacarita, in
which the prophecy of the Buddha is addressed, not to the disciples
themselves, but to others of the Buddha’s followers. The end of the
play is marked by a philosophic dialogue between Çāriputra and the
Buddha, which includes a polemic against the belief in the existence of
a permanent self; it terminates in a praise of his two new disciples by
the Buddha, and a formal benediction.
The most remarkable thing regarding this drama is its close
correspondence to the classical type as laid down in the Nāṭyaçāstra.
The piece is a Prakaraṇa, and it has nine acts, which accords perfectly
with the rule of the Çāstra; the Mṛcchakaṭikā and Mālatīmādhava have
ten apiece; the Acts bear no titles, but this is in accord with the
normal usage, though the Mṛcchakaṭikā gives names. The hero is
Çāriputra, who corresponds to the Brahmin hero of the Çāstra, and who
is emphatically of the noble and calm type enjoined by that authority.
Whether the heroine was a lady or a hetaera we do not know, nor does it
appear how far the poet altered the subject-matter by invention, which
is normally the case with later Prakaraṇas. The Buddha and his
disciples, including, beside the two heroes, Kauṇḍinya and a Çramaṇa
speak Sanskrit, and use both prose and verse; the Vidūṣaka speaks
Prākrit. The presence of this figure is a remarkable proof of the fixed
character attained by the drama, for in itself there is nothing more
absurd than that a youthful ascetic seeking after truth should be
encumbered by one who is a meet attendant on a wealthy merchant,
Brahmin, or minister. It can, therefore, only be supposed that
Açvaghoṣa was writing a type of drama in which the rôle was far too
firmly embedded to permit its omission, and presumably in the story of
the drama now lost to us the Vidūṣaka served to introduce comic relief.
With natural good taste, he disappears from the last Act, where
Çāriputra has no need as a member of the Buddha’s fraternity for
encumbrances like a jester.
In one point only has it been claimed to find a clear discrepancy
between Açvaghoṣa’s practice and that of the later drama. At the close
the theory [154] requires that the question, ‘Is there anything further
that you desire (ataḥ param api priyam asti)?’ be addressed to the hero
by himself or another, to which he replies by uttering a benediction
styled the Bharatavākya. In the drama of Açvaghoṣa the phrase is
omitted, and the benediction proceeds, without prelude, with the words,
‘From now on shall these two ever increase their knowledge, restraining
their senses, to gain release’, spoken by the Buddha, not by the hero.
Lüders concludes hence that the regular form of close was not yet
established by Açvaghoṣa’s time. The conclusion is clearly fallacious,
and rests on a failure to recognize in this the readiness of Açvaghoṣa
to give effect to a traditional usage, while not slavishly following
it. It would obviously have been absurd to place the last words in the
drama in the form of a benediction in the mouth of any one save the
Buddha, and therefore he speaks the benediction. To preface it with the
usual formula was needless in his case, but the opening words of the
verse are ataḥ param, which is obviously not an incredible coincidence,
but a deliberate reference to the ordinary phrase. Açvaghoṣa shows thus
his knowledge of the rule and his power to vary it in case of need.
Similarly Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa in the Veṇīsaṁhāra puts the Bharatavākya in
the mouth of Yudhiṣṭhira, but he makes Kṛṣṇa end the play by according
the favour prayed for by Yudhiṣṭhira. He too felt that it would be
absurd to leave the omnipotent one in the position of listening without
response to the utterance of a benediction by one who cannot be more
than an inferior, though nominally the hero. [155]
2. THE ALLEGORICAL AND THE HETAERA DRAMAS
The same manuscript which contains portions of the Çāriputraprakaraṇa
has also fragments of two other dramas. There is no evidence of their
authorship, other than the fact that they appear in the same manuscript
as the work of Açvaghoṣa, and that they display the same general
appearance as the work of that writer. That they are Açvaghoṣa’s is
much more probable than that they are the work of some unknown
contemporary. [156]
The first of these is specially interesting as it represents a type of
which we have otherwise no earlier specimen than the Prabodhacandrodaya
of Kṛṣṇamiçra. We find the allegorical figures of Buddhi, wisdom,
Kīrti, fame, and Dhṛti, firmness, appearing and conversing. This is
followed by the advent of the Buddha himself, adorned with the halo
which he borrowed from Greek art. We do not know whether he appeared
later in actual conversation with the allegorical figures, but for this
mixture of the real and the ideal we have to go beyond Kṛṣṇamiçra, who
represents all his characters as abstract, Viṣṇu for instance by Faith
in Viṣṇu, to Kavikarṇapūra’s glorification of Caitanya in the sixteenth
century, in which allegorical figures are mingled with Caitanya and his
followers, though they do not actually converse together. [157] It must
remain uncertain whether there was a train of tradition leading from
Açvaghoṣa to Kṛṣṇamiçra, or whether the latter created the type of
drama afresh; the former theory is the more likely. The characters all
speak Sanskrit, but the fragments are too short to give us any real
information on the general trend of the play.
The other drama gives us more interesting matter. It is one in which
figures a hetaera named Magadhavatī, a Vidūṣaka named Komudhagandha, a
hero styled only Nāyaka, but probably named Somadatta, a Duṣṭa, rogue,
without further name, a certain Dhānaṁjaya, who may possibly be a
prince if the term ‘king’s son’ (bhaṭṭidālaka), which is recognized in
the Nāṭyaçāstra as the style of the younger princes of the blood,
applies to him, a maid-servant, and Çāriputra and Maudgalyāyana. The
drama was doubtless intended for purposes of religious edification, but
what we have is too fragmentary to do more than show that the author
was possessed of humour and that the Vidūṣaka was already a hungry
soul. The drama alludes to an old garden as the place where part of the
action passed, as in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, and also as in that drama the
house of the hetaera served as the scene of another part of the action.
The characters are often introduced as entering in vehicles
(pravahaṇa), a further point of similarity to that drama, while an
allusion to a Samāja or festival on a hill-top accords with the
frequent reference to such amusements in Buddhist literature. An
obscure character is a person, obviously of lower rank, who is styled
Gobaṁ°.
The drama shows close agreement with the classical model; the name of
the Vidūṣaka is evidence of this, for not only is it connected with a
real Brahmin family, but it obeys the rule that the name of that
character should indicate a flower, the spring, &c., for it means
literally ‘the offspring of the lotus-smelling’. The name of the
hetaera does not observe the rule exemplified in the Cārudatta that the
hetaera’s name should end in senā, siddhā, or dattā, but, apart from
the fact that the authority for the rule is very late, the name was
very probably given to the poet by the literary tradition. The fact
that the Duṣṭa and the Nāyaka appear by these titles only has a
parallel in the Cārudatta and the Buddhist drama of Harṣa, the
Nāgānanda, but it is difficult to say whether or not this is a sign of
antiquity.
The material available in the case of any of the three dramas is too
scanty to give us any assurance as to what the practice was regarding
the introduction, especially the use of the Nāndī, or verse of
benediction. What is certain is that the Pāripārçvika, or assistant of
the Sūtradhāra in the later literature, is found apparently as taking
part in the opening of the drama, perhaps the Çāriputraprakaraṇa.
3. THE LANGUAGE OF THE DRAMAS
In accordance with the later rules we find the Buddha, his disciples,
the hero of the hetaera play and Dhānaṁjaya speaking Sanskrit; the same
is true of the allegorical characters, and this is also in accord with
later practice, for in both Kṛṣṇamiçra and Kavikarṇapūra’s works some
of the allegorical characters speak Sanskrit, though others, of more
feminine appeal and character, speak Prākrit. One Çramaṇa speaks
Sanskrit, another—conceivably an Ājīvika—a Prākrit.
The Sanskrit contains some errors, which are obvious Prākritisms, and
which it would be unjust to attribute to the author, or authors.
Genuine departures from the norm are scanty; the use of ārttha for
artha has a precise parallel in the nearly contemporaneous dialect of
Mathurā; tuṣṇīm is frequent in Buddhist Sanskrit as well as
etymologically correct; krimi is found also in the Buddhacarita where
the reading kṛmi would spoil the metre; pratīgṛhīta has many Sanskrit
parallels. In pradveṣam where the metre requires pradoṣam Buddhist
influence is doubtless present, but yeva and tāva are probably merely
errors of the scribe, to whom may be assigned such a monstrosity as
paçyemas and Somadattassa. But bhagavāṁ has the support of the practice
of the Mahāvastu where stems in mat and vat end thus, and it explains
the Sandhi çṛṇvam puṣpā. These are minimal variants; in the main the
Sanskrit is excellent and the fragments shows traces of the able
versification and style of Açvaghoṣa.
The other characters speak Prākrit, and, by a curious variation from
the normal practice, the stage directions, which are freely given as in
the classical drama, are normally expressed in the language which the
character concerned uses, though there are cases of mixture and
apparent confusion which may be due to the scribe. Three different
forms of Prākrit may be distinguished, the first spoken by the Duṣṭa,
the second by the mysterious Gobaṁ°, and the third by the hetaera and
Vidūṣaka.
The Duṣṭa’s speech in three important points is similar to the Māgadhī
of the Prākrit grammarians; it substitutes l for r; reduces all three
sibilants to ç; and has e in the nominative singular of masculine nouns
in a. But it ignores the rules of the grammarians in certain matters;
hard letters are not softened (e.g. bhoti), nor soft consonants elided
(e.g. komudagandha), when intervocalic. There is no tendency to
cerebralize n, and in kālanā the dental replaces the cerebral. Fuller
forms of consonants remain in han̄gho (haṅho) and bambhaṇa (bamhaṇa).
The later forms of development of consonantal combinations are unknown;
thus for rj we have jj, not yy, as in ajja; cch remains in lieu of
becoming çc; kṣ becomes kkh, not sk or ẖk; ṣṭ and ṣṭh give ṭṭh, not sṭ.
In kiçça we have an older form than kīça, in ahakaṁ than ahake, hake,
hage. In practically all these details we must see an earlier stage of
what becomes Māgadhī in the grammarians. With it may be compared the
metrical inscription of the Jogīmārā cave on the Rāmgarh hill which
belongs to the period of Açoka.
The Prākrit of the Gobaṁ° agrees with this Old Māgadhī in having l for
r and e in the nominative singular, but it reduces all sibilants to s.
It thus shows a certain similarity to the Ardha-Māgadhī of the
grammarians, but that dialect often keeps r though it frequently alters
it to l; for instance it has r for the kaleti of this Prākrit and the
Old Māgadhī. Other points of similarity are the retention of the dental
for cerebral in vanna; the lengthening of the vowel before the suffix
ka (vannīkāhi); the accusative plural neuter in pupphā; and the
infinitive bhuṁjitaye (bhuñjittae). There are points of difference, but
they are probably all cases of earlier forms. Thus, as in Old Māgadhī,
we have no softening or loss of intervocalic consonants; n is not
cerebralised, but even introduced in palinata; ḷ appears in lieu of l;
the instrumental in āhi has no nasal; the nominative of vat stems
appears as in vā, as against vaṁ or vante; in the infinitive we find no
doubling of the consonant in taye. The fact, however, of the regular
change of r to l and the use of the form yeva after a long vowel as in
Māgadhī and Pāli show that the Old Ardha-Māgadhī was more akin to
Māgadhī than the later Ardha-Māgadhī, which came steadily under the
influence of the western dialects as shown by the tendency to change e
of the nominative to o.
There are strong points of similarity between this Old Ardha-Māgadhī
and the language of Açoka’s pillar inscriptions. They agree as regards
the use of l, s, and e, the dentals in palinata and vannīkāhi, yeva
after long vowels, and the long vowel before the suffix ka. They
disagree in the nominative and accusative plural neuter of a stems,
which have āni in the inscriptions as against ā, but that is of no
great importance, as these are doublets. The infinitive, however, is in
tave, which cannot be equated with taye; Ardha-Māgadhī ttae may be from
either.
The Açokan dialect is doubtless the court speech of his kingdom, and a
descendant of the Ardha-Māgadhī of Mahāvīra, the founder of the Jain
religion, and probably also of the Buddha, whose speech was clearly not
akin to the Māgadhī of the grammarians, though it is called Māgadhī in
the sacred texts. [158]
The theory of the Nāṭyaçāstra assigns Ardha-Māgadhī as the language of
savants, sons of kings or Rājputs, and Çreṣṭhins, rich merchants, but,
with the exception of Bhāsa’s Karṇabhāra, it does not appear in the
extant dramas. Māgadhī, on the contrary, is required in the case of men
who live in the women’s apartments, diggers of underground passages,
keepers of drink shops, watchers, the hero himself in time of danger,
and the Çakāra. Into which category the Duṣṭa falls is not certain; the
Daçarūpa ascribes this Prākrit to low people in general.
Çaurasenī is ascribed to the hetaera by the Çāstra which gives Prācyā
or eastern dialect to the Vidūṣaka, but it is clear that the Prācyā is
a mere variety of Çaurasenī, from which it differs only in the use of
certain expressions. This is borne out by the dramas, in which there is
no real distinction between the speech of these two characters. With
the Çaurasenī of the grammarians it shows remarkable parallels. It has
r in lieu of changing it to l; it reduces the sibilants to s; and for
the nominative masculine it has o. Further, it changes kṣ into kkh, not
cch; for chard it has chaḍḍ, for mard, madd; for saçrīkam irregularly
sassirīkaṁ with the double s despite the epenthetic vowel; and in the
third singular future issiti. The gerund kariya is parallel to karia in
Hemacandra’s grammar; bhaṭṭā is the vocative of bhartṛ; iyaṁ is
feminine as later iaṁ in Çaurasenī alone; bhavāṁ as nominative is
comparable with bhavaṁ; bhaṇ is conjugated in the ninth class; viya is
parallel to via for iva; and dāni with loss of i as a particle is
similar to dāṇiṁ.
In other cases the forms of this Prākrit are clearly older than those
of the grammarians’ Çaurasenī. As in the other Prākrits of the drama,
there is no softening or omission of intervocalic consonants, and no
cerebralization of n. Further, initial y is kept, not reduced to j; the
interjection ai in lieu of aï is supported by the language of the
Girnār and Udayagiri inscriptions; in nirussāsam we have an older form
than ūsasida of Çaurasenī; jñ and ny give ññ, not the later ṇṇ; dy
gives yy (written y) for jj; tuvaṁ and tava are both manifestly older
than the forms tumaṁ and tuha, while karotha is a remarkable example of
the preservation of the old strong base. Old also is the preservation
of the long vowel in bhavāṁ. In adaṇḍāraho and the dubious arhessi we
have two variants on the rule of Çaurasenī, which has i as the
epenthetic vowel in arh, but this merely illustrates the uncertainty of
these epentheses; duguṇa in lieu of diuṇa is not older, but a variant
mode of treating dviguṇa, and there is no special difficulty in holding
that dāṇi and idāṇi are forms which were originally doublets of dāṇiṁ
and idāṇiṁ in Çaurasenī, and later were superseded. From other Prākrit
passages, presumably in the same Old Çaurasenī, we obtain old forms
like vayaṁ, we, and tumhākaṁ in lieu of tumhāṇaṁ; edisa for erisa or
īdisa; dissati for dīsadi; gahītaṁ for gahidaṁ; khu is kept after short
vowels in lieu of being doubled; a long vowel is kept before tti and
such forms as mhi. The future in gamissāma is probably old, while
nikkhanta and bambhaṇa admit of this explanation against the later
nikkanta and bamhaṇa.
In the words of the hetaera the word surada occurs, with softening of t
to d; conceivably the passage might be verse, but in all probability we
are merely faced with a sporadic instance of a change which later set
in, due perhaps to a copyist’s error; to find in it an evidence of
Māhārāṣṭrī would be unwise, especially as the very next word (vimadda)
is not in the Māhārāṣṭrī form (vimaḍḍa). In the dialect of the Duṣṭa we
have a form makkaṭaho which may be genitive, as in Apabhraṅça, but is
not allowed in Māgadhī; but the sense is too uncertain to permit of any
security.
The existence and literary use of these Prākrits is most interesting in
the history both of the language and the literature, for they present
archaic features which place them on the same plane of change as Pāli
and the dialects of the older inscriptions. They may be set beside the
inscriptions in the Sītābengā and Jogīmārā caves on the Rāmgarh hill,
which both show lyric strophes. The influence of the Kāvya style in
Sanskrit can be traced obviously in the later Nāsik inscription in
Prākrit of the second century A.D., and even in the inscription of
Khāravela of Kalin̄ga perhaps in the second century B.C. [159] We
cannot, therefore, see any plausibility in the idea of the gradual
adaptation of Sanskrit, a sacred language, to belles lettres; on the
contrary the dramas show that the Prākrits in literature were already
under the influence of the Sanskrit Kāvya.
4. THE METRES
Scanty as the fragments are, they display another feature significant
of the development of the drama on the classical lines. The metres
employed are very numerous, as is natural in a poetry in which the
verse serves essentially the purpose of displaying the skill of the
writer. In addition to the Çloka we find the Upajāti (⏓ - ⏑ - - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑
- -), the Çālinī (- - - -, - ⏑ - - ⏑ - -), Vaṅçasthā (⏑ - ⏑ - - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑
- ⏑ -), Praharṣiṇī (- - -, ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ - ⏑ - -), Vasantatilaka (- - ⏑ -
⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ - -), Mālinī (⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - -, - ⏑ - - ⏑ - -),
Çikhariṇī (⏑ - - - - -, ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - - ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ -), Hariṇī (⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ -, -
- - -, ⏑ - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ -), Çārdūlavikrīḍita (- - - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ - ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ -, - - ⏑
- - ⏑ -), Sragdharā (- - - - ⏑ - -, ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ -, - ⏑ - - ⏑ - -), and
Suvadanā (- - - - ⏑ - -, ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ -, - - ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ -), the last of these
metres being almost a stranger to the drama, though it appears in
Bhāsa, in the Mudrārākṣasa, and once in Varāhamihira. The tendency to
seek sound effects is clear in a Çikhariṇī verse.
That so many metres of elaborate form should be found is of great
interest, not merely as testimony of the early development of the Kāvya
literature, but also because we see that the drama as early as
Açvaghoṣa, and doubtless long before him, had definitely accepted the
verses not as essential elements of the dialogue as are the verses in
Greek drama, but as more or less ornamental excursions. In the absence
of any complete play we cannot say what proportion of Çlokas was
observed by Açvaghoṣa; we may suspect that it was not higher than in
Bhāsa, if so high. Now the Çloka by its comparative simplicity and
brevity, and by the ease of its structure, might well have served the
same purpose in the Indian drama as did the trimeter in that of Greece,
and it is curious to speculate what might have been the fate of the
drama if it had been felt possible to write it throughout in verse. But
evidently by Açvaghoṣa’s age the distinction between prose and stanzas,
essentially lyric in type, was fixed, and the elaborate structure of
the stanza, normally with four lines of equal length and identic
structure, the longer lines having also caesuras, rendered it quite
unsuitable as a medium of conversation. Thus early in the drama we find
a defect in form which was gradually to become more and more marked and
to render the dialogue, that is the essential feature of the drama,
less and less the subject of the labours of the dramatists.
IV
BHĀSA
1. THE AUTHENTICITY OF BHĀSA’S DRAMAS
Until 1910 the existence of any drama of Bhāsa’s was unknown in Europe,
and only in 1912 appeared under the editorship of T. Gaṇapati Çāstrin,
the first of a series of thirteen dramas which their discoverer
attributed to that poet. The fact, however, that the dramas themselves
are silent as to the authorship rendered careful research necessary to
determine their provenance, and the proofs adduced have not won entire
satisfaction.
What we knew before the publication of Bhāsa was simply his high
reputation. Kālidāsa in his first work, the Mālavikāgnimitra, refers to
Bhāsa, with Saumilla, Kaviputra, and others as his great predecessors
in the art, whose fame renders difficult the acceptance of the work of
an untried author. Bāṇa, [160] at the beginning of the seventh century,
states that Bhāsa attained fame by his dramas, begun by the Sūtradhāra,
with many rôles and including episodes, as one might by the erection of
temples, begun by the architect, with many stages, and beflagged. It
would be unwise to prove by this that Bhāsa innovated in these regards;
what is essential to Bāṇa is to celebrate Bhāsa’s fame, and to show his
wit by the comparison in the same words with some not very obvious
object of comparison. A century later Vākpati [161] declares his
pleasure in Bhāsa, friend of fire (jalaṇamitte), in the author of the
Raghuvaṅça, in Subandhu and Hāricandra. Rājaçekhara (c. A.D. 900)
places him among the classical poets, and a verse records a curious
incident: ‘Critics cast on the fire, to test it, the discus composed of
the dramas of Bhāsa; the Svapnavāsavadattā did not succumb to the
flames’. [162] The verse, however, contains a double entendre strangely
ignored by Professor Konow; [163] it denotes of course the superiority
of the Svapnavāsavadattā to the other dramas of Bhāsa—a fact which the
published plays bear out to the full—but it also alludes to a reason;
the play itself contains a fire, which was feigned by the minister to
permit the possibility of the king’s new marriage, and it is only
appropriate that, as that fire could not burn the queen, so the fire
which tried the play was unable to prevail against it. The passage
throws the necessary light on the term ‘friend of fire’ of Vākpati,
which should not be rendered meaningless by attributing it to the fact
that Bhāsa often mentions fire in his dramas.
These facts are, it must at once be admitted, extremely favourable to
the authenticity of the dramas; taken all in all they are clearly the
work of a very considerable writer; in technique they are less finished
than those of Kālidāsa; the Prākrit is clearly earlier than that of the
works of Kālidāsa or the Mṛcchakaṭikā; the Svapnavāsavadattā is clearly
the best, and it explains Vākpati and Rājaçekhara’s references. Bāṇa’s
statement regarding the opening of the plays by the Sūtradhāra is
proved by the dramas. There is also substantial evidence to be derived
from the writers on rhetoric. Bhāmaha, who may belong to the beginning
of the eighth century A.D., criticizes severely the plot of the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa; Vāmana, in the eighth, cites from that play,
the Svapnavāsavadattā, and the Cārudatta; Abhinavagupta (c. A.D. 1000)
twice names the Svapnavāsavadattā, and mentions the Cārudatta. These
references are not in themselves conclusive, for they do not mention
Bhāsa as the author of the plays, even when these are named, [164] and
not merely cited from or discussed, but they show that the critics knew
and were prepared to cite these dramas, which means that they accepted
the view that they were by an important author. The ascription of the
Svapnavāsavadattā to Bhāsa gives us the right to accept his authorship
of the rest if internal evidence supports it. That this is so is
undeniable, even by those who suspect the attribution to Bhāsa; the
coincidences in technique, in the Prākrits, in metre, and in style are
overwhelming. Finally, there is the evidence of the Cārudatta; it is
undeniably and obviously the prototype of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, and it
proves, therefore, that the dramas are older than that work which was
well known by Vāmana, and is certainly a good deal earlier.
The arguments [165] against the authenticity are all inconclusive. They
are based on the fact that a drama, Mattavilāsa, of
Mahendravikramavarman, of the seventh century A.D. presents the same
characteristics as regards the form of opening the drama as the plays
of Bhāsa, and the suggestion that Rājasiṅha is to be identified with a
prince of the south of that name (c. A.D. 675). The evidence is clearly
inadequate; Bhāsa’s fame was evidently more prevalent in the south than
in the north, for a scene from one of his plays has survived in a
mutilated form in the popular theatre there, and it is easy to
understand how a seventh-century writer imitated him in technique.
Moreover, the imitation is very partial; the omission of the name of
the author and the play is not followed, and this is certainly a sign
of a later date for the Mattavilāsa. The guess regarding the
identification of the king is without probative force, for the term
seems deliberately vague, and is in keeping with the silence of the
author regarding his own name and that of his drama. The introduction
of immediate reality is incongruous, and, therefore, avoided.
2. THE DATE OF BHĀSA’S DRAMAS
It is difficult to arrive at any precise determination of Bhāsa’s date.
That Kālidāsa knew his fame as firmly established is clear, and, if we
may fairly safely date Kālidāsa about A.D. 400, this gives us a period
of not later than A.D. 350 for Bhāsa. The fact of his priority to the
Mṛcchakaṭikā leads us to no definite result, for the view that this
play is to be placed before Kālidāsa in the third century A.D. is not
at all plausible. An upper limit is given by the fact that Bhāsa is
doubtless later than Açvaghoṣa, whose Buddhacarita is probably the
source of a verse in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, and whose Prākrit is
assuredly and unquestionably older in character. It is useless to seek
to estimate by the evidence of the Prākrit whether Bhāsa is more
closely allied in date to Kālidāsa than to Açvaghoṣa, because changes
in speech and the representation of them in literature are matters
which do not in the slightest degree permit of exact valuation in terms
of years. The most that can be said is that it may be held without
improbability that Bhāsa is nearer to Kālidāsa’s period than to
Açvaghoṣa’s.
An effort at more exact determination is made by Professor Konow [166]
on the ground that Bhāsa’s dramas in part deal with the story of
Udayana, of which Ujjayinī was specially fond, as we know from
Kālidāsa. Hence we may assume that the home of the poet was Ujjayinī,
an assumption which obviously is not legitimate in any degree. Further
we may assume that he lived under one of the Western Kṣatrapas, which
again goes too far. Now the usual ending of a drama is not regularly
observed in Bhāsa’s dramas; the introductory question is found only in
the Avimāraka, Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, Bālacarita, and Dūtavākya. The
description of the final benediction as Bharatavākya is omitted in the
Madhyamavyāyoga, where Viṣṇu is praised; in the Dūtaghaṭotkaca, where
his commands are given; in the Pañcarātra, where the wish is expressed
that the king (rājasiṅha) should rule the whole earth; and in the
Ūrubhan̄ga, where the wish is that the prince should conquer his foes
and rule the earth. In the other plays a change of form of the
Bharatavākya is asserted; in the Karṇabhāra there is the desire for the
disappearance of misfortune; in the Pratimānāṭaka the wish is that the
king may fare as Rāma who was reunited with Sītā and his kinsmen; in
the Avimāraka, the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, and the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,
that the king should, after destroying his foes, rule the whole earth,
while in the Svapnavāsavadattā, Dūtavākya, and Bālacarita, the wish is
for universal rule. This suggests that for a time the king reigned in
peace; then enemies arose and disturbed his power; finally he again won
the upper hand, and his friends could without absurdity pray for his
attaining imperial rank. This would agree with the history of the
Kṣatrapa Rudrasiṅha, who held from 181–8, and again from A.D. 191–6 the
high rank of Mahākṣatrapa, and whose name may be hinted at in the use
of the term rājasiṅha. That the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa is older than
the Svapnavāsavadattā is held to support this suggestion, but it is
clearly without any merit save ingenuity.
Nor is there more to be said for Konow’s other suggestions of date; the
fact that the term Nāṭaka is used, and that the Vidūṣaka appears,
cannot show that he is early, for they are used on continuously to the
latest days of the drama, and the view that Bhāsa was an innovator who
shortened the preliminaries, which is given as a reason for making him
early, because the Nāṭyaçāstra gives the preliminaries in detail, is
abandoned sub silentio in the author’s later work, [167] where it is
candidly admitted that we do not know whether he shortened the
preliminaries at all. Nor can we say anything regarding his relation to
the Nāṭyaçāstra which will aid us to a date; there is even a tradition
that he himself wrote on the theory of the drama. Nor can any weight be
attached to the view that Bhāsa stands nearer Açvaghoṣa in technique
than Kālidāsa; these matters do not permit of precise evaluation in
time, and, if we place Bhāsa about A.D. 300, we go as far as the
evidence allows.
3. THE DRAMAS AND THEIR SOURCES
The derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly
clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its
clearest form. In the Madhyamavyāyoga [168] we have a reminiscence of
the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the
five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit,
though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after
which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins
to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is
revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife
is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders
from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore, to spare
the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the
midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a
generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however,
time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the
demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of
the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The
demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing,
accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy,
and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that
her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who
suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family
to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece
ends.
Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of the Dūtaghaṭotkaca, which may
also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military
spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu,
Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them
of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and
predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general
type apparently is the Karṇabhāra which deals with Karṇa’s armour; he
makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the
Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma,
though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the
arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled,
for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his
weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound
of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In the Ūrubhan̄ga the fight between Bhīma
and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the
thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his
childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his
plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them;
Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of
his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.
These four plays have each but one Act; the Pañcarātra, on the other
hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a Samavakāra, in so far
at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than
one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the
chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects
the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the
Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former
and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for
Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the
realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition
that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing
from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a
hundred [169] Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom
of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is
decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to
light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in
disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter.
The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that
Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less
Duryodhana decides to keep faith.
The Dūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from the Mahābhārata, but
deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces;
the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any
honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is
depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her
away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his
majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the
half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to
bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he
consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of
Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the
picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa
himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh
raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it
would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz [170]
that this fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that
it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have
ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in
it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art,
and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this
episode to be passed over.
Of far greater importance is the Bālacarita, [171] which presents us
with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in
the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of
Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters,
pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is
Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he
announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains
that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in
the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth
Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage,
and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in
the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of
theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other
sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant
and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but
the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the
darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child,
and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the
tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a
dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a
faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives
aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to
purify himself from contact with the dead, but a spring of water shoots
forth and renders labour needless. He takes the boy, but his weight
proves too great. Now appear in the guise of herdsmen the weapons of
Kṛṣṇa and his steed, who present themselves each with a verse, ‘I am
the bird, Garuḍa,’ &c., ‘I am the discus’, ‘I the bow’, ‘I the club’,
‘I the conch’, and ‘I the sword’. At the request of the discus the
infant consents to become light, and Nanda bears him away. Vasudeva
finds the dead child awakened to life in his arms, and the weight of it
is oppressive, but the Yamunā once more gives dry passage, and he
returns to Mathurā and Devakī. Act II opens with an entr’acte in
Kaṅsa’s palace. The curse pronounced on him by the seer Madhuka enters,
guised as a Caṇḍāla in hateful form with a necklace of skulls; he and
his retinue of Caṇḍālīs force their way into the heart of the palace;
the royal fortune, Rājaçrī, would bar their way, but the curse
announces that it is Viṣṇu’s will that he enter, and she yields; the
curse seizes then hold of Kaṅsa. The Act then presents Kaṅsa uneasy and
distressed by the portents of the night; he summons his astrologer and
his domestic priests, who warn him that the portents presage the birth
of a god. Kaṅsa has Vasudeva summoned, is told of the birth of a
daughter, refuses to spare the child, and hurls it against a rock. But
part only of the lifeless body falls to earth; the rest rises to
heaven, and the dread figure of the goddess Kārtyāyanī appears to the
king. Her retinue come also, announcing each his advent with a verse,
and declare their purpose to destroy Kaṅsa. In the meantime, in
herdsmen’s guise they will go to the home of the child to share in the
sports of the herdsmen.
The entr’acte before Act III tells us in the mouths of the herdsmen of
their joys since Kṛṣṇa came to live with them, and an old man relates
in a long Prākrit speech his wonderful deeds, including the destruction
of the demons, Pūtanā, Çakaṭa, Yamala and Arjuna, Pralamba, Dhenuka,
and Keçin. We are told then that Kṛṣṇa or Dāmodara, the name won from
an adventure, has gone to the Vṛndā wood for the Hallīçaka dance; the
dance is performed by Dāmodara, his friends, and the maidens, to the
music of the drum and to song. The advent of the demon Ariṣṭa is
announced; Dāmodara bids the maidens and herdsmen mount a hill, and
watch the struggle. It proves unequal; the bull demon recognizes the
superiority of his foe, and that he is Viṣṇu himself, and meets death
with resignation. The victory accomplished, the news is brought of a
new danger, the snake Kāliya has appeared on the Yamunā bank, menacing
cows and Brahmins. Act IV shows us the maidens seeking to restrain
Kṛṣṇa from the new struggle, but he persists and overcomes the demon,
plunging into the waters to grapple with him. He brings him out, learns
that he had entered the waters in fear of Garuḍa who slays snakes at
pleasure, makes him promise to spare cows and Brahmins, and puts on him
a mark that Garuḍa must respect. A herald then enters to challenge
Dāmodara and his brother Balarāma to the festival of the boys at
Mathurā.
Act V shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald
reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the
mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a
female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders
at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika
and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a
sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge
him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints
Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in
which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas
appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to
heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the
play.
The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely
from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in the Harivaṅça, Viṣṇu, and Bhāgavata
Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than
Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in
later tradition, is lacking here as in the Harivaṅça and the Viṣṇu
Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.
The merits of the Bālacarita are not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of
the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. The Pratimānāṭaka shows us the death
of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his
inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest;
his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue
(pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news,
pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s
shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to
offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the
guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this
device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying
Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes
alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse
had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had
unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment
of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to
aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings
her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom;
all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the
play are matched by the six of the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, [172] the drama of
the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, the
Rāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s
success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa.
Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the
army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the
heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is
compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic
apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in
incident is remarkable by its absence.
A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived
his story from the Kathā literature, [173] as is doubtless the case in
the Avimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja,
the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who,
in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a
member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His
low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and
the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth
comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly;
in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses
him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara
dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter
the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way
for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada
reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the
Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of
the king of Kāçi, who gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her
sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with
the approval of all those connected with the pair.
Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known
to us, the Bṛhatkathā of Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit
has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from
Kashmir, is the subject of the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, [174] styled in
the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part
that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the
minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant
hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a
clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a
counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa
determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his
wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when
the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall
take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two
fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his
friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape
with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant
fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s
cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted. [175]
The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha, [176]
on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an
artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been
spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little
value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident
which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this
troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees
were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana [177] cites the end
of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in the Arthaçāstra, [178] a work
which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.
The Svapnavāsavadattā, [179] or the Svapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in
substance the continuation of the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister
is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding
him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not
leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister
induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a
temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have
perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider
marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the
queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to
accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to
cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache,
and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down,
sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits
down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new
mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves
him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he
thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his
foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his
wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and
Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the
sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to
the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s
ends.
The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already
before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the
imitation of Harṣa in the Ratnāvalī; Vāmana [180] cites from it, and
Abhinavagupta [181] knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the
poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise,
however, in a different vein is shown in the Cārudatta, of which we
have only a fragment in four Acts without beginning or final verses.
Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a
hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love.
Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes
refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care
her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former
servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk.
In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a
thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the
means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is
in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of
goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl
necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā
in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned
of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the
merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to
Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play
ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and
that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.
A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana [182] and another, [183] found
also in the Bālacarita [184] and the Mṛcchakaṭikā, [185] is quoted by
Daṇḍin in the Kāvyādarça. [186] We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his
source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in the Kāvyādarça an
allusion to the dream scene of the Svapnavāsavadattā and its sequel.
The Daridracārudatta mentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the
same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of the Mṛcchakaṭikā.
[187] The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the
love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special
developments given by Bhāsa.
Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in
the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and
confusion, it is probable that he may have written further plays, or he
may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited
with writing, [188] by inserting examples of his own composition. Why
his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use
apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is
that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the
general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the
dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is
mere conjecture.
4. BHĀSA’S ART AND TECHNIQUE
The number of Bhāsa’s dramas, and the variety of their themes, indicate
the activity and originality of his talent. Even the limitations
imposed by the choice of epic subjects are often successfully
surmounted. In the Rāma dramas only is there lacking any sign of his
ability; the Abhiṣekanāṭaka is a somewhat dreary summary of the
corresponding books (IV–VI) of the Rāmāyaṇa, nor is the Pratimānāṭaka
substantially superior. The variations are in the main few and
unimportant; the two struggles between Sugrīva and Vālin are condensed
into one, which leaves the treacherous slaying of Vālin without shadow
of excuse, and casts a blemish on Rāma’s character which later
dramatists avoid. The pathetic scene of the epic in which Tārā, his
wife, laments Vālin’s death is omitted, Vālin forbidding any woman to
gaze on him in his fall. The two efforts of Rāvaṇa to deceive Sītā,
first by showing her Rāma’s head, and later Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa bound and
seemingly dead, are reduced to one, the showing of the heads of both,
and Sītā’s constancy is made inhuman by denying her the comfort of a
consoler. To secure a happy ending, Agni is made to vindicate Sītā by
the test of fire, and to hand her over to Rāma as Lakṣmī and his fit
mate. The characters remain stereotyped and dull; Rāvaṇa is nothing
more than a miles gloriosus, if not comic, and Lakṣmaṇa cuts a very
poor figure. [189]
The pieces based on the Mahābhārata shows more invention and interest.
The Madhyamavyāyoga exploits neatly the theme of Hiḍimbā’s longing to
see her husband of many years before, and the obedience of a son to a
mother exemplified both by Ghaṭotkaca and by Madhyama; a mother’s
bidding outweighs even that of a father. The struggle of father against
son, both unknowing, is original, though not tragic. In the Karṇabhāra
the nobility of the haughty Karṇa is emphasized; in the epic he
surrenders his armour to Indra, but demands a price, the lance that
never fails; in the play it suffices the prince that he has conferred a
boon on the god himself. There is the same martial spirit, evoking the
sentiment of heroism in the audience, in the Dūtaghaṭotkaca where the
joy of the Kurus is contrasted effectively with the doubts of
Dhṛtarāṣṭra, and the grave warning which Ghaṭotkaca brings of the
revenge to be wreaked by Arjuna for his son’s death. The Dūtavākya is
admirable in his contrast between the character of Duryodhana and the
majesty of Kṛṣṇa; the picture motif is effectively elaborated, and the
deep admiration of the poet for Kṛṣṇa as the embodiment of the highest
of gods Viṣṇu, of whom he was an adorer, is plainly manifest. In the
Ūrubhan̄ga Duryodhana’s hauteur to the highest of gods meets with its
just punishment; Duryodhana is the chief subject, but not the hero, of
the piece which manifests the just [190] punishment of the impious. The
death of Duryodhana is admirably depicted; his child who loved to sit
on his knees comes to him, but must be repulsed; the touch that brought
joy aforetime would now be an agony. [191] But Duryodhana, with all his
demerits as a man, remains heroic in his death.
The Bālacarita reveals the originality of Bhāsa’s genius; the entr’acte
to the second Act is extremely effective in its terrors, and the poet
has no hesitation in asking the audience to conceive for themselves the
strange figures of the attendants of Viṣṇu or the host of the goddess
Kārtyāyanī, or the bull Ariṣṭa, or the snake demon Kāliya, all of whom
appear on the stage, but doubtless in costumes which left most to the
mind’s eye. The miracles of the light emanating from the child Kṛṣṇa,
the crossing of the Yamunā, and the water springing from the ground,
are innovations on the tradition, as is the apparent death and revival
of the child of Yaçodā. Kṛṣṇa is heroism incarnate, Kaṅsa without
merit, and his slaying just, but the heroic sentiment is blended with
the erotic, and with that of wonder. As a drama, however, the play
suffers unquestionably from the wholly undeniable disparity between the
two opponents; Kṛṣṇa is never in danger, and his feats are too easily
achieved to produce their full effect.
The Avimāraka is a drama of love, primitive in its expression and
intensity; Bhāsa’s love for rapid action is here, as always, strongly
marked, as is also his willingness to repeat incidents and situations;
the hero twice seeks suicide, and the heroine does so once. The
dénouement is artificial, though something of the kind was necessary to
secure the possibility of the marriage of the pair. There is a far more
interesting hint of youthful love in the amours of Udayana and
Vāsavadattā in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, where the rapidity of
action is in entire harmony with the skill attributed to the minister,
whose address, courage, and loyalty, make him an attractive figure. The
Svapnavāsavadattā itself reveals Udayana as a faithful and devoted
husband, very different from the careless if courteous gentleman of
Harṣa’s dramas. His love for the queen he imagines lost ennobles and
elevates his character, while motives of statecraft and the affection
shown him by Padmāvatī easily explain his wooing of that maiden.
Vāsavadattā herself is not the jealous if high-minded wife of Harṣa’s
plays; she is the devoted and self-sacrificing lover who is willing to
postpone her own feelings and wishes to the good of her husband. The
king and queen are the finest products of Bhāsa’s characterization of
lovers. In the Cārudatta, however, we have clever studies in the
hetaera, the merchant and the minor figures, though the value of the
play must seem less to us than when completed and elaborated in the
Mṛcchakaṭikā.
Bhāsa undoubtedly excels in suggesting heroism; this characteristic is
admirably depicted in Yaugandharāyaṇa, and above all in Duryodhana, who
in the Dūtaghaṭotkaca effectively replies to the menaces of the envoy
by promising an answer in deeds, war, not in harsh words. But his power
is not confined to heroism, love, pathos, or the marvellous. The
Vidūṣaka in his hands attains the characteristics which mark him in the
later drama, and, though much was doubtless traditional, it may safely
be assumed that he tended by his example to stereotype the figure. In
the Avimāraka [192] he distinguishes himself by devotion to his master;
he is set on finding him, dead or alive, when he is missing, and he is
prepared if need be to follow him beyond the grave. Avimāraka himself
portrays the character of his friend; he places first, doubtless
deliberately, the amusement he produces in social intercourse (goṣṭhīṣu
hāsyaḥ), but he describes him also as brave in battle, a wise friend, a
comforter in sorrow, a violent foe to his enemies. If in the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa [193] he seems to abandon the idea of
succouring his master, it is only because he is convinced that Vatsa is
dead, and that nothing can be done to save him. The other side of his
character is his devotion to the pleasures of the table and his feeble
attempts at wit and humour. Vāsavadattā he remembers fondly because she
used to see that he never lacked sweetmeats. [194] When in the
Avimāraka [195] the heroine weeps in love-sorrow, he would like to weep
also in sympathy; but no tears come, and he recalls that, even when his
own father died, he could hardly weep. When addressed as a man, he
insists that he is a woman. He is, however, a Brahmin in his
prejudices; he will not drink brandy, a pleasure which he permits to
the Gātrasevaka, the disguise assumed by one of Yaugandharāyaṇa’s
following in the attempt to rescue Udayana. This worthy favours us with
a eulogy of drink, which is an interesting fragment of the drinking
songs which must have existed in ancient India: [196]
dhaṇṇā surāhi mattā dhaṇṇā surāhi aṇulittā;
dhaṇṇā surāhi hṇādā dhaṇṇā surāhi saṁñavidā.
‘Blessed those that are drunk with drink, blessed those that are soaked
with drink; blessed those that are washed with drink, blessed those
that are choked with drink.’ Amusing also is the figure of
Yaugandharāyaṇa as an Unmattaka, devoted to eating and dancing, and of
Rumaṇvant in his guise of a Çramaṇaka. There is genuine humour in the
scene in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa [197] between the Gātrasevaka and
the servant, when the former makes ready the elephant Bhadravatī, which
is to be the means of carrying off the king and Vāsavadattā beyond the
reach of all pursuit, without raising any suspicion on the part of the
entourage of Mahāsena. Quiet humour is shown in the episode of the
bringing of Bhīma by Ghaṭotkaca to his mother Hiḍimbā; Ghaṭotkaca has
difficulty in describing his victim, and is much amazed to find his
mother, whose curiosity is aroused by his lack of precision, finding
him to be his deity and hers in his capacity as husband and father.
[198] In the same vein is the compliment paid by Rāma to Sītā, when the
latter accurately predicts the action he would take when his father
offered him the throne: ‘Thou hast guessed well; few pairs are there of
like character in the world (suṣṭhu tarkitam alpaṁ tulyaçīlāni
dvandvāni sṛjyante)’. [199] Quite distinctly amusing is the scene at
the close of the Avimāraka, [200] where the facts of the relationships
are being disclosed to the king Kuntibhoja. That sovereign may be
justly excused his difficulty in apprehending the situation; he is
reduced to such confusion that he is dubious about his own capital
Vairantya, but finally, when assured that the hero is the son-in-law of
Kuntibhoja, asks who that worthy may be, to be reminded politely that
he himself is Kuntibhoja, father of Kuran̄gī, son of Duryodhana, and
lord of Vairantya. This power explains the description of Bhāsa as the
laughter (hāsa) of poetry given to him by Jayadeva in the
Prasannarāghava, a title which is also merited by such verses as one
cited in the anthologies, [201] though not found in the extant dramas:
kapāle mārjāraḥ paya iti karāṅl leḍhi çaçinas
tarucchidraprotān bisam iti karī saṁkalayati
ratānte talpasthān harati vanitāpy aṅçukam iti
prabhāmattaç candro jagad idam aho viplavayati.
‘When its rays fall on its cheeks the cat licks them, thinking them
milk; when they are caught in the cleft of a tree the elephant deems
them a lotus; when they rest on the couch of lovers the maiden seizes
them, saying, “’Tis my robe”; the moon in truth, proud of its
brilliance, doth lead astray all this world.’
Of deeper sentiments we need expect nothing from Bhāsa; in this respect
he sets the model for his successors. From Kālidāsa he differs in being
a devotee of Viṣṇu rather than Çiva, but he is equally an admirer of
the established Brahminical order. In the Pañcarātra, [202] the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, [203] and in the character of Nārada in the
Avimāraka, [204] we find clearly expressed his appreciation of the high
rank of the Brahmin, and the obligations due to him from kings and
other classes.
Care in the delineation of even minor characters is normally displayed;
the number of these is considerable; sixteen each in the
Svapnavāsavadattā and the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, about twenty in the
Avimāraka, Abhiṣekanāṭaka, and Pañcarātra, twelve in the Cārudatta, and
about thirty in the Bālacarita. But there are traces of the anxiety of
Bhāsa to avoid adding needlessly to the number of those appearing; in
the Avimāraka neither the king of Kāçi nor Sucetanā appears on the
scene despite their part in the play. The silence of Sītā, though at
the close of the Abhiṣekanāṭaka she appears on the stage, is doubtless
explicable by the same dramatic touch which makes Euripides refuse to
assign any words to Alkestis on her return from the dead.
In technique Bhāsa does not accord entirely with the later rules of the
theorists. The Nāṭyaçāstra, it is true, when it forbids the exhibition
of battle scenes contradicts itself, and Bhāsa freely permits them, as
must have been the case in the primitive drama in which Kṛṣṇa slew
Kaṅsa. The maidens, however, he bids watch the mortal combat of Ariṣṭa
and Kṛṣṇa from afar. Daçaratha’s death he admits; the bodies of Cāṇūra,
Muṣṭika, and Kaṅsa lie on the stage, and Vālin perishes there as well
as Duryodhana, but all these are evildoers, and their death evokes no
sorrow. The same simplicity doubtless accounts for the introduction of
the mythological figures of the Bālacarita, whom we need not imagine to
have been elaborately costumed; they announce their nature or are
described, [205] and the spectator supplies the imagination requisite
to comprehend them.
We find already in Bhāsa the formal distinction of introductory scenes
into Viṣkambhakas of two kinds, according as Sanskrit alone or Sanskrit
and Prākrit are used and Praveçakas; in the former the number of
interlocutors is three in two [206] cases against one or two as usual
later; there are other signs of his fondness for triads. [207] The
introduction normally is styled Sthāpanā, [208] not as later
Prastāvanā, and it is extremely simple; after a Nāndī, not preserved,
has been pronounced—perhaps behind the scene—the director enters,
utters a benediction, and is about to make an announcement when a sound
is heard which leads up to the actual drama. No mention of the poet’s
name or the work is found, but these we may suggest were left to the
preliminaries which even in the Nāṭyaçāstra were elaborate, and which
doubtless were performed before Bhāsa’s plays, as they were essentially
religious rites in honour of the gods. On the other hand, the close,
the Bharatavākya, of the later theory is varied in Bhāsa. The
conventions as to the use of speech, aloud, aside to another, or to the
audience alone are well known, and effective use is made of the voice
from the air or behind the scene, as in the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, when Rāvaṇa
taunts his prisoner and asks, who can set her free when her rescuers
are dead; the voice replies, ‘Rāma, Rāma’. [209]
There are unquestionably primitive traits in Bhāsa’s art; he uses with
dangerous freedom the device by which some one departs and returns
straightway, to narrate what must have taken long to happen; thus in
the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, Çan̄kukarṇa is bidden send a thousand men against
Hanumant; he departs at once, to return and tell that they have fallen.
Free use is made also, as in the epic, of magic weapons in the
conflict, as in the battle of Duryodhana and Kṛṣṇa in the Dūtavākya. So
also in the Madhyamavyāyoga we find Ghaṭotkaca employing his magic
power to produce water from a rock; then he binds Bhīma in a magic
noose, from which he is delivered by a magic formula. In the Dūtavākya
the discus of Kṛṣṇa secures water from the heavenly Ganges by magic
means; it has the power to move the mountains of the gods, to set the
ocean in motion, and to bring down the stars to earth, ideas which are
less unintelligible when we remember the wide-spread Indian beliefs in
the powers of magicians, which we find later in Harṣa’s Ratnāvalī, and
which are earlier recorded of those who have attained high degrees of
intuition in both the Upaniṣads and Buddhism. In the Avimāraka we have
the magic ring of the Vidyādhara playing a decisive part in the action,
since by its use the hero can enter unseen the harem and visit his wife
Kuran̄gī in secret. It is clear that both in the epic and in the popular
tale Bhāsa found adequate precedent for the stress laid on these means
of evoking in his audience the sentiment of wonder.
The use of the dance as an ornament to the drama which is seen in
Kālidāsa is frequently resorted to in Bhāsa. In Act III of the
Bālacarita there is a performance of the Hallīçaka dance, in which both
the herdsmen and the cowherdesses take full part; the dance is
accompanied by music and song, and the maidens are gaily attired. A
similar dance is mentioned in Act II of the Pañcarātra, [210] a reflex
no doubt of the ritual dance of the winter solstice in the Mahāvrata
rite. It is conceivable also that the conception in the Bālacarita of
the appearance of Viṣṇu’s weapons as figures on the stage in the dress
of herdsmen is a reminiscence of a cult dance in honour of Viṣṇu, but
this idea must not be pressed unduly, for the poet there invents also
the figures of the Curse and the King’s Fortune as personae dramatis.
There is, it is clear, a certain similarity between the personification
of these abstractions and the allegorical figures of the Buddhist
drama, which come again into being in the Prabodhacandrodaya of
Kṛṣṇamiçra. Song as an important element in the drama again appears in
the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, where the Gandharvas and Apsarases sing the praises
of Viṣṇu. [211]
There are clear traces in the dramas of the overwhelming influence of
epic tradition and of epic recitation in the tendency to introduce the
description of battle scenes at great length in lieu of dramatic
action, while a certain lack of skill is apparent in the attempt to
transform the tale into a drama. Thus in the Avimāraka the facts
essential for a full understanding of the story come out only in the
last Act, and the adventures of the hero are there recounted with
distinct lack of propriety, as they have formed the subject of the
earlier acts of the drama. Neither the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa nor the
Svapnavāsavadattā is constructed in so clumsy a manner, but in both
cases the working out of the plot is certainly open to criticism. Thus
even in the last Act of the latter drama, which in many respects is
effective, the stage directions assume that the queen appears on the
stage with Vāsavadattā as her attendant, but that the king either does
not see, or does not recognize the latter, both obviously very
improbable suppositions; possibly it is assumed that the presence of
Vāsavadattā, though obvious to the audience, is concealed from the king
in some manner by the use of the curtain, but this is left to be
imagined, [212] and it would have been much simpler to invent some
ground for securing the entry of Vāsavadattā by herself later on. On
the other hand, in Act I of the play, the facts regarding the supposed
death of Vāsavadattā and the minister in a fire are effectively brought
out by the device of using a Brahmacārin, who arrives at the hermitage
at the same time as Yaugandharāyaṇa and Vāsavadattā in their disguise,
and tells the tale of the disaster as explaining why he has left that
place in sorrow at the event, dilating at the same time on the effect
of the news on the unhappy king. The mode in which Vāsavadattā in Act V
mistakes the king for Padmāvatī is quite naturally evolved, for the
place where he is resting is poorly illuminated and she was naturally
unwilling to arouse her mistress from the slumber into which she hoped
she had fallen. In Act II of the Abhiṣekanāṭaka the conversation of
Hanumant with Sītā is made possible only by the somewhat implausible
device of assuming that the Rākṣasīs who guard her fall asleep at their
post.
A rather marked fondness is shown by Bhāsa for the repetition of the
same incident. Thus in the Avimāraka we have the twice repeated attempt
of the hero at suicide followed by the attempt of the heroine in the
same sense, from which he saves her. At the close of the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa we have again the idea of the attempted suicide
of the heroine’s mother, which is obviated by the king’s good sense in
showing her that the marriage of the runaway pair was quite proper in
their rank and in arranging for marrying them in a painting. The dying
Vālin in the Abhiṣekanāṭaka has a vision of the Ganges and the other
great rivers. Urvaçī and the Apsarases, and the chariot drawn by a
thousand swans, which bears away the dead, coming for his spirit;
Duryodhana in the Ūrubhan̄ga has a similar vision, and Avimāraka, when
on the point of committing suicide he sees the Vidyādhara beside him,
imagines that this is a vision such as comes often to dying men. Again
in the prologues there is almost a monotonous adoption of the device by
which the director is interrupted in making a proposed announcement by
a voice from behind the scene, which enables him by a clever transition
to lead the audience into the dramatic action proper.
5. BHĀSA’S STYLE
The rapidity and directness of the action of Bhāsa’s plays is reflected
in his style. More than any other dramatist, he uses the verse to
further the progress of the play, in lieu of devoting it to
descriptions rather poetic than directly aiding the drama, and it is
characteristic that he freely employs monostichs, which are rare later.
On the other hand, he is ready to resort to monologue; that on the
third Act of the Avimāraka suggested perhaps the monologue of Çarvilaka
in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, whose author must have known Bhāsa’s works
intimately.
The dominating influence on Bhāsa’s style was clearly that of the epic
and in special of Vālmīki, whose great work inevitably impressed itself
on the minds of all his successors. The effects are visible not merely
in the dramas with epic subject-matter, but extend throughout Bhāsa’s
plays. The results of this influence are all to the good; the
necessities of the drama saved Bhāsa from the one great defect of the
epic style, the lack of measure, which permits the Rāmāyaṇa to
illustrate by twenty-nine similes the sorrows of Sītā in her captivity,
while in the Abhiṣekanāṭaka the dramatist is content with one. On the
other hand he owes to it the relative simplicity of his diction, and
his freedom from the excesses of the poetic equivalent of the nominal
style, which comes to dominate later Sanskrit literature. The use of
long compounds is obviously and plainly undramatic; carried to excess
it must have rendered a Sanskrit drama unintelligible even to a highly
cultivated audience as far as the verses were concerned, and it is an
essential dramatic merit in Bhāsa that his expression is far easier to
follow than in much of later dramatic poetry. He possesses in fact that
clearness, which is theoretically a merit of the Kāvya style, but which
is signally neglected by the average Kāvya writer in his anxiety to
display the complete familiarity which he possesses with every side of
the art of poetry. As far as we can judge from the scanty fragments of
Açvaghoṣa’s dramas, that poet was more complex than Bhāsa, and
certainly so in his epics, which aided powerfully in the formation of
Kālidāsa’s epic and dramatic style.
Bhāsa, of course, is not in the slightest degree akin to a poet of the
people; he is an accomplished master of the art of poetry, but one
whose good sense and taste preserve him from adopting in drama the
artifices which are permitted in the court epic and lyric which were
intended to be studied at leisure. The simple and sententious is
beloved of Bhāsa: thus Karṇa repels the objections of Çalya to his
parting with armour and earring to the disguised Indra: [213]
çikṣā kṣayaṁ gacchati kālaparyayāt: subaddhamūlā nipatanti pādapāḥ
jalaṁ jalasthānagataṁ ca çuṣyati: hutaṁ ca dattaṁ ca tathaiva
tiṣṭhati.
‘Learning decayeth with the passing of time; though firm their roots,
trees fall; the water of a lake drieth up; but sacrifices and gifts
endure.’ When Sītā is forced to undergo the ordeal by fire Lakṣmaṇa
exclaims: [214]
vijñāya devyāç çaucaṁ ca çrutvācāryasya çāsanam
dharmasnehāntare nyastā buddhir dolāyate mama.
‘I know the queen’s chastity; I have heard the bidding of our
preceptor; like a swing, my mind doth move ’twixt duty and love.’ When
Rāma falls at his father’s feet on the order being given for his
coronation, he tells us: [215]
samaṁ bāṣpeṇa patatā tasyopari mamāpy adhaḥ
pitur me kleditau pādau mamāpi kleditaṁ çiraḥ.
‘My father’s feet were wet with tears I let fall on them, and my head
was wet with tears he let fall over me.’ When Devakī must yield, for
the sake of saving it, her child, it is said of her: [216]
hṛdayeneha taran̄gair dvidhābhūteva gacchati
yathā nabhasi toye ca candralekhā dvidhā kṛtā.
‘She is divided; her heart remaineth here, her body goeth yonder, as in
cloud and water the digit of the moon is divided.’ Rāvaṇa’s contempt
for Rāma as a foe is forcibly expressed: [217]
kathaṁ lambasataḥ siṅho mṛgeṇa vinipātyate
gajo vā sumahān mattaḥ sṛgālena nihanyate?
‘Can the deer bring low the lion with flowing mane? Can the jackal slay
the mighty elephant in his wrath?’ In the Cārudatta [218] the darkness
is happily described:
sulabhaçaraṇam āçrayo bhayānāṁ: vanagahanaṁ timiraṁ ca tulyam eva
ubhayam api hi rakṣyate ’ndhakāre: janayati yaç ca bhayāni yaç ca
bhītaḥ.
‘Affording easy refuge, yet abodes of fear, the forest depths and
darkness are akin; for the shadows guard alike him who feareth and him
who causeth fear.’ More ambitious is a verse given in the
Subhāṣitāvali: [219]
kaṭhinahṛdaye muñca krodhaṁ sukhapratighātakam
likhati divasaṁ yātaṁ yātaṁ Yamaḥ kila mānini
vayasi taruṇe naitad yuktaṁ cale ca samāgame
bhavati kalaho yāvat tāvad varaṁ subhage ratam.
‘Hard-hearted maiden, lay aside the anger that doth impede our joy;
death entereth on his register every day as it goeth, disdainful one;
not meet is this in thy tender youth, for love is fleeting; rather
spend in love the time we lose in this quarrel.’
The simple figures of speech are freely used by Bhāsa, and he shows as
usual a marked fondness for the accumulation of similar sounds, as in
sajalajaladhara, sanīranīrada, or kuladayaṁ hanti madena nārī:
kūladvayaṁ kṣubdhajalā nadīva. More interesting are instances of his
power, which is specially manifest in the Svapnavāsavadattā and the
Pratimānāṭaka, of expressing strong emotion adequately and forcibly.
Thus we have the indignant upbraiding of Kaikeyī by the angry Bharata:
[220]
vayam ayaçasā cīreṇāryo nṛpo gṛhamṛtyunā
pratataruditaiḥ kṛtsnāyodhyā mṛgaiḥ saha Lakṣmaṇaḥ
dayitatanayāḥ çokenāmbāḥ snuṣādhvapariçramair
dhig iti vacasā cogreṇātmā tvayā nanu yojitāḥ?
‘Hast thou not brought upon me disgrace and dishonour, on my noble
father’s death at the hands of his dearest, on all Ayodhyā ceaseless
lamentation, exile on Lakṣmaṇa, sorrow on the noble ladies, who love
their children, for the cruel journey imposed on thy daughter-in-law,
and on thyself the hateful reproach of a shameful deed?’ Equally
effective is Lakṣmaṇa’s protest against Rāma’s acquiescence in his
exclusion from the throne: [221]
yadi na sahase rājño mohaṃ dhanuḥ spṛça mā dayā
svajananibhṛtaḥ sarvo ’py evam mṛduḥ paribhūyate
atha na rucitam muñca mām ahaṁ kṛtaniçcayo
yuvatirahitaṁ kartuṁ lokaṁ yataç chalitā vayam.
‘If thou wilt not endure the king’s infatuation, take thy bow, show no
pity. Hidden among his own folk every weakling is thus overborne. But,
if thou wilt not, leave me free at least; my mind is intent to make
this world free of that youthful one, since cheated we have been.’
Bharata’s devotion is expressed happily enough: [222]
tatra yasyāmi yatrāsau vartate Lakṣmaṇapriyaḥ
nāyodhyā taṁ vināyodhyā sāyodhyā yatra Rāghavaḥ.
‘Thither will I go where dwelleth Lakṣmaṇa’s beloved; without him
Ayodhyā is not Ayodhyā; where Rāghava is, there is Ayodhyā.’ A martial
spirit breathes in Virāṭa’s words: [223]
tāḍitasya hi yodhasya çlāghanīyena karmaṇā
akālāntaritā pūjā nāçayaty eva vedanām.
‘Instant fame destroys the pangs of the warrior stricken in performing
a deed of valour.’ There is manly indignation and pathos in
Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s mourning over Abhimanyu’s death: [224]
bahūnāṁ samupetānām ekasmin nirghṛṇātmanām
bāle putre praharatāṁ kathaṁ na patitā bhujāḥ.
‘How could these cruel men bear to raise their arms to smite one young
boy, alone against such a concourse?’ The necessity of toil to achieve
any end is well brought out in a verse in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,
[225] which has a curious parallel in Açvaghoṣa: [226]
kāṣṭhād agnir jāyate mathyamānād: bhūmis toyaṁ khanyamānā dadāti
sotsahānāṁ nāsty asādhyaṁ narāṇām: mārgārabdhāḥ sarvayatnāḥ
phalanti.
‘Fire ariseth from the rubbing of timber; the earth when dug giveth
water; nothing is there that men may not obtain by effort; every
exertion duly undertaken doth bear fruit.’ A profound truth, the
rareness of gratitude, is emphasized in the Svapnavāsavadattā: [227]
guṇānāṁ vā viçālānāṁ satkārāṇāṁ ca nityaçaḥ
kartāraḥ sulabhā loke vijñātāras tu durlabhāḥ.
‘There are many to show conspicuous virtue and to do constant deeds of
kindness, but few are there who are grateful for such actions.’ The
heavy burden of the duties of a king is effectively described in the
Avimāraka: [228]
dharmaḥ prāg eva cintyaḥ sacivamatigatiḥ prekṣitavyā svabuddhyā
pracchādyau rāgaroṣau mṛduparuṣaguṇau kālayogena kāryau
jñeyaṁ lokānuvṛttam paracaranayanair maṇḍalam prekṣitavyam
rakṣyo yatnād ihātmā raṇaçirasi punas so ’pi nāvekṣitavyaḥ.
‘First there must be consideration of the injunctions of the law, then
the train of the minister’s thought must be followed; desire and anger
must be concealed; mercy and harshness must be applied as expediency
demands; the temper of the people must be ascertained through the aid
of spies as well as the demeanour of neighbouring kings; one’s life
must be guarded with every care, but in the forefront of battle heed
for it must be laid aside.’ The position of a minister is no enviable
one: [229]
prasiddhau kāryāṇām pravadati janaḥ pārthivabalam
vipattau vispaṣṭaṁ sacivam atidoṣaṁ janayati
amātyā ity uktāḥ çrutisukham udāraṁ nṛpatibhiḥ
susūkṣmaṁ daṇḍyante matibalavidagdhāḥ kupuruṣāḥ.
‘If policy succeeds, the people acclaim the prince’s might; if disaster
ensue, it condemns the incompetency of the minister; poor fools, puffed
up by their strength of intellect, they receive from kings the noble
and sweet sounding style of “counsellor” only to be punished sharply
for any failure.’
Bhāsa is fond of expressing typical feelings in simple language which
later poets would deem lacking in ornament; thus he expresses a
mother’s feelings regarding her daughter’s marriage in the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa: [230]
adattety āgatā lajjā datteti vyathitam manaḥ
dharmasnehāntare nyastā duḥkhitāḥ khalu mātaraḥ.
‘Shame were it if she be not betrothed; yet if betrothed sorrow is
one’s lot; between duty and love mothers are sore vexed in heart.’ The
responsibility of a teacher is set out by Droṇa in the Pañcarātra:
[231]
atītya bandhūn avalan̄ghya mitrāṇy: ācāryam āgacchati çiṣyadoṣaḥ.
bālaṁ hy apatyaṁ gurave pradātum: naivāparādho ’sti pitur na mātuḥ.
‘A pupil’s fault passes over relatives and friends and settles on the
teacher, for it is no wrong in father or mother to hand over a young
child to a preceptor.’
Bhāsa’s power of depicting irony is specially prominent in the
Svapnavāsavadattā, [232] where Vāsavadattā is driven to weave the
garland for the new queen’s marriage, on the score of her skill in this
art. Rāvaṇa shows the heads which he represents as those of Rāma and
Lakṣmaṇa to Sītā, only to hear the announcement that his son is slain
in the battle, by the very two whose death he has feigned. [233]
Effective is the contrast between Vālin’s splendour and his fall in his
son An̄gada’s lament: [234]
atibalasukhaçāyī pūrvam āsīr harīndraḥ: kṣititalaparivartī
kṣīṇasarvān̄gaceṣṭaḥ.
‘Soft indeed thy couch aforetime as lord of the apes, who now dost lie
on the ground, thy every movement stilled in death’, and Duryodhana’s
fall is not less effectively described. [235]
A characteristic of Bhāsa is his fondness for pithy proverbial phrases,
‘Everything suits a handsome figure’, ‘Misfortunes never come singly’,
‘Good news sounds more pleasant from a friend’s mouth’
(piaṇivediamāṇāṇi piāṇi piadarāṇi honti), ‘Man’s fate is as mobile as
an elephant’s trunk’, ‘There are many obstacles in the road to
fortune’, ‘A small cause begets grave misfortune’, are found in the
Avimāraka alone. An idea once expressed fascinates Bhāsa and is
repeated again and again in the same terms, a fact which incidentally
helps to assure the genuineness of the plays. For some phrases he has a
special fondness; mā with the instrumental is normal in lieu of the
ordinary alam, which he also uses; aho tu khalu to introduce a stanza;
kiṁ nu khalu in a question; āma and bādham to indicate assent; sukham
āryasya as a phrase of greeting. Especially is he devoted to the term
vara, sometimes before, usually after, the noun whose quality it
intensifies; the use occurs even twice or thrice in a single stanza.
The harmony and melody of Bhāsa’s style, added to its purity and
perspicuity, have no better proof than the imitations of his verses
which are unquestionably to be traced in Kālidāsa, who attests thus his
practical appreciation of the merits of the dramatist, with whose
established fame his nascent genius had to contend.
6. THE LANGUAGE OF THE PLAYS
Bhāsa’s Sanskrit [236] is in the main correct according to the rules of
the grammarians, but his dependence on the epic is revealed by the
occasional use of epic irregularities, almost always for the sake of
the metre, which in the epic also is the cause of many deviations from
classical grammar. We have thus the irregular contractions putreti and
Avantyādhipateḥ, and a number of middle forms in lieu of active,
gamiṣye, garjase, drakṣyate, pṛcchase, bhraçyate, ruhyate, çroṣyate. In
other cases the active replaces the middle, āpṛccha, upalapsyati,
pariṣvaja. There is confusion between the simple and the causative verb
in sravati and vījanti, and in vimoktukāma. The forms rudantī and gṛhya
have many epic parallels. Irregular compounds are sarvarājñaḥ in verse,
and Kāçirājñe in prose; vyūḍhoras and tulyadharma occur in verse. The
use in one clause of both ced and yadi is found in verse and also in
prose, as in the epic. Mere blunders perhaps may be styled pratyāyati,
a haplological form of the causative with the meaning of the simple
verb, samāçvāsitum with causative sense, and yudh as a masculine noun.
There are other seeming irregularities, but they are either sanctioned
by usage or possible of explanation by reference to variant
interpretations of Pāṇini’s rules.
The Prākrits [237] found in Bhāsa are normally Çaurasenī, which is
present in all the plays save the Dūtavākya, which has no Prākrit;
Māgadhī found in two different forms; and what may be styled
Ardha-Māgadhī. The distinctive feature of his language is its
transitional aspect as compared with Açvaghoṣa on the one hand and
Kālidāsa on the other. Açvaghoṣa never softens—save in one
instance—hard consonants, but both ṭ and t are changed to ḍ and d in
Bhāsa. Açvaghoṣa never omits consonants, but, though this is less often
carried out than in Kālidāsa, we find cases of the loss of k, g, c, j,
t, d, p, b, v, and y when intervocalic. y itself suffers frequent
change to j, contrary to Açvaghoṣa’s usage. The change of n initial and
medial to ṇ is regular, while it is unknown to Açvaghoṣa. The aspirates
kh, gh, th, dh, ph, and bh are all often reduced as later to h, but
never in Açvaghoṣa.
In the case of conjunct consonants we find that jñ gives in Bhāsa
either ññ or ṇṇ, possibly the latter by error; Açvaghoṣa has ññ only,
Kālidāsa ṇṇ. For ny and ṇy Bhāsa has always ṇṇ as against Açvaghoṣa’s
ññ. The eliding of a consonant, with the compensatory lengthening of
the vowel as in dīsadi, is unknown to Açvaghoṣa, where the omission of
the consonant twice occurs but without lengthening; it is frequent in
Bhāsa and regular in Kālidāsa. The analogous use of a short vowel and a
double consonant to represent a long vowel with a single consonant is
unknown to Açvaghoṣa, but Bhāsa has it in evva, evvaṁ, jovvana, devva,
ekka. On the other hand, like Açvaghoṣa, for ry he has yy only in lieu
of Kālidāsa’s jj. For the later metta matta is always found, and the
epenthetic vowel is u, not i, in purusa, and puruva is normal.
In inflection we have, in the nominative and accusative plural of
neuter stems in a, āni in Açvaghoṣa, āṇi in Bhāsa, while both āṇi and
āiṁ are allowed later. The accusative plural masculine has also,
analogously to āni in the Ardha-Māgadhī of the Açoka inscriptions,
[238] āṇi, and the locative singular feminine is in āaṁ, not as later
āe. For the later attāṇaaṁ we have attāṇaṁ. For ‘we’ Açvaghoṣa has
vayaṁ, Kālidāsa amhe; Bhāsa both and vaaṁ. In the genitive plural Bhāsa
has both amhāaṁ and the only form later amhāṇaṁ, while Açvaghoṣa would
doubtless have used amhākaṁ. kissa is kept for later kīsa, and kocci
(kaccid) disappears later. The root darç is represented by dass and
daṅs, grah by gaṇhadi against the later geṇhadi, which, however, is
found in Açvaghoṣa. The older forms karia and gacchia or gamia, are
found in lieu of kadua and gadua, but the last occurs once. mā is used
with the gerund in the sense of alam.
Many of these peculiarities mark also the Māgadhī, which appears in two
slightly varied forms, the first in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa and the
Cārudatta, the second in the Bālacarita and the Pañcarātra; in the two
latter we have ṣ and o for the ç and e of the former. As in Açvaghoṣa
there is no trace of obedience to the rules of the grammarians which
require sṭ for Sanskrit ṣṭh or ṣṭ, çc for cch, sk or ẖk for kṣ. For ‘I’
we find ahake, which is an intermediate stage between Açvaghoṣa’s
ahakaṁ and the later hage. ny becomes ṇṇ, not ññ, and the use of y to
denote a dropped consonant is not carried out.
The only passages that can claim to be anything like Ardha-Māgadhī are
the remarks of Indra in disguise in the Karṇabhāra, where the
characteristic signs, the use of r, s, and e, are found; in the
speeches of Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra in the Bālacarita we have the use of l
and a locative in ammi. A single passage in the Pañcarātra suggests
Māgadhī Apabhraṅça, but is probably corrupt.
7. THE METRES OF THE DRAMAS
It is characteristic of Bhāsa’s close dependence on the epic that his
dramas should show a far more frequent use of the Çloka, 436 out of
1,092 verses. No later writer save Bhavabhūti in his Rāma dramas
approaches this frequency, which, it must be noted, is not confined to
the epic plays, for the Svapnavāsavadattā has 26 Çlokas out of 57
verses. In some plays, it is true, such as the Madhyamavyāyoga or the
Pañcarātra, long series of Çlokas suggest incomplete command of the
dramatic art on Bhāsa’s part, but his general preference is clearly an
outcome of his desire for rapid movement and simplicity; it is the
later love for elaborate descriptions that encourages the use of
sonorous and complex metres. The Çlokas are remarkably regular in
construction; the diiambus in the second Pāda is insisted on rigidly;
the Vipulās [239] are rare, the fourth is unknown, the second sporadic,
the first twice as frequent as the third, and the prior foot is rarely
[240] ⏓ - ⏑ -. The sparing use of the irregular forms is doubtless due
to the comparatively small number of Çlokas used consecutively, which
minimises the desire for change of form.
Of the more elaborate metres, in which each syllable has a fixed
length, the favourite is the Vasantatilaka, which occurs 179 times,
while the Upajāti occurs 121 times. Next comes the Çārdūlavikrīḍita
(92), Mālinī (72), Puṣpitāgrā with the scheme ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ - ⏑ - - |
⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ - ⏑ - - (66), Vaṅçasthā (35), Çālinī (2), Çikhariṇī
(19), and Praharṣiṇī (17). Other metres are purely sporadic; they
include the Sragdharā, Hariṇī, Vaiçvadevī, [241] Drutavilambita, [242]
Pṛthvī, [243] and Bhujan̄gaprāyata, [244] while the Suvadanā occurs four
times. There is one example of the Upagīti with 12 morae in the first
and third Pādas, and 15 in the second and fourth, and one of the
Vaitālīya with 14 and 16 in the two sets respectively. There is also
one example of the shortest form of Daṇḍaka metre, with six short
syllables followed by seven amphimacers, while there is also one
shorter metre with six amphimacers. The rarity of the Āryā is
remarkable; beside the one Upagīti, which is in Prākrit, there are only
eleven, of which five are in Prākrit. Contrast the frequency of the
Āryā in Kālidāsa where there are 31 out of 163 in the Vikramorvaçī, and
35 out of 96 in the Mālavikāgnimitra.
Generally the rules of classical prosody are faithfully observed; there
is one hiatus between Pādas and once Sandhi; in niyatī and maulī, as in
anūkarṣa, the lengthening is probably metrical. The Çlokas show a great
fondness for epic tags, such as acireṇaiva kālena, prasādaṁ kartum
arhasi, and kampayann iva medinīm. Especially frequent is the breaking
up of a verse between different speakers or by interruptions of one
kind or another.
8. BHĀSA AND KĀLIDĀSA
There is prima facie the probability that Kālidāsa should be strongly
affected by a predecessor so illustrious and of such varied
achievement, and the probability is turned into certainty by the
numerous coincidences between the two writers. [245] Inevitably, of
course, with such a genius as Kālidāsa’s, the matter which is borrowed
is transformed and normally improved in the change, and this fact
renders strict proof of indebtedness impossible. But the evidence is
sufficient to induce conviction to any one accustomed to weighing
literary evidence of borrowing.
In Act I of the Çakuntalā the king is struck with the elegance of the
simple bark dress worn by the heroine in keeping with her station as a
maiden of the hermitage; kim iva hi madhurāṇām maṇḍanaṁ nākṛtīnām, ‘For
what does not grace a lovely figure?’ he asks, and illustrates his
theme. [246] The germ of this pretty idea is found in the
Pratimānāṭaka, Act I, where Sītā playfully decks herself in a dress of
bark, evoking the judgement of her friend: savvasohaṇīaṁ surūvaṁ ṇāma.
[247] The converse relationship is here incredible; Bhāsa’s imitation
of Kālidāsa would be feeble and tasteless, while Kālidāsa’s improvement
on his original is apt and skilful. The fact of borrowing is
established by the episode in the same act of the Çakuntalā of the
treatment of watering the garden as an act of penance on the maiden’s
part; an idea which occurs in a closely parallel passage in Act V of
the Pratimānāṭaka. Bhāsa treats it as bearable, illustrating it by the
adduction of an example in the technical form of an Arthāntaranyāsa,
[248] while Kālidāsa [249] is more severe in his condemnation, using
the technical figure Nidarçanā, clearly a deliberate variation of the
idea. In the same Act of the Pratimānāṭaka [250] we find Rāma bidding
Sītā take farewell of the fawns and the trees, which are her
foster-children, and of her dear friends, the Vindhya mountain and the
creepers; in the departure of Çakuntalā from the hermitage [251] the
trees and the fawns as well as the creepers share in the grief of her
departure; of the deer is expressly used the term ‘foster-child’ found
in the Pratimānāṭaka. Again in Act VII of that play Sītā is reminded of
the distrust felt by the deer in Bharata, [252] just as Çakuntalā
describes their distrust of Duḥṣanta. [253] There is a parallel in the
Svapnavāsavadattā, Act I, where Vāsavadattā is received kindly by the
lady of the hermitage, and thanks her for her courteous words, to the
scene at the opening of the Çakuntalā, in which the king assures
Anasūyā that her speech of welcome is sufficient hospitality
(bhavatīnāṁ sūnṛtayaiva girā kṛtam ātithyam). The parallel is completed
by the instruction given by the chamberlain in Bhāsa’s play to the
servant to avoid disturbance to the hermitage with the commands of the
king to the commander-in-chief. Similar also is the scene in Act II of
the Svapnavāsavadattā, in which during the play of Padmāvatī and
Vāsavadattā in disguise reference is made to the former’s approaching
marriage, to the talk of Çakuntalā’s friends with her in Act I. We have
also in the sixth Act of either play a parallel treatment of the lute
lost by Udayana in the one case, [254] and the ring lost by Çakuntalā
in the other; [255] the verses in which these innocent objects of
censure are attacked are similar in spirit and taste.
Other traces of Bhāsa’s influence are also to be found. The motif of
the curse of Durvāsas which in the Çakuntalā explains the sufferings of
the heroine suggests the curse of Caṇḍabhārgava in the Avimāraka which
reduces the hero to a humble rank, and in the Çakuntalā the lovers are
reunited at the hermitage of the sage Mārīca, as in the Avimāraka they
meet at the home of Nārada. There is a vague similarity also as regards
many expressions in the two poets, but it would be unwise to lay any
special stress on such testimony. But the more specific evidence given
above of dependence is undeniable, and it is surprising to find it
questioned by Professor Hillebrandt, [256] especially when we have
Kālidāsa’s own recognition of Bhāsa’s fame, and Bāṇa’s reiteration of
it.
The most valid argument which might be adduced against dependence is
the fact that Kālidāsa’s dramas as they stand do not seem to agree with
the rule observed in those of Bhāsa regarding the beginning of the
drama. In Bhāsa’s works the Sūtradhāra appears on the stage at the
close of a Nāndī, the text of which is not given, and recites a verse
which obviously is not technically a Nāndī, though it is of the same
type, containing a benediction. In the works of Kālidāsa the first
verse is the Nāndī, and at the close of it the Sūtradhāra begins the
play with a dialogue. But we cannot rely on the manuscripts as giving
us the true practice of Kālidāsa’s date, for we know that in the case
of the Vikramorvaçī old manuscripts denied to the first verse the
character of a Nāndī, and therefore presented the play in the form
affected by Bhāsa, and the same style is sometimes followed in South
Indian manuscripts of other plays. It is, therefore, impossible to hold
that Kālidāsa rejected the practice of Bhāsa, or to base any argument
on the facts.
V
THE PRECURSORS OF KĀLIDĀSA AND ÇŪDRAKA
1. THE PRECURSORS OF KĀLIDĀSA
Kālidāsa refers in the prologue to the Mālavikāgnimitra not only to
Bhāsa but to Saumilla and Kaviputra—perhaps rather the Kaviputras—as
his predecessors in drama. Saumilla, whose name suggests an origin in
Mahārāṣṭra, is mentioned by Rājaçekhara along with Bhāsa and a third
poet Rāmila. Further, the same authority tells us that Rāmila and
Somila composed a Çūdrakakathā, which is compared to Çiva under the
form of Ardhanārīçvara, in which he is united with his spouse, perhaps
a hint at the union of heroic and love sentiments in the tale. A fine
stanza is attributed to them in the Çārn̄gadharapaddhati: [257]
savyādheḥ kṛçatā kṣatasya rudhiraṁ daṣṭasya lālāsrutiḥ
kiṁcin naitad ihāsti tat katham asau pānthas tapasvī mṛtaḥ?
ā jñātaṁ madhulampaṭair madhukarair ārabdhakolāhale
nūnaṁ sāhasikena cūtamukule dṛṣṭiḥ samāropitā.
‘Had he been ill he would have been emaciated; wounded, he would have
bled; bitten, have shown the venom; no sign of these is here; how then
has the unhappy traveller met his death? Ah! I see. When the bees began
to hum as they sought greedily for honey, the rash one let his glance
fall on the mango bud’. Spring is the time for lovers’ meetings; the
traveller, far from his beloved, lets himself think of her and dies of
despair.
The Kaviputras, a pair according to the verse cited from them in the
Subhāṣitāvali [258], were apparently also collaborators, a decidedly
curious parallel with Somila and Rāmila, as such collaboration seems
later rare. The stanza is pretty:
bhrūcāturyaṁ kuñcitāntāḥ kaṭākṣāḥ: snigdhā hāvā lajjitāntāç ca hāsāḥ
līlāmandaṁ prasthitaṁ ca sthitaṁ ca: strīṇām etad bhūṣaṇam āyudhaṁ ca.
‘The play of the brows, the sidelong glances which contract the corners
of the eyes, words of love, bashful laughter, the slow departure in
sport, and the staying of the steps: these are the ornaments and the
weapons of women.’
Strange that so scanty remnants should remain of poets who must have
deserved high praise to receive Kālidāsa’s recognition, but the fame of
that poet doubtless inflicted on them the fate that all but overtook
Bhāsa himself.
2. THE AUTHORSHIP AND AGE OF THE MṚCCHAKAṬIKĀ
The discovery of the Cārudatta of Bhāsa has cast an unexpected light on
the age of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, but has still left it dubious whether or
not the author is to be placed before Kālidāsa. That this rank was due
to him was the general opinion before Professor Lévi attacked the
theory, and it is curious that later he should have inclined to doubt
the value of his earlier judgement. The existence of the Cārudatta
would explain, of course, the silence of Kālidāsa on the Mṛcchakaṭikā,
if it existed in his time. Explicit use of the drama by Kālidāsa or the
reverse would be conclusive, but unhappily none of the parallels which
can be adduced have any effective force, and from rhetorical quotations
we only have the fact that Çūdraka was recognized as an author by
Vāmana, [259] for Daṇḍin’s citation of a verse found in the
Mṛcchakaṭikā is now clearly known to be a citation from Bhāsa, in whose
works the verse in question twice occurs. With this falls the
hypothesis of Pischel, [260] who, after ascribing the play to Bhāsa,
later fathered it upon Daṇḍin, to make good the number of three famous
works with which he is in later tradition credited.
The play itself presents Çūdraka, a king, as its author and gives
curious details of his capacities; he was an expert in the Ṛgveda, the
Sāmaveda, mathematics, the arts regarding courtesans, and the science
of elephants, all facts which could be concluded from the knowledge
shown in the play itself; he was cured of some complaint, and after
establishing his son in his place, and performing the horse sacrifice,
he entered the fire and died at the age of a hundred years and ten
days. We have a good deal more information of a sort regarding his
personality; he was to Kalhaṇa in the Rājataran̄giṇī [261] a figure to
be set beside Vikramāditya; the Skanda Purāṇa [262] makes him out the
first of the Andhrabhṛtyas; the Vetālapañcaviṅçati knows of his age as
a hundred, and gives as his capital either Vardhamāna or Çobhāvatī,
which is the scene of his activities according to the Kathāsaritsāgara,
which tells of the sacrifice of a Brahmin who saves him from imminent
death and secures his life of a hundred years by killing himself. In
the Kādambarī he is located at Vidiçā, and in the Harṣacarita we hear
of the device by which he got rid of his enemy Candraketu, prince of
Cakora, while Daṇḍin in the Daçakumāracarita refers to his adventures
in several lives. The fact that Rāmila and Somila wrote a Kathā on him
is significant of his legendary character in their time, considerably
before Kālidāsa. A very late tradition in the Vīracarita and the
younger Rājaçekhara [263] brings him into connexion with Sātavāhana or
Çālivāhana, whose minister he was and from whom he obtained half his
kingdom, including Pratiṣṭhāna. [264]
These references seem to suggest that Çūdraka was a merely legendary
person, a fact rather supported than otherwise by his quaint name,
which is absurd in a king of normal type. Nevertheless, Professor Konow
treats him as historical, and finds in him the Ābhīra prince Çivadatta,
who, or whose son, Īçvarasena, is held by Dr. Fleet to have overthrown
the last of the Andhra dynasty and to have founded the Cedi era of A.D.
248–9. [265] This remarkable result is held to be supported by the fact
that in the play the king of Ujjayinī is Pālaka, and is represented as
being overthrown by Āryaka, son of a herdsman (gopāla), and the Ābhīras
are essentially herdsmen. But this is much more than dubious; we have
in fact legendary history in the names of Pālaka, Gopāla—to be taken
probably in the Mṛcchakaṭikā as a proper name—and Āryaka. The proof is
indeed overwhelming, for Bhāsa, who is the source of so much of the
Mṛcchakaṭikā, mentions in his Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa as sons of
Pradyota of Ujjayinī both Gopāla and Pālaka, and the Bṛhatkathā must
have contained the story of Gopāla surrendering the kingdom on
Pradyota’s death to Pālaka, and of the latter having to make room for
Āryaka, his brother’s son. To make history out of these events, which
belong to the period shortly after the Buddha’s death, say 483 B.C.,
and history of the third century A.D., is really impossible. Çūdraka is
really clearly mythical, as is seen by the admission that he entered
the fire, for no one can believe that he foresaw his death-day so
precisely, or that the ceremony referred to is that performed on
becoming an ascetic, or even that the prologue was added after his
death; if it had been, it would have doubtless been of a different
type. Still less can we imagine that he was helped in his work by
Rāmila and Somila.
Windisch, [266] on the other hand, attempted to prove a close
similarity between the plot of the political side of the play and the
legend of Kṛṣṇa, instancing the prediction of Āryaka’s attaining the
throne, the jealousy of the king and his efforts to destroy him, and
the final overthrow of the tyrant. The similarity, however, is really
remote; the story is a commonplace in legend, and nothing can be made
of the comparison.
We are left, therefore, to accept the view that the author who wrote up
the Cārudatta, and combined with it a new play, thought it well to
conceal his identity and to pass off the work under the appellation of
a famous king. Lévi’s suggestion that he chose Çūdraka for this purpose
because he lived after Vikramāditya, patron of Kālidāsa, and wished to
give his work the appearance of antiquity by associating it with a
prince who preceded Vikramāditya, is clearly far-fetched, and
insufficient to suggest a date. Nor can anything be deduced from the
plentiful exhibition of Prākrits, which is not, to judge from Bhāsa, a
sign of very early date; while the use of Māhārāṣṭrī Prākrit would be,
if proved, conclusive that he is fairly late. Konow’s effort to support
Çūdraka’s connexion with Pratiṣṭhāna by this use is clearly untenable.
There is more plausibility in the argument from the simple form of the
construction of the drama; the manner of Bhāsa is closely followed;
thus in Act IX the absurd celerity with which the officer of the court
obeys the order to bring the mother of Vasantasenā on the scene, and
secures the presence of Cārudatta, is precisely on a par with Bhāsa’s
management of the plot in his dramas. The scenes of violence, in which
Vasantasenā is apparently killed and Cārudatta is led to death, are
reminiscent of Bhāsa’s willingness to present such scenes, but they do
not depart from the practice of the later drama as in Bhavabhūti’s
Mālatīmādhava. The Çakāra and Viṭa are indeed figures of the early
stage, but they are taken straight from Bhāsa and prove nothing. The
position of the Buddhist monk is more interesting, but here again it is
borrowed, though developed, and we find Buddhism respected in Kālidāsa
and Harṣa. The arguments based on the apparent similarity with the
Greek New Comedy are without value for an early date, for they apply,
if they have any value at all, to the Cārudatta of Bhāsa. We are left,
therefore, with no more than impressions, and these are quite
insufficient to assign any date to the clever hand which recast the
Cārudatta and made one of the great plays of the Indian drama. [267]
3. THE MṚCCHAKAṬIKĀ
The first four acts of the play are a reproduction with slight changes
of the Cārudatta of Bhāsa; [268] the very prologue shows the fact in
the inexplicable transformation in the speech of the director, who
opens in Sanskrit and then changes to Prākrit, while in the Cārudatta
he speaks Prākrit only as fits the part of the Vidūṣaka which he is to
play. The names are slightly changed; the king’s brother-in-law is
called Saṁsthānaka, and the thief Çarvilaka. Act I carries the action
up to the deposit of the gems by Vasantasenā; Act II relates the
generosity of the hetaera to the shampooer who turns monk, and the
attack made on him as he leaves her house by a mad elephant, from which
Karṇapūraka, a servant of Vasantasenā’s, saves him, receiving as reward
a cloak which Vasantasenā recognizes as Cārudatta’s. In Act III we
learn of Çarvilaka’s success in stealing the jewels, and the generous
resolve of the wife of Cārudatta to give her necklace to replace them.
In Act IV Çarvilaka gives the jewels to Vasantasenā, who, though aware
of the theft, sets his love free. As he leaves with her, he hears of
the imprisonment of his friend Āryaka by order of the king, who knows
the prophecy of his attaining the kingship, and leaving his newly-made
bride, he hastens to aid his friend who is reported to have escaped
from his captivity. The Vidūṣaka then comes with the necklace, which
the hetaera accepts in order to use it as a pretext to see Cārudatta
once more. The visit occupies Act V, which passes in a storm forcing
Vasantasenā to spend the night in Cārudatta’s house. Act VI reveals her
next morning offering to return to Cārudatta’s wife the necklace, but
her gift is refused. The child of Cārudatta appears, complaining that
he has only a little earth cart (mṛcchakaṭikā), whence the name of the
play; Vasantasenā gives him her jewels that he may buy one of gold. She
is to rejoin Cārudatta in a neighbouring park, the property of
Saṁsthānaka, but by error she enters the car of Saṁsthānaka, while
Āryaka, who has been seeking a hiding-place, leaps into that of
Cārudatta and is driven away; two policemen stop the cart, and one
recognizes Āryaka, but protects him from the other with whom he
contrives a quarrel. In Act VII Cārudatta, who is conversing with the
Vidūṣaka, sees his cart drive up, discovers Āryaka, and permits him to
go off in it, while he himself leaves to find Vasantasenā. In the next
act Saṁsthānaka, with the Viṭa and a slave, meets in the park the
shampooer turned monk, who has gone there to wash his robe in the tank;
he insults him and beats him. The cart with Vasantasenā then is driven
up, and the angry Saṁsthānaka first tries to win her by fair words;
then, repulsed, orders the Viṭa and the slave to slay her; they
indignantly refuse; he pretends to grow calm, dismisses them, and then
rains blows on Vasantasenā, who falls apparently dead; the Viṭa, who
sees his action, deserts at once his cause and passes over to Āryaka’s
side. Saṁsthānaka, after burying the body under some leaves, departs,
promising himself to put the slave in chains; the monk re-enters to dry
his robe, finds and restores to life Vasantasenā, and takes her to the
monastery to be cared for. In Act IX Saṁsthānaka denounces Cārudatta as
the murderer of Vasantasenā to the court; [269] her mother is summoned
as a witness, but defends Cārudatta, who himself is cited; the police
officer testifies to the escape of Āryaka, which implicates Cārudatta;
the Vidūṣaka who enters the court, while en route to return to
Vasantasenā the jewels she had given the child, is so indignant with
the accuser that he lets fall the jewels; this fact, taken together
with the evidence that Vasantasenā spent the night with Cārudatta and
left next morning to meet him, and the signs of struggle in the park,
deceives the judge, who condemns Cārudatta to exile; Pālaka converts
the sentence into one of death. Act X reveals the hero led to death by
two Caṇḍālas, who regret the duty they have to perform; the servant of
Saṁsthānaka escapes and reveals the truth, but Saṁsthānaka makes light
of his words as a disgraced and spiteful slave, and the headsmen decide
to proceed with their work. Vasantasenā and the monk enter just in time
to prevent Cārudatta’s death, and, while the lovers rejoice at their
reunion, the news is brought that Āryaka has succeeded Pālaka whom he
has slain, and that he has granted a principality to Cārudatta. The
crowd shout for Saṁsthānaka’s death, but Cārudatta pardons him, while
the monk is rewarded by being appointed superior over the Buddhist
monasteries of the realm, and, best of all, Vasantasenā is made free of
her profession, and thus can become Cārudatta’s lawful wife.
To the author we may ascribe the originality of combining the political
and the love intrigue, which give together a special value to the play.
We know of no precise parallel to this combination of motifs, though in
the Bṛhatkathā there was probably a story recorded later [270] of the
hetaera Kumudikā who fell in love with a poor Brahmin, imprisoned by
the king; she allied herself to the fortunes of a dethroned prince
Vikramasiṅha, aided him by her arts to secure the throne, and was
permitted by the grateful prince to marry her beloved, now released
from prison. The idea was doubtless current in some form or another,
just as for the incidents of Bhāsa’s story we can trace parallels in
the Kathā literature of hetaerae who love honest and poor men and
desire to abandon for their sakes their hereditary and obligatory
calling, which the law will compel them to follow. [271] The conception
of the science of theft is neatly paralleled in the Daçakumāracarita,
where a text-book of the subject is ascribed to Karṇīsuta, and the same
work contains interesting accounts of gambling which illustrate Act II.
The Kathāsaritsāgara [272] tells of a ruined gambler, who takes refuge
in an empty shrine, and describes in Sarga xxxviii the palace of the
hetaera Madanamālā in terms which may be compared with the description
by the Vidūṣaka in Act IV of the splendours of Vasantasenā’s palace.
[273] The court scene conforms duly to the requirements of the legal
Smṛtis of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., but the conservatism of
the law renders this no sign of date.
Though composite in origin and in no sense a transcript from life, the
merits of the Mṛcchakaṭikā are great and most amply justify what else
would have been an inexcusable plagiarism. The hints given in the
Cārudatta here appear in full and harmonious development aided and
heightened by the introduction of the intrigue, which combines the
private affairs of the hero with the fate of the city and kingdom.
Cārudatta’s character is attractive in the extreme; considerate to his
friend the Vidūṣaka, honouring and respecting his wife, deeply devoted
to his little son, Rohasena, he loves Vasantasenā with an affection
free from all mere passion; he has realized her nobility of character,
her generosity, and the depth and truth of her love. Yet his devotion
is only a part of his life; aware of the vanity of all human things, he
does not value life over-highly; his condemnation affects him most
because it strikes at his honour that he should have murdered a woman,
and he leaves thus to his child a heritage of shame. Not less
attractive is Vasantasenā, bound, despite herself, to a profession
which has brought her great wealth but which offends her heart; the
judge and all the others believe her merely carried away by sensual
passion; Cārudatta and his wife alone recognize her nobility of soul,
and realize how much it means for her to be made eligible for marriage
to her beloved. There is an admirable contrast with the hero in the
Çakāra Saṁsthānaka, who is described vividly and realistically. His
position as brother-in-law of the king and his wealth make him believe
that he is entitled to whatever he wants; Vasantasenā’s repulse of him
outrages his sense of his own importance more than anything else;
brutal, ignorant [274] despite his association with courtiers of
breeding and refinement, and cowardly, he has only skill in perfidy and
deceit, and is mean enough to beg piteously for the life he has
forfeited, but which Cārudatta magnanimously spares. The Viṭa is an
excellent foil to him in his culture, good taste, and high breeding;
despite his dependence on his patron, he checks his violence to
Vasantasenā, strives to prevent his effort to murder her, and when he
fails in this takes his life into his own hands and passes over to
Āryaka’s side. The Vidūṣaka may be fond of food and comfortable living,
but he remains faithful in adversity to his master, is prepared to die
for him, and consents to live only to care for his son.
The minor characters among the twenty-seven in all who appear have each
an individuality rare in Indian drama. Çarvilaka, once a Brahmin, now a
professional thief, performs his new functions with all the precision
appropriate to the performance of religious rites according to the
text-books. The shampooer, turned Buddhist monk, has far too much
worldly knowledge to seek any temporal preferment from the favour of
Āryaka. Māthura, the master gambler, is a hardened sinner without
bowels of compassion, but the two headsmen are sympathetic souls who
perform reluctantly their painful duty. The wife of Cārudatta is a
noble and gentle lady worthy of her husband, and one who in the best
Indian fashion does not grudge him a new love if worthy, while the
lively maid Madanikā deserves fully her freedom and marriage with
Çarvilaka. Even characters which play so small an actual part as Āryaka
are effectively indicated. The good taste of the author is strikingly
revealed by the alteration made in the last scene by a certain
Nīlakaṇṭha, [275] who holds that the omission to bring upon the stage
Cārudatta’s wife, his son, and the Vidūṣaka was due to the risk of
making the time occupied by the representation of the play too great.
He supplies the lacuna by representing all three as determined to
commit suicide when Cārudatta rescues them; the author himself would
never have consented to introduce the first wife at the moment when a
second is about to be taken.
The author is not merely admirable in characterization; he is master of
pathos, as in the parting of Cārudatta from his son who asks the
headsman to kill him and let his father go, and above all he abounds in
humour and wit; even in the last act Goha, the headman, relieves the
tension by the tale of his father who advised him on his death-bed not
to slay too quickly the criminal on the off-chance that there might be
a revolution or something to save the wretch’s life, and, when after
deliverance comes the noble Cārudatta forbids the slaying with steel of
the grovelling Saṁsthānaka, Çarvilaka cheerfully remarks that is all
right: he will be eaten alive by the dogs instead.
These merits and the wealth of incident of the drama more than
compensate for the overluxuriance of the double intrigue, and the lack
of unity, which is unquestionable. A demerit in the eyes of the writers
on poetics is the absence of elaborate descriptions, but the simple and
clear diction of the play adds greatly to its liveliness and dramatic
effect, and the poet has perfect command of the power of pithy and
forcible expression. The Viṭa effectually rebukes the arrogance and
pride of family of Saṁsthānaka:
kiṁ kulenopadiṣṭena çīlam evātra kāraṇam
bhavanti sutarāṁ sphītāḥ sukṣetre kaṇṭakidrumāḥ.
‘Why talk of birth? Character alone counts. In rich soil the thorn
trees grow fastest.’ Cārudatta on the point of death asserts his
fearlessness:
na bhīto marāṇād asmi kevalaṁ dūṣitaṁ yaçaḥ
viçuddhasya hi me mṛtyuḥ putrajanmasamo bhavet.
‘I fear not death, but my honour is sullied; were that stain removed,
death would be as dear as the birth of a son.’ Admirable is his
expression of belief in Vasantasenā who may be dead:
prabhavati yadi dharmo dūṣitasyāpi me ’dya: prabalapuruṣavākyair
bhāgyadoṣāt kathaṁcit
surapatibhavanasthā yatra tatra sthitā vā: vyapanayatu kalan̄kaṁ
svasvabhāvena saiva.
‘If righteousness prevails, though to-day I am undone by the slanderous
words of one in power through my unhappy fate, may she, dwelling with
the gods above or wherever she be, by her true nature wipe out the blot
upon me.’ Sadly he apostrophizes his child deemed to be at play:
hā Rohasena na hi paçyasi me vipattim: mithyaiva nandasi
paravyasanena nityam.
‘Ah! Rohasena, since thou dost not know my plight, ever dost thou
rejoice in thy play falsely, for sorrow is in store.’
The character of Cārudatta is effectively portrayed by the Vidūṣaka:
[276]
dīnānāṁ kalpavṛkṣaḥ svaguṇaphalanataḥ sajjanānāṁ kuṭumbī
ādarçaḥ çikṣitānāṁ sucaritanikaṣaḥ çīlavelāsamudraḥ
satkartā nāvamantā puruṣaguṇanidhir dakṣiṇodārasattvo hy
ekaḥ çlāghyaḥ sa jīvaty adhikaguṇatayā cocchvasanti cānye.
‘A tree of bounty to the poor, bent down by its fruits, his virtues; a
support for all good men; a mirror of the learned, a touchstone of
virtue, an ocean that never violates its boundaries of virtue;
righteous, free from pride, a store-house of human merit, the essence
of courtesy and nobility; he gives meaning to life by the goodness
which we extol; other men merely breathe.’
The evils of poverty are forcibly depicted by Cārudatta himself: [277]
çūnyair gṛhaiḥ khalu samāḥ puruṣāḥ daridrāḥ
kūpaiç ca toyarahitais tarubhiç ca çīrṇaiḥ
yad dṛṣṭapūrvajanasaṁgamavismṛtānām
evam bhavanti viphalāḥ paritoṣakālāḥ.
‘Like empty houses, in truth, are poor men, or wells without water or
blasted trees; for fruitless are their hours of relaxation, since their
former friends forget them.’ The same idea is again expressed by the
hero: [278]
satyaṁ na me vibhavanāçakṛtāsti cintā: bhāgyakrameṇa hi dhanāni
bhavanti yānti
etat tu māṁ dahati naṣṭadhanāçrayasya: yat sauhṛdād api janāḥ
çithilībhavanti.
‘My dejection, assuredly, is not born of the mere loss of my wealth,
for with the turn of fortune’s wheel riches come and go. Nay, what
pains me is that men fail in friendship to him whose sometime wealth
has taken flight.’ The repetition of the idea becomes, indeed,
wearisome, but the ingenuity and fancy of the author are undoubted.
Love is also effectively described. The Viṭa is an admirer of
Vasantasenā and thus addresses the fleeting lady: [279]
kiṁ tvaṁ padair mama padāni viçeṣayantī
vyālīva yāsi patagendrabhayābhibhūtā?
vegād aham praviçṛtaḥ pavanaṁ nirundhyām
tvannigrahe tu varagātri na me prayatnaḥ.
‘Why, surpassing my speed with thine own, dost thou flee like a snake,
filled with fear of the lord of birds? Were I to use my speed I could
outstrip the wind itself, but I would make no effort to seize thee, O
fair-limbed one.’ Cārudatta praises the rain: [280]
dhanyāni teṣāṁ khalu jīvitāni: ye kāminīnāṁ gṛham āgatānām
ārdrāṇi meghodakaçītalāni: gātrāṇi gātreṣu pariṣvajanti.
‘Happy the life of those whose limbs embrace the limbs of their loved
ones, come to their home, dripping wet and cold with the water of the
clouds.’
Moreover, while to later Indian critics the descriptive stanzas of the
poet are lacking in that elaboration and cleverness which are admitted
by developed taste, to us much of the poetic value of the drama depends
on the power of the poet to describe with point and feeling in simple
terms which require no effort to appreciate. The whole scene of the
storm gains by the stanzas in which its beauties are described, once we
consent, as we must do in appreciating any Sanskrit play, to ignore the
inappropriateness of these lyric effusions in the actual circumstances.
In real life a lady seeking eagerly an interview with her beloved, in
resplendent attire, would have no time to display her command of
Sanskrit poetry in description, when counsels of prudence urged her to
her destination with the least possible delay: [281]
mūḍhe nirantarapayodharayā mayaiva: kāntaḥ sahābhiramate kiṁ
tavātra?
māṁ garjitair iti muhur vinivārayantī: mārgaṁ ruṇaddhi kupiteva
niçā sapatnī.
‘“If, foolish one, my beloved has joy clasped in my bosom’s embrace,
what is that to thee?” Thus night with her thunders, seeking to stay
me, blocks my path, like an angry rival.’
meghā varṣantu garjantu muñcantv açanim eva vā
gaṇayanti na çītoṣṇaṁ ramaṇābhimukhāḥ striyaḥ.
‘Let the clouds rain, thunder, or cast down the levin bolt; women who
speed to their loved ones reckon nothing of heat or cold.’ [282]
gatā nāçaṁ tārā upakṛtam asādhāv iva jane
viyuktāḥ kāntena striya iva na rājanti kakubhaḥ
prakāmāntastaptaṁ tridaçapatiçastrasya çikhinā
dravībhūtam manye patati jalarūpeṇa gaganam.
‘The stars disappear, like a favour bestowed on a worthless man; the
quarters lose their radiance, like women severed from their beloved;
molten by the fierce fire of Indra’s bolt, the sky, I ween, is poured
down upon us in rain.’ [283]
unnamati namati varṣati garjati meghaḥ karoti timiraugham
prathamaçrīr iva puruṣaḥ karoti rūpāṇy anekāni.
‘The cloud rises aloft, bows down, pours rain, sends thunder and the
dark; every show it makes of its wealth like the man newly rich.’ [284]
Last we may cite the rebuke of Vasantasenā to the lightning:
yadi garjati vāridharo garjatu tannāma niṣṭhurāḥ puruṣāḥ
ayi vidyut pramadānāṃ tvam api ca duḥkhaṁ na jānāsi?
‘If the cloud must thunder, then let him thunder; cruel were men ever;
but, O lightning, can it be that thou too dost not know the pangs of a
maiden’s love?’ [285]
The merits of the play are sufficient to enable its author to dispense
with praise not deserved. For Çūdraka, regarded as the author, has been
credited [286] with the distinction of being a cosmopolitan; however
great the difference between Kālidāsa, ‘the grace of poetry’ [287] and
Bhavabhūti, ‘the master of eloquence,’ [288] these two authors, it is
said, are far more allied in spirit than is either of them with the
author of the Mṛcchakaṭikā; the Çakuntalā and the Uttararāmacarita
could have been produced nowhere save in India, Çakuntalā is a Hindu
maid, Mādhava a Hindu hero, while Saṁsthānaka, Maitreya, and Madanikā
are citizens of the world. This claim, however, can hardly be admitted;
the Mṛcchakaṭikā as a whole is a drama redolent of Indian thought and
life, and none of the three characters adduced have any special claim
to be more cosmopolitan than some of the creations of Kālidāsa. The
variety of the characters of the play is unquestionably laudable, but
the praise in part is due to Bhāsa, and not to his successor. To the
same source also must be attributed the comparative simplicity of the
style, which certainly contrasts with the degree of elaboration found
even in Kālidāsa, and carried much further in Bhavabhūti. The variety
of incident is foreshadowed in Bhāsa, but the development of the drama
must be attributed to the author, and frankly it cannot be said to be
wholly artistic; that the drama is unnecessarily complex must be
conceded, nor can the action be said to proceed with complete ease and
conviction. The humour of the play is undoubted, but here again to
Bhāsa must honour be given. Bhāsa again is the prototype for the
neglect of the rule of the dramaturgy which demands the presence of the
hero on the stage in each act; the naming of the play, in defiance of
convention, from a minor incident may justly be ascribed to the author
himself.
The real Indian character of the drama reveals itself in the demand for
the conventional happy ending, which shows us every person in a
condition of happiness, with the solitary exception of the evil king.
Cārudatta is restored to affluence and power from the depths of infamy
and misery; Vasantasenā’s virtue and fidelity are rewarded by the
signal honour of restoration to the rank of one whom the hero may
marry; the monk, who refuses worldly gain, has the pleasure of becoming
charged with spiritual oversight, with its attendant amenities—not
inconsiderable to judge from our knowledge of the wealth of Buddhist
monasteries. Even Saṁsthānaka is spared, to save us, we may assume, the
pain of seeing anything so unpleasant as a real, even if well deserved,
death on the stage, for the king perishes at a distance from the scene.
If, as Cārudatta asserts at the end of the play, fate plays with men
like buckets at the well, one rising as another falls, Çūdraka is not
inclined to seek realism sufficiently to permit of his introducing even
a tinge of sorrow into the close of his drama.
4. THE PRĀKRITS
No extant play exhibits anything like the variety of Prākrits found in
the Mṛcchakaṭikā, which seems almost as if intended to illustrate the
precepts of the Nāṭyaçāstra in this regard. [289] The commentator
obligingly provides us with the names of the dialects represented and
those who speak them. Çaurasenī is spoken by the director after his
Sanskrit exordium, the comedienne, Vasantasenā, Madanikā, her servant,
Karṇapūraka, her slave, her mother, the wife of Cārudatta, the Çreṣṭhin
or guildsman, and the officer of the court, and Radanikā, Cārudatta’s
servant. Avantikā is attributed to the two policemen Vīraka and
Candanaka. The Vidūṣaka speaks Prācyā. The shampooer who turns monk,
Sthāvaraka, servant of the Çakāra Saṁsthānaka, Kumbhīlaka, servant of
Vasantasenā, Vardhamānaka, servant of Cārudatta, and the little
Rohasena speak Māgadhī. The Çakāra speaks Çākārī, the Caṇḍālas who act
as headsmen Cāṇḍālī, and the chief gambler Ḍhakkī. Sanskrit, on the
other hand, is spoken by the hero, the Viṭa, the royal claimant Āryaka,
and the Brahmin thief Çarvilaka. This distribution of Prākrits agrees
with that of the Nāṭyaçāstra as we have it in one important aspect; it
ignores the Māhārāṣṭrī, though for some not obvious reason Konow claims
that this was introduced into the drama by Çūdraka. On the other hand,
it does not assign to slaves, Rājputs, or guildsmen the Ardha-Māgadhī
of the Nāṭyaçāstra. In the case of Rohasena the Māgadhī ascribed to him
has been largely converted into Çaurasenī in the manuscripts. The
Çāstra ascribes Āvantī to Dhūrtas, which is interpreted as meaning
gamblers; the distinction between it and Çaurasenī is minimal; it is
said to have s and r and be rich in proverbs by Pṛthvīdhara, and this
accords adequately with the actual speeches of the officers. But the
second, Candanaka, expressly gives himself out as a southerner, and we
can hardly avoid the conclusion that the dialect is Dākṣiṇātyā which
the Çāstra ascribes to warriors, police officers, and gamblers. The
Prācyā of the Vidūṣaka is nothing more or less than Çaurasenī, though
it is given separately in the Çāstra also; it may have been an eastern
dialect of the main language. The Ḍhakkī ascribed to the gamblers
should probably [290] be named Ṭakkī, or Ṭākkī, an easy error because
of the confusion of the letters in manuscripts. Pischel regarded it as
an eastern dialect which had l, and preserved two sibilants ç and s in
which ṣ was merged; Sir G. Grierson finds in it a western dialect,
which seems more probable. The Çākārī of Saṁsthānaka is nothing more or
less than Māgadhī, which is given as the language of that person by the
Nāṭyaçāstra, and the Cāṇḍālī is merely another variety of that Prākrit.
Thus the rich variety reduces itself in effect to Çaurasenī [291] and
Māgadhī with Ṭakkī, of which we have too little to say precisely what
it was.
5. THE METRES
The author of the Mṛcchakaṭikā shows considerable skill in metrical
handling; his favourite metre is naturally enough the Çloka, which
suits his rapid style and is adapted to further the progress of the
dialogue. It occurs 83 times, while the next favourite, the pretty
Vasantatilaka, appears 39 times, and the Çārdūlavikrīḍita 32 times. The
only other important metres are the Indravajrā (26), with the Vaṅçasthā
(9), and the Upajāti combination of both (5). But there occur also the
Puṣpitāgrā, Praharṣiṇī, Mālinī, Vidyunmālā, [292] Vaiçvadevī,
Çikhariṇī, Sragdharā, and Hariṇī, and one irregular stanza. Of the Āryā
there are 21 cases, including one Gīti, with 30 morae in each half
stanza, and there are two instances of the Aupacchandasika. The Prākrit
metres show considerable variety; of the Āryā type there are 53 as
against 44 of other types. [293]
VI
KĀLIDĀSA
1. THE DATE OF KĀLIDĀSA
It is unfortunate, though as in the case of Shakespeare not surprising,
that we know practically nothing of the life and age of Kālidāsa save
what we can infer from his works and from the general history of
Sanskrit literature. There are indeed stories [294] of his ignorance in
youth, until he was given poetic power by the grace of Kālī, whence his
strange style of Kālidāsa, slave of Kālī, which is not one prima facie
to be expected in the case of a poet who shows throughout his work the
finest flower of Brahmanical culture. But these tales are late and
worthless, and equally without value is the fiction that he was a
contemporary of King Bhoja of Dhārā in the first half of the eleventh
century A.D. As little value, however, attaches to a tale which has
been deemed of greater value, the alleged death of Kālidāsa in Ceylon
when on a visit there by the hand of a courtesan, and the discovery of
his murder by his friend Kumāradāsa, identified with the king of that
name of the early part of the sixth century A.D. The tradition, as I
showed in 1901, is very late, unsupported by the earliest evidence, and
totally without value. [295]
The most prevalent tradition makes Kālidāsa a contemporary of
Vikramāditya, and treats him as one of the nine jewels of that
monarch’s entourage. Doubtless the king meant by the tradition, which
is late and of uncertain provenance, is the Vikramāditya whose name is
associated with the era of 57 B.C. and who is credited with a victory
over the Çakas. Whatever truth there may be in the legend, and in this
regard we have nothing but conjecture, [296] there is not the slightest
reason to accept so early a date for Kālidāsa, and it has now no
serious supporter outside India. But, based on Fergusson’s suggestion
[297] that the era of 57 B.C. was based on a real victory over Hūṇas in
A.D. 544, the reckoning being antedated 600 years, Max Müller [298]
adopted the view that Kālidāsa flourished about that period, a
suggestion which was supported by the fact that Varāhamihira, also a
jewel, certainly belongs to that century, and others of the jewels
might without great difficulty be assigned to the same period. The
theory in so far as it rested on Fergusson’s hypothesis has been
definitely demolished by conclusive proof of the existence of the era,
as that of the Mālavas, before A.D. 544, but the date has been
supported on other grounds. Thus Dr. Hoernle [299] found it most
probable that the victor who was meant by Vikramāditya in tradition was
the king Yaçodharman, conqueror of the Hūṇas, and the same view was at
one time supported by Professor Pathak, [300] who laid stress on the
fact that Kālidāsa in his account of the Digvijaya, or tour of conquest
of the earth, of the ancient prince Raghu in the Raghuvaṅça [301]
refers to the Hūṇas, and apparently locates them in Kashmir, because he
mentions the saffron which grows only in Kashmir.
An earlier date, to bring Kālidāsa under the Guptas, has been favoured
by other authorities, who have found that the reference to a conquest
of the Hūṇas must be held to be allusion to a contemporary event. This
date is attained on second thoughts by Professor Pathak, [302] who
places the Hūṇas on the Oxus on this view, and holds that Kālidāsa
wrote his poem shortly after A.D. 450, the date of the first
establishment of their empire in the Oxus valley, but before their
first defeat by Skandagupta, which took place before A.D. 455, when
they were still in the Oxus valley and were considered the most
invincible warriors of the age. On the other hand, Monmohan
Chakravarti, [303] who converted Professor Pathak to belief in the
contemporaneity of Kālidāsa with the Guptas, places the date at between
A.D. 480 and 490, on the theory that the Hūṇas were in Kālidāsa’s time
in Kashmir. The whole argument, however, appears fallacious; Raghu is
represented as conquering the Persians, and there is no contemporary
ground for this allegation; manifestly we have no serious historical
reminiscences, but, as is natural in a Brahmanical poet, a reference of
the type of the epic which knows perfectly well the Hūṇas. The exact
identity of the Hūṇas of the epic is immaterial; as the name had
penetrated to the western world by the second century A.D. if not
earlier, there is no conceivable reason for assuming that it could not
have reached India long before the fifth or sixth centuries A.D. [304]
Other evidence is scanty. Mallinātha, as is notorious, finds in verse
14 of the Meghadūta a reference to a poet Nicula, a friend of Kālidāsa,
and an enemy Dignāga; the latter would be the famous Buddhist logician,
and, assuming that his date is the fifth century A.D., we have an
argument for placing Kālidāsa in the fifth or sixth century A.D. But
the difficulties of this argument are insurmountable. In the first
place, it is extremely difficult to accept the alleged reference to
Nicula, who is otherwise a mere name, and to Dignāga; why a Buddhist
logician should have attacked a poet does not appear, especially as
every other record of the conflict is lost. Nor is the double entendre
at all in Kālidāsa’s manner; [305] such efforts are little in harmony
with Kālidāsa’s age, while later they are precisely what is admitted,
and are naturally seen by the commentators where not really intended.
It is significant that the allusion is not noted by Vallabhadeva, and
that it first occurs in Dakṣināvarta Nātha (c. A.D. 1200) and
Mallinātha (fourteenth century), many centuries after the latest date
assignable to Kālidāsa. Even, however, if the reference were real, the
date of Dignāga can no longer be placed confidently in the fifth
century A.D., or with other authorities in the sixth century. On the
contrary, there is a good deal of evidence which suggests that A.D. 400
is as late as he can properly be placed. [306]
As little can any conclusion be derived from the allusion in Vāmana to
a son of Candragupta in connexion with Vasubandhu, which has led to
varied efforts at identification, based largely on the fifth century as
the date of Vasubandhu. But it is far more probable that Vasubandhu
dates from the early part of the fourth century, and nothing can be
derived hence to aid in determining the period of Kālidāsa. [307]
More solid evidence must be sought in the astronomical or astrological
data which are found in Kālidāsa. Professor Jacobi has seen in the
equalization of the midday with the sixth Kāla in the Vikramorvaçī a
proof of Kālidāsa’s having lived in the period immediately subsequent
to the introduction from the west of the system of reckoning for
ordinary purposes the day by 12 Horās, Kāla being evidently used as
Horā. The passage has been interpreted by Huth as referring to a
sixteenfold division, and the argument to be derived from it is not
established, but Huth, on the other hand, manifestly errs by making
Kālidāsa posterior to Āryabhaṭa (A.D. 499) on the score that in the
Raghuvaṅça he refers to eclipses as caused by the shadow of the earth,
the reference being plainly to the old doctrine of the spots on the
moon. It is, however, probable that Kālidāsa in the Vikramorvaçī refers
to the figure of the lion in the zodiac, borrowed from the west, and it
is certain that he was familiar with the system of judicial astrology,
which India owes to the west, for he alludes both in the Raghuvaṅça and
the Kumārasambhava to the influence of the planets, and above all uses
technical terms like ucca and even jāmitra, borrowed from Greece. A
date not probably prior to A.D. 350 is indicated by such passages.
[308]
Similar evidence can be derived from Kālidāsa’s Prākrit, which is
plainly more advanced than that of Bhāsa, while his Māhārāṣṭrī can be
placed with reasonable assurance after that of the earlier Māhārāṣṭrī
lyric, which may have flourished in the third and fourth centuries A.D.
He is also earlier than the Aihole inscription of A.D. 634, where he is
celebrated, than Bāṇa (A.D. 620), and above all than Vatsabhaṭṭi’s
Mandasor Praçasti of A.D. 473. It is, therefore, most probable that he
flourished under Candragupta II of Ujjayinī, who ruled up to about A.D.
413 with the style of Vikramāditya, which is perhaps alluded to in the
name Vikramorvaçī, while the Kumārasambhava’s title may well hint a
compliment on the birth of young Kumāragupta, his son and successor.
[309] The Mālavikāgnimitra with its marked insistence on the horse
sacrifice of the drama seems to suggest a period in Kālidāsa’s early
activity when the memory of the first horse sacrifice for long
performed by an Indian king, that of Samudragupta, was fresh in men’s
minds. Moreover the poems of Kālidāsa are essentially those of the
Gupta period, when the Brahmanical and Indian tendencies of the dynasty
were in full strength and the menace of foreign attack was for the time
evanescent.
2. THE THREE DRAMAS OF KĀLIDĀSA
The Mālavikāgnimitra [310] is unquestionably the first dramatic work
[311] of Kālidāsa; he seeks in the prologue to excuse his presumption
of presenting a new play when tried favourites such as Bhāsa, Saumilla,
and the Kaviputras exist, and in the Vikramorvaçī also he shows some
diffidence, which has disappeared in the Çakuntalā. The great merits of
the poet are far less clearly exhibited here than in his other plays,
but the identity of authorship is unquestionable, and was long ago
proved by Weber against the doubts of Wilson.
The play, performed at a spring festival, probably at Ujjayinī, is a
Nāṭaka in five Acts, and depicts a love drama of the type seen already
in Bhāsa’s plays on the theme of Udayana. The heroine Mālavikā is a
Vidarbha princess, who is destined as the bride of Agnimitra; her
brother, Mādhavasena, however, is captured by his cousin Yajñasena; she
escapes and seeks Agnimitra, but en route to his capital in Vidiçā her
escort is attacked by foresters, perhaps by order of the rival Vidarbha
prince; she escapes again, however, and reaches Vidiçā, where she finds
refuge in the home of the queen Dhāriṇī, who has her trained in the art
of dancing. The king happens to see a picture in which she is depicted,
and falls in love with her. To arrange an interview is not easy, but
Gautama, his Vidūṣaka, provokes a quarrel between two masters of the
dance, who have recourse to the king to decide the issue of
superiority. He in turn refers the matter to the nun Kauçikī, who is in
reality a partisan of Mālavikā, who had been in her charge and that of
her brother, who was killed when the escort was dispersed. She bids the
masters produce each his best pupil; Gaṇadāsa brings out Mālavikā,
whose singing and dancing delight all, while her beauty ravishes the
king more than ever. She is victorious. In Act III the scene changes to
the park, whither comes Mālavikā at the bidding of Dhāriṇī to make the
Açoka blossom, according to the ancient belief, by the touch of her
foot. The king hidden with the Vidūṣaka behind a thicket watches her,
but so also does Irāvatī, the younger of Agnimitra’s queens, who is
suspicious and jealous of any rival in the king’s love. The king
overhears Mālavikā’s conversation with her friend, and realizes that
his love is shared; he comes forth and embraces her, but Irāvatī
springs out of her hiding-place and insults the king. Dhāriṇī has
Mālavikā confined to prevent any further development of the intrigue.
The Vidūṣaka, however, proves equal to the occasion with the aid of
Kauçikī; he declares himself bitten by a snake; the only remedy proves
to require the use of a stone in the queen’s ring, which is accorded
for that purpose, but employed for the more useful end of securing the
release of Mālavikā, and the meeting of the lovers, which Irāvatī, who
has excellent grounds for her vigilance, again disturbs. The king’s
embarrassment is fortunately mitigated by the necessity of his going to
the rescue of the little princess Vasulakṣmī, whom a monkey has
frightened. Act V cuts the knot by the advent of two unexpected pieces
of news; envoys come bearing the report of victory over the prince of
Vidarbha and conveying captives; two young girls introduced before the
queen as singers recognize both Kauçikī and their princess Mālavikā
among the queen’s attendants, and Kauçikī explains her silence on the
princess’s identity by obedience to a prophecy. Further, Puṣyamitra,
Agnimitra’s father, sends tidings of victory from the north; the son of
Dhāriṇī, Vasumitra, has defeated the Yavanas on the bank of the Indus,
while guarding the sacrificial horse, which by ancient law is let loose
to roam for a year unfettered before a king can perform rightfully the
horse sacrifice, which marks him as emperor. Dhāriṇī already owes
Mālavikā a guerdon for her service in causing the Açoka plant to
blossom; delighted by the news of her son’s success, she gladly gives
Agnimitra authority to marry Mālavikā, Irāvatī begs her pardon, and all
ends in happiness.
Puṣyamitra, Agnimitra, and Vasumitra are clearly taken from the dynasty
of the Çun̄gas, formed by the first through the deposition of the last
Maurya in 178 B.C. [312] Contact with Yavanas in his time is recorded
and the horse sacrifice is doubtless traditional, but equally it may
reflect the sacrifice of Samudragupta, the most striking event of the
early Gupta history, since it asserted the imperial sway of the family.
The rest of the play is based on the normal model.
The Vikramorvaçī, [313] by many reckoned as the last work [314] in
drama of Kālidāsa, seems rather to fall in the interval between the
youthful Mālavikāgnimitra and the mature perfection of the Çakuntalā.
The theme is that of the love of Purūravas, a king, and Urvaçī, an
Apsaras, or heavenly nymph. The prologue, which has been unjustly
suspected of being proof of the incompleteness and therefore later date
of the drama, is followed by screams of the nymphs from whom Urvaçī on
her return from Kailāsa has been torn away by a demon; the king hastens
to her aid, recovers her, and restores her first to her friends, and
then to the Gandharva king, but not before both have fallen desperately
in love. In the entr’acte a servant of the queen extracts cleverly from
the Vidūṣaka the secret of the change which has come over the king, his
love for Urvaçī. The king himself then appears; in conversation with
the Vidūṣaka he declares his love, to meet with scant sympathy; Urvaçī
and a friend appear in the air, and Urvaçī drops a letter written on
birch bark breathing her love; the king reads it and gives it to the
Vidūṣaka; Urvaçī’s friend appears, and finally Urvaçī herself, but
after a brief exchange of love passages Urvaçī is recalled to play a
part in heaven in a drama produced by Bharata. The message, unluckily,
falls into the queen’s hands, and she refuses to be appeased by
Purūravas’s attempts to soothe her. In the entr’acte before Act II we
learn from a conversation between two pupils of Bharata that Urvaçī was
so deeply in love that she played badly her part in the piece on
Lakṣmī’s wedding; asked whom she loved, she answered Purūravas instead
of Puruṣottama, Viṣṇu’s name, and Bharata cursed her; but Indra
intervened and gave her leave to dwell on earth with her love until he
had seen the face of her child. The Act that follows shows the king,
anxious to please the queen, engaged with her in celebrating the
festival of the moon’s union with Rohiṇī; Urvaçī and her friend, in
disguise and unseen by the king in a fairy mist, watch his courtesy
which fills the nymph with anguish, though her friend assures her that
it is mere courtesy. To her joy she finds that the queen has decided to
be reconciled, and to permit the king the enjoyment of his beloved;
pressed to stay with the king, she refuses, and Urvaçī joins Purūravas,
her friend leaving her, bidding Purūravas to care for her so that she
may not miss her friends in the sky.
The prelude to Act IV tells us of misfortune; the nymphs who mourn by
the sea her absence learn that, angry at her husband for some trivial
cause, she had entered the grove of Kumāra, forbidden to women, and
been turned into a creeper. In distraction [315] the king seeks for
her; he deems the cloud a demon which has stolen her away, demands of
the peacock, the cuckoo, the flamingo, the bee, the elephant, the boar,
the antelope what has become of her; he deems her transformed into the
stream, whose waves are the movements of her eyebrows while the rows of
birds in its waters are her girdle; he dances, sings, cries, faints in
his madness, or deems the echo to be answering him, until a voice from
heaven tells him of a magic stone, armed with which he grasps a creeper
which in his embrace turns into Urvaçī.
From this lyric height the drama declines in Act V. The king and his
beloved are back in his capital; the moon festival is being celebrated,
but the magic stone is stolen by a vulture, which, however, falls
pierced by the arrow of a youthful archer; the arrow bears the
inscription, ‘the arrow of Āyus, son of Urvaçī and Purūravas’. The king
had known nothing of the child, but, while he is amazed, a woman comes
from a hermitage with a gallant boy, who, educated in the duties of his
warrior caste, has by his slaying the bird violated the rule of the
hermitage and is now returned to his mother. Urvaçī, summoned, admits
her parentage, but, while Purūravas is glad, she weeps to think of
their severance, now inevitable, since he has seen his son. But, while
Purūravas is ready to abandon the realm to the boy and retire to the
forest in grief, Nārada comes with a message of good tidings; a battle
is raging between the gods and the demons; Purūravas’s arms will be
necessary, and in reward he may have Urvaçī’s society for his life.
The play has come down in two recensions, one preserved in Bengālī and
Devanāgarī manuscripts and commented on by Ran̄ganātha in A.D. 1656, and
the other in South Indian manuscripts, commented on by Kāṭayavema,
minister of the Reḍḍi prince, Kumāragiri of Koṇḍavīḍu about A.D. 1400.
The most important among many differences is the fact that in Act IV
the northern manuscripts give a series of Apabhraṅça verses, with
directions as to the mode of singing and accompanying them, which are
ignored in the southern manuscripts. The northern text calls the play a
Troṭaka, apparently from the dance which accompanied the verses, the
southern a Nāṭaka which it in essentials is. The arguments against the
authenticity of the verses are partly the silence of the theorists, the
fact that the existence in Kālidāsa’s time of Apabhraṅça of the type
found is more than dubious, [316] that there is sometimes a degree of
discrepancy between the verses and the prose of the drama, and that in
the many imitations of the scene (Mālatīmādhava, Act IX, Bālarāmāyaṇa,
Act V, Prasannarāghava, Act VI, and Mahānāṭaka, Act IV) there are no
similar verses. These reasons are on the whole conclusive, and the
problematic fact that the Prākrit of the northern recension is better
is not of importance.
The Çakuntalā [317] certainly represents the perfection of Kālidāsa’s
art, and may justly be assumed to belong to his latest period of work.
The prologue with his usual skill leads us up to the picture of the
king in swift pursuit of an antelope entering the outskirts of the
hermitage; warned of the sacred character of the spot, the king alights
from his chariot and decides to pay his respects to the holy man whose
hermitage it is; he is absent, but Çakuntalā, his foster-daughter, is
there with her friends; pursued by a bee she calls for help; they reply
that Duḥṣanta the king should aid as the hermitage is under his
protection, and the king gallantly comes forward to help. From the
maidens he elicits the tale of Çakuntalā’s birth; she is daughter of
Viçvāmitra and Menakā, and is being reared not for the religious life
but for marriage to some worthy one. The king loves and the maiden
begins to reciprocate his affection, when the news that a wild elephant
is menacing the hermitage takes him away. Act II reveals his Vidūṣaka
groaning over the toils of the king’s hunting. But the king gives order
for the hunt to end, not to please the Vidūṣaka but for Çakuntalā’s
sake, and, while he recounts his feelings to his unsympathetic friend,
receives with keen satisfaction the request of the young hermits to
protect the hermitage against the attacks of demons. The Vidūṣaka he
gets rid of by sending him back to the capital to take part in a
festival there, assuring him, in order to prevent domestic trouble,
that his remarks about Çakuntalā were not serious. In the entr’acte
before Act III a young Brahmin praises the deeds of Duḥṣanta, and we
learn that Çakuntalā is unwell, and her maidens are troubled regarding
her state, as she is the very life breath of Kaṇva. The Act itself
depicts Çakuntalā with her maidens; she is deeply in love and writes a
letter at their suggestion: the king who has overheard all comes on the
scene and a dialogue follows, in which both the king and the maiden
express their feelings; the scene is ended by the arrival of the nun
Gautamī to fetch away her charge. The entr’acte that follows tells us
from the conversation of Priyaṁvadā and Anasūyā, Çakuntalā’s dear
friends, that the king after his marriage with Çakuntalā has departed
and seems to have forgotten her; while Kaṇva is about to return and
knows nothing of the affair. A loud cry interrupts them; Çakuntalā in
her love-sickness has failed to pay due respect to the harsh ascetic
Durvāsas, who has come to visit the hermitage: he curses her, and all
the entreaties of her friends succeed in no more than mitigating the
harshness of his curse; she will be forgotten by her husband, not
indeed for ever, but until she presents to him the ring he gave her in
token of their union. The curse is essential; the whole action of the
play depends on it. The Act itself tells us that the difficulty
regarding Kaṇva has been solved; a voice from the sky has informed him
at the moment of his return of the marriage and Çakuntalā’s approaching
maternity. He has decided to send her under escort to the king. Then
follows a scene of intense pathos; the aged hermit unwillingly parts
with his beloved foster-daughter, with words of advice for her future
life, and Çakuntalā is desolated to leave him, her friends, and all
that she has loved at the hermitage.
Act V shows us the king in his court, overwhelmed with the duties of
office, for Kālidāsa takes care to show us Duḥṣanta as the great and
good monarch. News is brought that hermits with women desire an
interview, while a song is heard in which the queen Haṅsavatī laments
the king’s faithlessness to her; the king dispatches the Vidūṣaka to
solace her, and receives in state the hermits. They bring him his wife,
but, under the malign influence of the curse, he does not recognize her
and cannot receive her. The hermits reprove him, and insist on leaving
her, refusing her the right to go with them, since her duty is by her
husband’s side. The king’s priest is willing to give her the safety of
his house till the babe be born, but a figure of light in female shape
appears and bears Çakuntalā away, leaving the king still unrecognizing,
but filled with wonder. In the entr’acte which follows a vital element
is contributed; policemen mishandle a fisherman accused of theft of a
royal ring found in a fish which he has caught; it is Duḥṣanta’s ring
which Çakuntalā had dropped while bathing. The Act that follows tells
us of the recognition by the king of the wrong unwittingly done and his
grief at the loss of his wife; he seeks to console himself with her
portrait, when he is interrupted by a lady of the harem, and then by
the minister, who obtains from him the decision of a law case involving
the right of succession; the episode reminds the king of his
childlessness. From his despair the king is awakened by the screams of
the Vidūṣaka who has been roughly handled by Mātali, Indra’s
charioteer, as an effective means of bringing the king back to the
realization that there are duties superior to private feeling. The gods
need his aid for battle. In Act VII Duḥṣanta is revealed victorious,
and travelling with Mātali in a divine car high through the air to
Hemakūṭa, where dwells in the place of supreme bliss the seer Mārīca
and his wife. Here the king sees a gallant boy playfully pulling about
a young lion to the terror of two maidens who accompany him in the
dress of the hermitage; they ask the king to intervene with the child
in the cub’s interest, and the king feels a pang as he thinks of his
sonlessness. To his amazement he learns that this is no hermit’s son,
but his own; Çakuntalā is revealed to him in the dress of an ascetic,
and Mārīca crowns their happiness by making it clear to Çakuntalā that
her husband was guiltless of the sorrow inflicted upon her.
A drama so popular has naturally enough failed to come down to us in a
single recension. [318] Four are normally distinguished, Bengālī,
Devanāgarī, Kāçmīrī, and South Indian, while a fifth may also be
traced. There are, however, in reality, two main recensions, the
Bengālī, with 221 stanzas, as fixed by the commentators Çan̄kara and
Candraçekhara, and the Devanāgarī, with 194 stanzas, of Rāghavabhaṭṭa;
the Kāçmīrī, which supplies an entr’acte to Act VII, is in the main an
eclectic combination of these two representatives of North Indian
texts, and the South Indian is closely akin to the Devanāgarī; Abhirāma
and Kāṭayavema among others have commented on it. The evidence of
superior merit is conflicting; Pischel [319] laid stress on the more
correct Prākrit of the Bengālī and the fact that some readings in the
Devanāgarī are best explained as glosses on the Bengālī text, while
Lévi [320] proved that Harṣa and Rājaçekhara knew the Bengālī recension
in some shape. On the other hand, Weber [321] contended for the
priority of the Devanāgarī; certainly some readings there are better,
and some of the Bengālī stanzas are mere repetitions of others found in
both texts. Unless we adopt the not very plausible view of Bollensen
that the Devanāgarī version is the acting edition of the play revised
for representation, we must hold that neither recension is of
conclusive value: the argument from the Prākrit is not conclusive, for
it may merely rest on the superior knowledge of the copyists from whom
the Bengālī original ultimately issued. [322]
3. KĀLIDĀSA’S DRAMATIC ART
The order of plays here adopted is in precise harmony with the
development in a harmonious manner of Kālidāsa’s dramatic art. The
Mālavikāgnimitra is essentially a work of youthful promise and some
achievement; [323] the theme is one less banal probably in Kālidāsa’s
time than it became later when every Nāṭikā was based on an analogous
plot, and there is some skill in the manner in which the events are
interlaced; the Vidūṣaka’s stratagems to secure his master the sight of
his beloved are amusing, and, though Agnimitra appears mainly as a
love-sick hero, the reports of battles and victories reminds us
adequately of his kingly functions and high importance. The most
effective characterization, however, is reserved for the two queens,
Dhāriṇī and Irāvatī: the grace and dignity, and finally the magnanimity
of the former, despite just cause for anger, are set off effectively
against the passionate impetuosity of the latter, which leads her to
constant eavesdropping, and to an outbreak against the king, forgetful
of his rank and rights. The heroine is herself but faintly presented,
but her friend Kauçikī, who has been driven by a series of misfortunes
to enter the religious life, is a noble figure; she comforts and
distracts the mind of Dhāriṇī; she is an authority on the dance and on
the cure for snake bite, and alone among the women she speaks Sanskrit.
The Vidūṣaka is an essential element in the drama, and he plays rather
the part of a friend and confidant of the king than his jester; without
his skilled aid Agnimitra would have languished in vain for his
inamorata. But on the other hand he contributes comparatively little to
the comic side of the drama.
In the Vikramorvaçī Kālidāsa shows a marked advance in imagination. We
have no precise information of the source he followed; the story is
old, it occurs in an obscure form in the Ṛgveda, and is degraded to
sacrificial application in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa; it is also found in
a number of Purāṇas, and in the Matsya [324] there is a fairly close
parallel to Kālidāsa’s version, for the motif of the nymph’s
transformation into a creeper, instead of a swan, is already present,
Purūravas’s mad search for her is known as well as his rescue of her
from a demon. The passionate and undisciplined love of Urvaçī is
happily displayed, but it is somewhat too far removed from normal life
to charm; her magic power to watch her lover unseen and to overhear his
conversation is as unnatural as the singular lack of maternal affection
which induces her to abandon forthwith her child rather than lose her
husband; her love is selfish; she forgets her duty of respect to the
gods in her dramatic act, and her transformation is the direct outcome
of a fit of insane jealousy. The hero sinks to a diminutive stature
beside her, and, effective in the extreme as is his passionate despair
in Act IV, his lack of self-restraint and manliness is obvious and
distasteful. The minor characters are handled with comparative lack of
success; the incident of the boy Āyus is forced, and the ending of the
drama ineffective and flat. The Vidūṣaka, however, introduces an
element of comedy in the stupidity by which he allows himself to be
cheated out of the name of Urvaçī, and the clumsiness which permits the
nymph’s letter to fall into the hands of the queen. The latter,
Auçīnarī, is a dignified and more attractive figure than the nymph;
like Agnimitra in his scene with Irāvatī, Purūravas cuts a sorry figure
beside her, seeing how just cause she had to be vexed at his lack of
faith and candour towards her.
In the Çakuntalā Kālidāsa handles again with far more perfect art many
of the incidents found in his earlier drama. He does not hesitate to
repeat himself; we have in the first and third Acts the pretty idea of
the king in concealment hearing the confidential talk of the heroine
and her friends; the same motif is found in Act III of the
Mālavikāgnimitra. Like Urvaçī, Çakuntalā, when she leaves the king,
makes a pretext—her foot pricked by a thorn and her tunic caught by a
branch—to delay her going; in the same way both express their love by
letters; the snatching by a bird of the magic stone in the Vikramorvaçī
is paralleled by Mātali’s seizure of the Vidūṣaka in Act VI; Āyus has a
peacock to play with, as the little Bharata a lion, but in each case
the comparison is all to the good of the Çakuntalā. The same maturity
is seen in the changes made in the narrative of the Mahābhārata [325]
which the poet had before him. The story there is plain and simple; the
king arrives at the hermitage; the maiden recounts to him her ancestry
without false shame; he proposes marriage; she argues, and, on being
satisfied of the legality of a secret union, agrees on the
understanding that her son shall be made heir apparent. The king goes
away; the child grows up, until at the due season the mother,
accompanied by hermits, takes him to court; the hermits leave her, but
she is undaunted when the king out of policy refuses to recognize her;
she threatens him with death and taunts him with her higher birth;
finally, a divine voice bids the king consecrate the child, and he
explains that his action was due solely in order to have it made plain
that the child was the rightful prince. This simple tale is
transformed; the shy heroine would not dream of telling her birth; her
maidens even are too modest to do more than hint, and leave the
experienced king to guess the rest. Çakuntalā’s dawning love is
depicted with perfect skill; her marriage and its sequel alluded to
with delicate touches. The king’s absurd conduct is now explained; a
curse produces it, and for that curse Çakuntalā was not without
responsibility, for she allowed her love to make her forgetful of the
essential duty of hospitality and reverence to the stranger and saint.
Before the king she utters no threat but behaves with perfect dignity,
stunned as she is by his repudiation of their love. The king is a
worthy hero, whose devotion to his public duties and heroism are
insisted on, and who deserves by reason of his unselfishness to be
reunited with his wife. His love for his son is charmingly depicted,
and, accepting as an Indian must do the validity of the curse, [326]
his conduct is irreproachable; it is not that he despises the lovely
maiden that he repulses her, but as a pattern of virtue and morality he
cannot accept as his wife one of whom he knows nothing. Çakuntalā’s own
love for him is purified by her suffering, and, when she is finally
united to him, she is no longer a mere loving girl, but one who has
suffered tribulation of spirit and gained in depth and beauty of
nature.
The other characters are models of skilful presentation. Kālidāsa here
shakes himself free from the error of presenting any other woman in
competition with Çakuntalā; Duḥṣanta is much married, but though
Haṅsavatī deplores his faithlessness he does not meet her, and, when
Vasumatī enters in Act VI, the effect is saved by the entry of the
minister to ask the king to decide a point of law. The Vidūṣaka, who
would have ruined the love idyll, is cleverly dismissed on other
business in Act II, while he serves the more useful end of introducing
comic relief; Mātali playfully terrifies him to rouse the king from his
own sorrows. Kaṇva is a delightful figure, the ascetic, without child,
who lavishes on his adopted daughter all the wealth of his deep
affection, and who sends her to her husband with words of tender
advice; he is brilliantly contrasted with the fierce pride and anger of
Durvāsas who curses Çakuntalā for what is no more than a girlish fault,
and the solemn majesty of Mārīca, who, though married, has abandoned
all earthly thoughts and enjoys the happiness of release, while yet
contemplating the affairs of the world and intervening to set them in
order with purely disinterested zeal The companions of the heroine are
painted with delicate taste; both are devoted body and soul to their
mistress, but Anasūyā is serious and sensible; Priyaṁvadā talkative and
gay. There is a contrast between the two hermits who take Çakuntalā to
the court; Çārn̄garava shows the pride and hauteur of his calling, and
severely rebukes the king; Çāradvata is calm and restrained and
admonishes him in lieu. Equally successful is the delineation of the
police officers, whose unjust and overbearing conduct to the fisherman
represents the spirit of Indian police from the first appearance in
history. The supernatural, which is in excess in the Vikramorvaçī, is
reduced to modest dimensions, and intervenes hardly at all in the play,
until we come to the last Act, where the theory permits and even
demands that the marvellous should be introduced, and the celestial
hermitage is a fit place for the reunion of two lovers severed by so
hard a fate. The episode of the ring whose loss prevents the immediate
recognition of the heroine is effectively conceived and woven into the
plot.
Kālidāsa excels in depicting the emotions of love, from the first
suggestion in an innocent mind to the perfection of passion; he is
hardly less expert in pathos; the fourth Act of the Çakuntalā is a
model of tender sorrow, and the loving kindness with which even the
trees take farewell of their beloved one contrasts with the immediate
harsh reception which awaits her at the royal court. Kālidāsa here, as
in the fourth Act of the Vikramorvaçī and in the garden scenes of the
Mālavikāgnimitra, displays admirably his love for nature and his power
of description of all the stock elements of Indian scenery, the mango,
the Bimba fruit, the Açoka, the lotus, and his delicate appreciation of
the animal world of India. In the last Act of the Çakuntalā also we
have the graceful picture of the appearance of the earth viewed in
perspective from the celestial car of Mātali.
The humour of the Vidūṣaka is never coarse; his fondness for food is
admitted; cakes and sugar suggest themselves to him when the hero
admires the moon or is sick of love; heroics he despises: the king is
summarily compared to a thief in his dislike for discovery; if caught,
he should imitate the latter who explains that he was learning the art
of wall breaking. Or again, he is in his contempt for the ladies of his
harem like one sated of sweet dates and desiring the bitter tamarind.
Mālavikā is summarily treated; she is like a cuckoo caught by a cat
when Dhāriṇī places her in confinement, but he is no more respectful of
himself, for, seized by Mātali, he treats himself as a mouse in mortal
fear of a cat. Best of all is his description in Act II of the miseries
brought on him by Duḥṣanta’s hunting; the Brahmins were no admirers of
the sport, though they had to acquiesce in it in kings, and the
Vidūṣaka’s picture is vivid in the extreme.
The range of Kālidāsa’s technical knowledge is apparent in his skilled
use of the dance and song to set off his dramas; the Mālavikāgnimitra
contains an interesting exposition by the dancing master of the theory
of the art and its importance; not only is Mālavikā a dancer, but
Çakuntalā shows her skill in movement in Act I. The songs of the trees
and of Haṅsavatī in the same play enable him to add a fresh interest to
the drama, and in the Vikramorvaçī spectacular effects seem to have
been aimed at, while in the Bengālī recension song is prominently
introduced in Act IV of the Vikramorvaçī.
Admirable as is Kālidāsa’s work, it would be unjust to ignore the fact
that in his dramas as in his epics he shows no interest in the great
problems of life and destiny. The admiration of Goethe and the style of
the Shakespeare of India accorded by Sir William Jones, [327] the first
to translate the Çakuntalā, are deserved, but must not blind us to the
narrow range imposed on Kālidāsa’s interests by his unfeigned devotion
to the Brahmanical creed of his time. Assured, as he was, that all was
governed by a just fate which man makes for himself by his own deeds,
he was incapable of viewing the world as a tragic scene, of feeling any
sympathy for the hard lot of the majority of men, or appreciating the
reign of injustice in the world. It was impossible for him to go beyond
his narrow range; we may be grateful that, confined as he was, he
accomplished a work of such enduring merit and universal appeal as
Çakuntalā, which even in the ineffective guise of translations has won
general recognition as a masterpiece.
4. THE STYLE
Kālidāsa represents the highest pitch of elegance attained in Sanskrit
style of the elevated Kāvya character; he is master of the Vaidarbha
style, the essentials of which are the absence of compounds or the rare
use of them, and harmony of sound as well as clearness, elevation, and
force allied to beauty, such as is conveyed to language by the use of
figures of speech and thought. He is simple, as are Bhāsa and the
author of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, but with an elegance and refinement which
are not found in these two writers; Açvaghoṣa, we may be sure,
influenced his style, but the chief cause of its perfection must have
been natural taste and constant reworking of what he had written, a
fact which may easily explain the discrepancies between the recensions
of his work. But his skill in the Çakuntalā never leads him into the
defect of taste which betrayed his successors into exhibiting their
skill in the wrong place; skilled as he is in description, and ready as
he is to exhibit his power, in the fifth Act he refrains from inserting
any of these ornamental stanzas which add nothing to the action,
however much honour they may do to the skill of the poet. His language
has also the merit of suggestiveness; what Bhavabhūti, the greatest of
his successors, expresses at length, he is content to indicate by a
touch. He is admirably clear, and the propriety of his style is no less
admirable; the language of the policeman and the fisher is as
delicately nuanced as that of the domestic priest who argues at once in
the best style of the philosophical Sūtras. The Prākrit which he
ascribes to the maidens of his play has the supreme merit that it
utterly eschews elaborate constructions and long compounds, such as
Bhavabhūti places without thought of the utter incongruity in the
mouths of simple girls.
The rhetoricians [328] extol the merits of Kālidāsa in metaphor, and
they repeatedly cite his skill in the use of figures of speech, sound
and thought, which they divide and subdivide in endless variety. He
excels in vivid description (svabhāvokti) as when he depicts the flight
of the antelope which Duḥṣanta pursues to the hermitage:
grīvābhan̄gābhirāmam muhur anupatati syandane baddhadṛṣṭiḥ
paçcārdhena praviṣṭaḥ çarapatanabhayād bhūyasā pūrvakāyam
darbhair ardhāvalīḍhaiḥ çramavivṛtamukhabhraṅçibhiḥ kīrṇavartmā
paçyodagraplutatvād viyati bahutaraṁ stokam urvyāṁ prayāti.
‘His glance fixed on the chariot, ever and anon he leaps up, gracefully
bending his neck; through fear of the arrow’s fall he draws ever his
hinder part into the front of his body; he strews his path with the
grass, half chewed, which drops from his mouth opened in weariness; so
much aloft he bounds that he runs rather in the air than on earth.’
Inferential knowledge is illustrated by a brilliant stanza: [329]
çāntam idam āçramapadaṁ sphurati ca bāhuḥ phalam ihāsya
atha vā bhavitavyānāṁ dvārāṇi bhavanti sarvatra.
‘This is the hermitage where all desires are stilled; yet my arm
throbs; how can here be found the fruit of such a presage? Nay, the
doors of fate are ever open.’ The rôle of conscience in human action is
finely portrayed: [330]
asaṁçayaṁ kṣatraparigrahakṣamā: yad āryam asyām abhilāṣi me manaḥ
satāṁ hi saṁdehapadeṣu vastuṣu: pramāṇam antaḥkaraṇapravṛttayaḥ.
‘Assuredly the maiden is meet for marriage to a warrior, since my noble
mind is set upon her; for with the good in matters of doubt the final
authority is the dictate of conscience.’ Of the departing Çakuntalā
after her rejection the king says: [331]
itaḥ pratyādeçāt svajanam anugantuṁ vyavasitā
muhus tiṣṭhety uccair vadati guruçiṣye gurusame
punar dṛṣṭiṁ bāṣpaprasarakaluṣām arpitavatī
mayi krūre yat tat saviṣam iva çalyaṁ dahati mām.
‘When I rejected her she sought to regain her companions, but the
disciple, in his master’s stead, loudly bade her stay; then she turned
on cruel me a glance dimmed by her falling tears, and that now burns me
like a poisoned arrow.’ At his son’s touch he says: [332]
anena kasyāpi kulān̄kureṇa: spṛṣṭasya gātreṣu sukhaṁ mamaivam
kāṁ nirvṛttiṁ cetasi tasya kuryād: yasyāyam an̄gāt kṛtinaḥ
prarūḍhaḥ?
‘When such joy is mine in the touch on my limbs of a scion of some
other house, what gladness must not be his, from whose loins, happy
man, this child is sprung?’ The punishment of the king for his
disloyalty is severe: [333]
prajāgarāt khilībhūtas tasyāḥ svapne samāgamaḥ
bāṣpas tu na dadāty enāṁ draṣṭuṁ citragatām api.
‘My sleeplessness forbids the sight of her even in a dream; my tears
deny me her pictured form.’ On reunion the picture is very different:
[334]
çāpād asi pratihatā smṛtirodharūkṣe: bhartary apetatamasi prabhutā
tavaiva
chāyā na mūrchati malopahataprasāde: çuddhe tu darpaṇatale
sulabhāvakāçā.
‘Thou wert rejected by thy husband, cruel through the curse that robbed
him of memory; now thy dominion is complete over him whose darkness is
dispelled; on the tarnished mirror no image forms; let it be cleaned
and it easily appears.’
There is pathos in Purūravas’s reproach to Urvaçī: [335]
tvayi nibaddharateḥ priyavādinaḥ: praṇayabhan̄gaparān̄mukhacetasaḥ
kam aparādhalavam mama paçyasi: tyajasi mānini dāsajanaṁ yataḥ?
‘My delight was ever in thee, my words ever of love; what suspicion of
fault dost thou see in me that, O angry one, thou dost abandon thy
slave?’ The metrical effect is here, as usual, extremely well planned.
His vain efforts to attain his beloved are depicted forcibly: [336]
samarthaye yat prathamam priyām prati: kṣaṇena tan me parivartate
‘nyathā
ato vinidre sahasā vilocane: karomi na sparçavibhāvitapriyaḥ.
‘Whatever I deem to be my beloved in a moment assumes another aspect. I
will force my eyes to be sleepless, since I have failed to touch her
whom I adore.’ There are no limits to the strength of his love: [337]
idaṁ tvayā rathakṣobhād an̄genān̄gaṁ nipīḍitam
ekaṁ kṛti çarīre ’smiñ çeṣam an̄gam bhuvo bharaḥ.
‘In this body no member has value save that which, thanks to the
movement of the chariot, she has touched; all else is a mere burden to
the earth.’ Hyperbole [338] is permissible:
sāmantamaulimaṇirañjitapādapīṭham: ekātapatram avaner na tathā
prabhutvam
asyāḥ sakhe caraṇayor aham adya kāntam: ājñākaratvam adhigamya
yathā kṛtārthaḥ.
‘Despite the radiance shed on my footstool by the jewelled diadems of
vassal princes, despite the subjection of the whole earth to my sway,
not so much joy did I gain from attaining kingship as the satisfaction
won from paying homage to the feet of that lady, O my friend.’ The
recovery of the nymph from her faint caused by the savage onslaught
upon her is described in a happy series of similes: [339]
āvirbhūte çaçini tamasā ricyamāneva rātrir
naiçasyārcir hutabhuja iva cchinnabhūyiṣṭhadhūmā
mohenāntar varatanur iyaṁ lakṣyate mucyamānā
gan̄gā rodhaḥpatanakaluṣā gacchatīva prasādam.
‘As the night, freed from the darkness when the moon has appeared, as
the light of a fire in the evening when the smoke has nearly all gone,
so appears this lady fair, recovering from her faint, and winning back
her calmness, like the Ganges after her stream has been troubled by the
falling of her banks.’
The Mālavikāgnimitra, it is true, has far fewer beauties of diction
than the other two dramas, but it contains many verses which are
unmistakably the work of Kālidāsa, though they present much less than
the maturity of his later style. The figure of discrepancy (viṣama) is
illustrated by the description of the god of love whose bow, so
innocent in seeming, can yet work such ill: [340]
kva rujā hṛdayapramāthinī: kva ca te viçvasanīyam āyudham
mṛdutīkṣṇataraṁ yad ucyate: tad idam manmatha dṛçyate tvayi.
‘How strange the difference between this pain that wrings the heart,
and thy bow to all seeming so harmless. That which is most sweet and
most bitter at once is assuredly found in thee, O God of Love.’
Agnimitra is ready enough with a pun, when Mālavikā, on being bidden to
show fearlessly her love towards him, slyly reminds him that she has
seen him as terrified as herself of the queen: [341]
dākṣiṇyaṁ nāma bimboṣṭhi baimbikānāṁ kulavratam
tan me dīrghākṣi ye prāṇās te tvadāçānibandhanāḥ.
‘Politeness, O Bimba-lipped one, is the family tradition of the
descendants of Bimbaka; nevertheless, what life I have depends entirely
on the hope of thy favour.’ The excellent Kauçikī consoles and comforts
Dhāriṇī with her approval of her acts: [342]
pratipakṣeṇāpi patiṁ sevante bhartṛvatsalāḥ sādhvyaḥ
anyasaritām api jalaṁ samudragāḥ prāpayanty udadhim.
‘Even to the extent of admitting a rival, noble ladies, who love their
spouses, honour their husbands; the great rivers bear to the ocean the
waters of many a tributary stream.’ There is an amusing directness and
homeliness in the king’s utterance on learning of the true quality of
Mālavikā: [343]
preṣyabhāvena nāmeyaṁ devīçabdakṣamā satī
snānīyavastrakriyayā patrorṇaṁ vopayujyate.
‘This lady, fit to bear the title of queen, has been treated as a
maid-servant, even as one might use a garment of woven silk for a
bathing cloth.’ But Kālidāsa shows himself equal to the expression of
more manly sentiments as well; the nun thus tells of her brother’s fall
in the effort to save Mālavikā when the foresters attack them: [344]
imām parīpsur durjāte parābhibhavakātarām
bhartṛpriyaḥ priyair bhartur ānṛṇyam asubhir gataḥ.
‘Eager in this misfortune to protect her, terrified by the enemy’s
onslaught, he paid with his dear life his debt of affection to the lord
whom he loved.’ The king’s reply is manly: bhagavati tanutyajām īdṛçī
lokayātrā: na çocyaṁ tatrabhavān saphalīkṛtabhartṛpiṇḍaḥ. ‘O lady, such
is the fate of brave men; thou must not mourn for him who showed
himself thus worthy of his master’s salt.’
5. THE LANGUAGE AND THE METRES
In Kālidāsa we find the normal state of the Prākrits in the later
drama, Çaurasenī for the prose speeches, and Māhārāṣṭrī for the verses.
[345] The police officers and the fisher in the Çakuntalā use Māgadhī,
but the king’s brother-in-law, who is in charge of the police and is a
faint echo of the Çakāra, speaks, as we have the drama, neither Çākārī
nor Māgadhī nor Dākṣiṇātyā but simply Çaurasenī. By this time, of
course, we may assume that Prākrit for the drama had been stereotyped
by the authority of Vararuci’s Prākrit grammar, and that it differed
considerably from the spoken dialect; there would be clear proof if the
Apabhraṅça verses of the Vikramorvaçī could safely be ascribed to
Kālidāsa. The Māhārāṣṭrī unquestionably owes its vogue to the outburst
of lyric in that dialect, which has left its traces in the anthology of
Hāla and later texts, and which about the period of Kālidāsa invaded
the epic. [346]
Kālidāsa’s Sanskrit is classical; here and there deviations from the
norm are found, but in most instances the expressions are capable of
defence on some rule or other, while in others we may remember the fact
of the epic tradition which is strong in Bhāsa.
The metres of Kālidāsa show in the Mālavikāgnimitra a restricted
variety; the Āryā (35) and the Çloka (17) are the only metres often
occurring. In the Vikramorvaçī the Āryā (29) and the Çloka (30) are
almost in equal favour, while the Vasantatilaka (12) and the
Çārdūlavikrīḍita (11) make a distinct advance in importance. In the
Çakuntalā the Āryā (38) and Çloka (36) preserve their relative
positions, while the Vasantatilaka (30) and Çārdūlavikrīḍita (22)
advance in frequency of use, a striking proof of Kālidāsa’s growing
power of using elaborate metrical forms. The Upajāti types increase to
16. The other metres used in the drama are none of frequent occurrence;
common to all the dramas are Aparavaktra, [347] Aupacchandasika, [348]
and Vaitālīya, Drutavilambita, Puṣpitāgrā, Pṛthvī, Mandākrāntā, Mālinī,
Vaṅçasthā, Çārdūlavikrīḍita, Çikhariṇī, and Hariṇī; the
Mālavikāgnimitra and the Çakuntalā share also Praharṣiṇī, Rucirā, [349]
Çālinī, and Sragdharā; the latter adds the Rathoddhatā, [350] the
Vikramorvaçī a Mañjubhāṣiṇī. [351] The earliest play has one irregular
Prākrit verse, the second two Āryās, and 29 of varied form of the types
measured by feet or morae, and the last seven Āryās and two Vaitālīyas.
The predominance of the Āryā is interesting, for it is essentially a
Prākrit metre, whence it seems to have secured admission into Sanskrit
verse.
Not unnaturally, efforts [352] have been made on the score of metre to
ascertain the dates of the plays inter se, and in relation to the rest
of the acknowledged work of Kālidāsa. The result achieved by Dr. Huth
would place the works in the order Raghuvaṅça, Meghadūta,
Mālavikāgnimitra, Çakuntalā, Kumārasambhava, and Vikramorvaçī. But the
criteria are quite inadequate; the Meghadūta has but one metre, the
Mandākrāntā, which occurs so seldom in the other poems and plays that
any comparison is impossible, [353] and the points relied upon by Dr.
Huth are of minimal importance; they assume such doctrines as that the
poem which contains the fewest abnormal caesuras is the more metrically
perfect and therefore the later, while the poem which has the largest
number of abnormal forms of the Çloka metre is artistically the more
perfect and so later. A detailed investigation of the different forms
of abnormal caesuras reveals the most perplexing counter-indications of
relative date, and the essential impression produced by the
investigations is that Kālidāsa was a finished metrist, who did not
seriously alter his metrical forms at any period of his career as
revealed in his poems, and that there is no possibility of deducing any
satisfactory conclusions from metrical evidence. The fact that the
evidence would place the mature and meditative Raghuvaṅça, [354] which
bears within it unmistakable proofs of the author’s old age, before the
Meghadūta and long before the Kumārasambhava, both redolent of love and
youth, is sufficient to establish its total untrustworthiness.
VII
CANDRA, HARṢA, AND MAHENDRAVIKRAMAVARMAN
1. CANDRA OR CANDRAKA
Some mystery exists as to the identity and character of Candra as a
dramatist. [355] We have in a Tibetan version a Lokānanda, a Buddhist
drama telling of a certain Maṇicūḍa, who handed over his wife and
children to a Brahmin as a sign of supreme generosity, which is
ascribed to Candragomin, the grammarian, in whose Çiṣyalekhā is found a
verse ascribed to Candragopin in the Subhāṣitāvali. If this is the
dramatist Candaka or Candraka, who is placed by Kalhaṇa under Tuñjina
of Kashmir, and who rivalled the author of the Mahābhārata in a drama,
is wholly uncertain. The grammarian must have lived before A.D. 650, as
he is cited in the Kāçikā Vṛtti though not by name; a more precise date
it is impossible to give, for his reference to a victory of a Jarta
over the Hūṇas cannot be made precise until we know what Jāṭ prince is
referred to, though Yaçodharman has been suggested. The identification
by Lévi of Candra with a person of that name mentioned by I-Tsing as
living in his time is seemingly impossible, though I-Tsing ascribes to
him the verse found in the Çiṣyalekhā mentioned above; the verse is
lacking in the Tibetan version and I-Tsing may have made a slip. His
contemporary seems to have been a Candradāsa, and to have dramatized
the Viçvantara legend.
To Candaka is ascribed in the Subhāṣitāvali [356] a fine verse of
martial tone:
eṣā hi raṇagatasya dṛḍhā pratijñā: drakṣyanti yan na ripavo
jaghanaṁ hayānām
yuddheṣu bhāgyacapaleṣu na me pratijñā: daivaṁ yad icchati jayaṁ ca
parājayaṁ ca.
‘I go to battle, and I swear that my foes shall never see the backs of
my steeds; for the rest, fate directs the destiny of the wavering
fight; I promise nothing, but shall take defeat or victory as it
pleases destiny.’ A verse of love is: [357]
prasāde vartasva prakaṭaya mudaṁ saṁtyaja ruṣam
priye çuṣyanty an̄gāny amṛtam iva te siñcatu vacaḥ
nidhānaṁ saukhyānāṁ kṣaṇam abhimukhaṁ sthāpaya mukham
na mugdhe pratyetum bhavati gataḥ kālahariṇaḥ.
‘Be gentle; show a little joy; lay aside thy anger; beloved, my limbs
are dried up, let thy speech pour ambrosia upon them. Turn to me for a
moment thy face, the abode of happiness; foolish one, time is an
antelope which, gone, cannot be recalled.’ The other citations we have
show skill both in tragic and erotic sentiment.
Candraka was evidently admired by the authorities on poetics; we find
in the commentary on the Daçarūpa [358] a verse, elsewhere ascribed to
him, cited as an example where diverse sentiments blend but where one,
that of coming parting of lovers, is predominant:
ekenākṣṇā paritataruṣā vīkṣate vyomasaṁstham
bhānor bimbaṁ sajalalulitenāpareṇātmakāntam
ahnaç chede dayitavirahāçan̄kinī cakravākī
dvau saṁkīrṇau racayati rasau nartakīva pragalbhā.
‘With one angry eye she gazes on the orb of the sun as it tarries on
the horizon; with the other, dimmed by her tears, she looks on her
soul’s beloved; thus the mate of the Cakravāka, feeling the approach at
nightfall of separation from her dear one, expresses two emotions, even
as a clever actress.’
Curiously enough we have no less than four stanzas of benediction
ascribed to him, which illustrate a formal feature of the Sanskrit
drama, the introduction of each play with one or more stanzas involving
divine favour. The verses are interesting, not so much for the
intrinsic merits of their poetry, which frankly are not great, but
because of the curious manner in which Indian poetry treats its
deities; the greatest of gods nevertheless in his sportive moods is yet
made the prototype of the human lover: [359]
cyutām indor lekhāṁ ratikalahabhagnaṁ ca valayam
çanair ekīkṛtya hasitamukhī çailatanayā
avocad yam paçyety avatu sa çivaḥ sā ca girijā
sa ca krīḍācandro daçanakiraṇapūritatanuḥ.
‘Smiling, the daughter of the mountain wrought into one a digit fallen
from the moon and a bracelet broken in a love quarrel, and said to her
lord, “Behold my work”. May he, Çiva, protect you, and the lady of the
mountain, and that moon of dalliance all covered with bites and rays.’
mātar jīva kim etad añjalipuṭe tātena gopāyyate
vatsa svādu phalam prayacchati na me gatvā gṛhāṇa svayam
mātraivam prahite guhe vighaṭayaty ākṛṣya saṁdhyāñjalim
çambhor bhinnasamādhir uddharabhaso hāsodgāmaḥ pātu vaḥ.
‘O mother.—My life.—What is it that my father guards so carefully in
the palm of his hand?—Dear one, it is a sweet fruit.—He will not give
me it.—Go thyself and take it.—Thus urged by his mother, Guha seizes
the closed hands of his sire as he adores the Twilight and drags them
apart; Çiva, angry at the interruption of his devotion, stays his wrath
at sight of his son and laughs: may that laughter protect you.’ [360]
2. THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE DRAMAS ASCRIBED TO HARṢA
Three dramas, as well as some minor poetry, have come down to us under
the name of Harṣa, unquestionably the king of Sthāṇvīçvara and
Kanyakubja, who reigned from about A.D. 606 to 648, [361] the patron of
Bāṇa who celebrates him in the Harṣacarita and of the Chinese pilgrim
Hiuan-Tsang who is our most valuable source of information on his
reign. That the three plays are by one and the same hand is made
certain in part by the common ascription in a verse in the prologue
mentioning Harṣa as an accomplished poet, partly by the recurrence of
two verses in the Priyadarçikā and the Nāgānanda and of one in the
former play and the Ratnāvalī, and above all by the absolute similarity
of style and tone in the three works, which renders any effort to
dissociate them wholly impossible. The question of their actual
authorship was raised in antiquity; for, while Mammaṭa in his
Kāvyaprakāça [362] merely refers to the gift of gold to Bāṇa—or Dhāvaka
in some manuscripts—by Harṣa, the commentators explain this of the
Ratnāvalī, which was passed off in Harṣa’s name. This is, however, not
in any way borne out by early tradition; I-Tsing [363] clearly refers
to the dramatization of the subject of the Nāgānanda by Harṣa and its
performance, and in the Kuṭṭanīmata [364] of Dāmodaragupta, who lived
under Jayāpīḍa of Kashmir (A.D. 779–813), a performance of the
Ratnāvalī, ascribed to a king, is mentioned. The ascription to Bāṇa has
nothing even plausible in it, so disparate are the styles of the dramas
and the Harṣacarita, and we have the option of believing that Harṣa
wrote them himself with such aid as his Paṇḍits might give, or of
accepting them as the work of some unknown dramatist, who allowed the
king to claim the credit for them.
3. THE THREE DRAMAS
The Ratnāvalī and the Priyadarçikā are closely connected both in
subject-matter and form; they are Nāṭikās, each in four Acts; their
common hero is Udayana, whom Bhāsa already celebrated, and the common
theme one of his numerous amourettes. The Ratnāvalī, [365] in special,
has found favour in the text-books of the drama, and has served to
illustrate the technical rules.
The ubiquitous Yaugandharāyaṇa, insatiable in seeking his master’s
welfare, has planned marriage for him with the daughter of the king of
Ceylon, but to attain this end has been difficult; to avoid vexing the
queen Vāsavadattā, he has kept her in the dark, and has spread a rumour
which he has had conveyed by Bābhravya, the king’s chamberlain, of the
death of Vāsavadattā in a fire at Lāvāṇaka. The king of Ceylon then
yields the hand of his daughter, and dispatches her in the care of the
chamberlain and his minister Vasubhūti to Vatsa, but, wrecked at sea,
she is rescued by a merchant of Kauçāmbī, taken there, and handed over
to Vāsavadattā who, seeing her beauty, decides to keep her from contact
with her inconstant spouse. But fate is adverse; at the spring festival
which she celebrates with Vatsa, Sāgarikā, as the princess is called
from her rescue from the sea, appears in the queen’s train; hastily
sent away, she lingers concealed, watches the ceremony of the worship
of the god Kāma, thinking Vatsa is the god in bodily presence, but is
undeceived by the eulogy of the herald announcing the advent of
evening. In Act II Sāgarikā is presented with her friend Susaṁgatā; she
has depicted the prince on a canvas, and Susaṁgatā in raillery adds her
beside him; she admits her love, but the confidence is broken by the
alarm created by the escape of a monkey from the stables. In its mad
rush it breaks the cage in Sāgarikā’s keeping, and the parrot escapes.
The king and the Vidūṣaka enter the grove where the bird is, hear it
repeat the maidens’ talk, and find the picture. The maidens returning
for the picture overhear the confidences of the king and the Vidūṣaka,
until Susaṁgatā sallies out and brings the lovers face to face. Their
meeting is cut short by the advent of the queen, who sees the picture,
realizes the position, and departs without manifesting the deep anger
which she feels and which the king vainly seeks to assuage. In Act III
the Vidūṣaka proves to have devised a scheme to secure a meeting of the
lovers; Sāgarikā dressed as the queen and Susaṁgatā as her attendant
are to meet Vatsa, but the plot is overheard, and it is Vāsavadattā
herself who keeps the rendezvous; she listens to Vatsa’s declarations
of love, and then bitterly reproaches him, rejecting his attempts to
excuse himself. Sāgarikā, who had come on the scene too late, hears the
king’s plight; weary, she ties a noose to her neck, when she is saved
by the advent of the Vidūṣaka and the king, who naturally mistakes her
for Vāsavadattā whom he fears his cruelty has driven to suicide. He
joyously recognizes his error, but the queen, who, ashamed of her
anger, has returned to make friends with her husband, finds the lovers
united, and in violent anger carries off the maiden and the Vidūṣaka
captive. But in Act IV we find the Vidūṣaka released and forgiven, but
Sāgarikā in some prison, the king helpless to aid her. Good news,
however, arrives; the general Rumaṇvant has won a victory over the
Kosalas and slain the king. A magician enters and is allowed to display
his art, but the spectacle is interrupted by the advent of Vasubhūti
and Bābhravya, who also have escaped the shipwreck. They tell their
tale of disaster, when another interruption occurs; the harem is on
fire; Vāsavadattā, shocked, reveals that Sāgarikā is there; Vatsa
rushes to aid her, and emerges with her in chains, for the fire has
been no more than a device of the magician. Bābhravya and Vasubhūti
recognize in Sāgarikā the princess, and Yaugandharāyaṇa arrives to
confess his management of the whole plot and the magician’s device.
Vāsavadattā gladly gives the king to Ratnāvalī, since her husband will
thus be lord of the earth, and Ratnāvalī is her full cousin.
The Priyadarçikā [366] introduces us in a speech by his chamberlain,
Vinayavasu, to the king Dṛḍhavarman, whose daughter is destined for
wedlock with Vatsa despite the demand for her hand made by the king of
Kalin̄ga, who revenges himself during Vatsa’s imprisonment at the court
of Pradyota by attacking and driving away Dṛḍhavarman. The maid is
carried away by the chamberlain and is received and sheltered by
Vindhyaketu, her father’s ally, but he offends Vatsa, is attacked and
killed by his general Vijayasena, who brings back as part of the booty
the unlucky Priyadarçikā; the king allots her to the harem as attendant
on Vāsavadattā with the name Āraṇyikā (Āraṇyakā). In Act II we find the
king, who has fallen in love with the maiden, seeking to distract
himself with his Vidūṣaka. Āraṇyikā enters, to pluck lotuses, with her
friend; she tells her love, which the king overhears; a bee attacks her
when her friend leaves her, and in her confusion she runs into the arms
of the king. Vatsa rescues her, but retires when her confidante
returns. Act III tells that the aged confidante of the queen,
Sāṁkṛtyāyanī, has composed a play on the marriage of Vatsa and
Vāsavadattā which the queen is to see performed; the rôle of queen is
to be played by Āraṇyikā, and Manoramā is to act the part of king, but
she and the Vidūṣaka have arranged to let the king take the part. The
performance causes anxiety to the queen, so ardent is the love-making,
though Sāṁkṛtyāyanī reminds her it is but play-making; she leaves the
hall, and finds the Vidūṣaka asleep; rudely wakened, he lets out the
secret and the queen refuses to listen to Vatsa’s lame excuses. Act IV
reveals Āraṇyikā in prison, the king in despair, and the queen in
sorrow, as she has learned from a letter from her mother that
Dṛḍhavarman, her aunt’s husband, is in bondage, needing Vatsa’s aid.
But Vijayasena brings news of the defeat of the Kalin̄ga king and the
re-establishment of Dṛḍhavarman, and the chamberlain of the latter
brings his thanks, his one sorrow being his daughter’s loss. Manoramā
enters in terror; Āraṇyikā has poisoned herself, Vāsavadattā, filled
with remorse, has her fetched, as Vatsa can cure her; the chamberlain
recognizes his princess, Vatsa’s magic arts bring her back to
consciousness, and Vāsavadattā recognizes in her her cousin, and grants
her hand to the king.
The Nāgānanda [367] performed at a festival of Indra, perhaps in the
autumn, differs from these dramas in its form, for it is a Nāṭaka in
five Acts, and in its inspiration; those are variants by Harṣa on the
theme of Vatsa’s loves, this is the dramatization of a Buddhist legend,
the self-sacrifice of Jīmūtavāhana, which was told in the Bṛhatkathā,
whence it appears in the later versions of that text [368] and in the
Vetālapañcaviṅçati. [369] Jīmūtavāhana is a prince of the Vidyādharas,
who has induced his father to resign his kingship, and give himself up
to a life of calm; he has made the acquaintance of Mitrāvasu, the
prince of the Siddhas, who has a sister. She has had a dream in which
Gaurī has revealed to her her future husband, and Jīmūtavāhana hidden
behind a thicket overhears her confiding this dream to her friend; the
Vidūṣaka forces a meeting on the timid lovers, who shyly confess their
affection, when an ascetic from the hermitage arrives to take the
maiden away. In Act II Malayavatī is love-sick, resting on a stone seat
in the garden; a sound makes her move away, when the king enters,
equally oppressed, declares his love and paints his fancy. Mitrāvasu
comes to offer him his sister’s hand; the king declines it, ignorant of
whom he loves; she deems herself disdained and seeks to hang herself,
but her friends rescue her and call for aid. Jīmūtavāhana appears, and
proves that she is his love by showing the picture. The two exchange
vows, and the marriage is concluded. In Act III, after a comic
interlude, we find them walking in the park in happiness; Jīmūtavāhana
is apprised of the seizure of his kingdom, but accepts the news gladly.
But the last two Acts change the topic. While strolling with Mitrāvasu
one day, Jīmūtavāhana sees a heap of bones and learns that they are the
bones of serpents daily offered to the divine bird Garuḍa; he resolves
to save the lives of the serpents at the cost of his own, gets rid of
Mitrāvasu, and goes to the place of offering. He hears the sobs of the
mother of Çan̄khacūḍa, whose son is about to be offered, consoles her by
offering himself in ransom, but is refused with admiration for his
gallantry. But, when the two have entered the temple to pray before the
offering, he gives himself to Garuḍa as substitute and is borne away.
The last Act opens with the anxiety of the parents of Jīmūtavāhana, to
whom and his wife is borne a jewel fallen from his crown; Çan̄khacūḍa,
also, emerged from the temple, finds the sacrifice made and reveals to
Garuḍa his crime. It is too late; the hero expires as his parents
arrive. Garuḍa is ashamed, and Gaurī appears to cut the knot, revive
the prince, and re-establish him in his realm, in order to keep faith
with Malayavatī; by a shower of ambrosia the snakes slain by Garuḍa
revive, and he promises to forego his cruel revenge.
4. HARṢA’S ART AND STYLE
Comparison with Kālidāsa is doubtless the cause why Harṣa has tended to
receive less praise than is due to his dramas. The originality of his
Nāṭikās is not perhaps great, but he has effectively devised the plot
in both; the action moves smoothly and in either play there is
ingenuity. The scene of the magician’s activity in the Ratnāvalī is
depicted with humour and vivacity; the parrot’s escape and its chatter
are sketched with piquancy, and the exchange of costumes in the
Ratnāvalī is natural and effective. The double comedy in the
Priyadarçikā is a happy thought, the intrigue in Act IV is neatly
conducted, so as to show us Vāsavadattā in the light of an affectionate
niece, and the scene with the bee is attractive. It is true that the
plays are full of reminiscences of the Mālavikāgnimitra, such as the
escape in the Ratnāvalī of the monkey, and the monkey that there
frightens the little princess while Sāṁkṛtyāyanī is Kauçikī revived.
But in this artificial comedy elegance is sought, not originality,
[370] and Harṣa is a clever borrower. The similarity of development of
both plays is perhaps more to be condemned; they are too obviously
variations of one theme.
The dominant emotion in either is love of the type which appertains to
a noble and gay (dhīralalita) hero, who is always courteous, whose
loves, that is to say, mean very little to him, and who does not forget
to assure the old love of his devotion while playing with the new. This
is a different aspect of Vatsa’s character from that displayed by
Bhāsa, and admittedly a much inferior one. Vāsavadattā suffers equal
deterioration, for she is no longer the wife who sacrifices herself for
her husband’s good; she is rather a jealous, though noble and
kind-hearted woman, whose love for her husband makes her resent too
deeply his inconstancy. The heroines are ingénues with nothing but good
looks and willingness to be loved by the king, whom they know, though
he does not, to be destined by their fathers as their husband. In
neither case is any adequate reason [371] suggested for the failure to
declare themselves in their true character, unless we are to assume
that they would not, in the absence of sponsors, have been believed.
Susaṁgatā, the friend of the heroine in the Ratnāvalī, is a pleasant,
merry girl who makes excellent fun of her mistress. The Vidūṣaka [372]
in both plays is typical in his greediness, but his figure lacks comic
force; he is, however, a pleasant enough character, for his love for
his master is genuine; he is prepared to die with him in the Ratnāvalī,
though he thinks his action in rushing into the fire quixotic. The
magician is an amusing and clever sketch of great pretensions allied to
some juggling skill.
The Nāgānanda reveals Harṣa in a new light in the last two Acts. His
liking for the marvellous is exhibited indeed in the last Acts of both
the Nāṭikās in accord with the theory, but it has a far wider scope in
the Nāgānanda, where the supernatural freely appears, and, though the
drama be Buddhist in inspiration, Gaurī is introduced to solve the
difficulty of restoring Jīmūtavāhana. Harṣa here rises to the task of
depicting the emotions of self-sacrifice, charity, magnanimity, and
resolution in the face of death; Jīmūtavāhana, however bizarre his
setting, is one of the ideals of Buddhism, a man seized with the
conviction that to sacrifice oneself for others is the highest duty.
Çan̄khacūḍa and his mother too appear as noble in character, far
superior to the savage Garuḍa. There is, it must be admitted, a decided
lack of harmony between the two distinct parts of the drama, but the
total effect is far from unsuccessful. Perhaps as a counterpoise to the
seriousness of the last part, Harṣa has introduced effective comedy in
Act III. The Vidūṣaka, Ātreya, is hideous and stupid; as he lies
sleeping, covered by a mantle to protect him from the bees, the Viṭa,
Çekharaka, sees him, mistakes him for his inamorata, embraces him and
fondles him. Navamālikā enters, and, indignant, the Viṭa makes the
Vidūṣaka, though a Brahmin, bow before her and drink alcohol. A little
later Navamālikā makes fun of him before the newly married couple by
painting his face with Tamūla juice.
Harṣa is fond of descriptions in the approved manner; the evening,
midday, the park, the hermitage, the gardens, the fountain, the
marriage festival, the hour for the bath, the mountain Malaya, the
forest, the palace, are among the ordinary themes beloved in the Kāvya.
In imagination and grace he is certainly inferior to Kālidāsa, but he
possesses the great merit of simplicity of expression and thought; his
Sanskrit is classical, and precise; his use of figures of speech and
thought restrained and in good taste. There is fire in his description
of a battle: [373]
astravyastaçirastraçastrakaṣaṇaiḥ kṛttottamān̄ge muhur
vyūḍhāsṛksariti svanatpraharaṇair gharmodvamadvahnini
āhūyājimukhe sa Kosalādhipatir bhagne pradhāne bale
ekenaiva Rumaṇvatā çaraçatair mattadvipastho hataḥ.
‘Heads were cleft by the blows of swords on helmets sore smitten; blood
flowed in torrents, fire flashed from the ringing strokes; when his
main host had been broken, Rumaṇvant challenged in the forefront of the
battle the lord of Kosala, who rode on a maddened elephant, and alone
slew him with a hundred arrows.’ The matching of the sound to the sense
is admirable, while a delicate perception is evinced in the line
describing the king’s success in soothing the wounded queen: [374]
savyājaiḥ çapathaiḥ priyeṇa vacasā cittānuvṛttyādhikam
vailakṣyeṇa pareṇa padapatanair vākyaiḥ sakhīnāṁ muhuḥ
pratyāsattim upāgatā na hi tathā devī rudatyā yathā
prakṣālyeva tayaiva bāṣpasalilaiḥ kopo ’panītaḥ svayam.
‘It was not so much by my false oaths of devotion, my loving words, my
coaxing, my depths of dejection, and falling at her feet, or the advice
of her friends, that the queen was appeased as that her anger was wiped
away by the cleansing water of her own bitter tears.’ Pretty, if not
appropriate, is the king’s address to the fire: [375]
virama virama vahne muñca dhūmānubandham: prakaṭayasi kim uccair
arciṣāṁ cakravālam?
virahahutabhujāhaṁ yo na dagdhaḥ priyāyāḥ: pralayadahanabhāsā tasya
kiṁ tvaṁ karoṣi?
‘Stay, stay, fire; cease thy constant smoke; why dost thou raise aloft
thy circle of flames? What canst thou avail against me, whom the fire
of severance from my beloved, fierce as the flame that shall consume
the universe, could not consume?’ There is excellent taste and
propriety in Vatsa’s address to the dead Kosala king: [376] mṛtyur api
te çlāghyo yasya çatravo ’py evaṁ puruṣakāraṁ varṇayanti. ‘Even death
for thee is glorious when even thy foes must thus depict thy manly
prowess.’ Such a phrase may reveal to us the true Harṣa himself, the
winner of many victories, and the hero of one great disaster.
The Nāgānanda strikes varied notes; there is fire and enthusiasm in the
assurances which Mitrāvasu gives the prince of the swift overthrow of
his enemy, Matan̄ga, at the hands of his faithful Siddhas, will he but
give the word: [377]
saṁsarpadbhiḥ samantāt kṛtasakalaviyanmārgayānair vimānaiḥ
kurvāṇāḥ prāvṛṣīva sthagitaravirucaḥ çyāmatāṁ vāsarasya
ete yātāç ca sadyas tava vacanam itaḥ prāpya yuddhāya siddhāḥ
siddhaṁ codvṛttaçatrukṣayabhayavinamadrājakaṁ te svarājyam.
‘With their chariots, meeting together and o’erspreading the whole
surface of the sky as they speed along, darkening the day as when the
sun’s rays are hidden in the rain, my Siddhas await but the bidding to
fare forthwith hence to the battle; but say the word and thy haughty
foe shall fall, and thy kingdom be restored to thee, while the princes
bow before thee in fear of his fate.’
Jīmūtavāhana, however, has other views of his duty: [378]
svaçarīram api parārthe yaḥ khalu dadyām ayācitaḥ kṛpayā
rājyasya kṛte sa katham prāṇivadhakrauryam anumanye?
‘Gladly, unasked, would I give my own life for another in compassion;
how then could I consent to the cruel slaughter of men merely to win a
realm?’ The saying is essential to the drama, for it leads immediately
to the determination of the prince to sacrifice himself for the Nāga.
There is dignity and force in the admonition addressed by the dying
hero to the repentant Garuḍa who begs him to command him: [379]
nityam prāṇātipātāt prativirama kuru prākkṛte cānutāpam
yatnāt puṇyapravāhaṁ samupacinu diçan sarvasattveṣv abhītim
magnaṁ yenātra nainaḥ phalati parimitaprāṇihiṅsāttam etad
durgāḍhāpāravārer lavaṇapalam iva kṣiptam antar hradasya.
‘Cease for ever from taking life; repent of thy past misdeeds; eagerly
accumulate a store of merit, freeing all creatures from fear of thee,
so that, lost in the infinite stream of thy goodness, the sin of
slaying creatures, in number limited, may cease to fructify, even as a
morsel of salt cast in the unfathomable depths of a great lake.’
Though Buddhist the drama, the benediction is enough to show how
effectively the spirit of the Nāṭikā has been introduced into the
legend: [380]
dhyānavyājam upetya cintayasi kām unmīlya cakṣuḥ kṣaṇam?
paçyānan̄gaçarāturaṁ janam imaṁ trātāpi no rakṣasi
mithyākāruṇiko ’si nirghṛṇataras tvattaḥ kuto ’nyaḥ pumān?
serṣyam Māravadhūbhir ity abhihito Buddho [381] jinaḥ pātu vaḥ.
‘“Feigned is thy trance; of what fair one dost thou think? Open thine
eyes for a moment and gaze on us whom love doth drive mad. Protector
art thou; save thou us. False is thy compassion; could there be any man
more pitiless than thou?” May he, whom Māra’s beauties thus addressed,
the Buddha, the conqueror, protect you.’
But Harṣa’s chief merit is undoubtedly shown in erotic verses as in the
description of the shyness of the new-made bride in the Nāgānanda:
[382]
dṛṣṭā dṛṣṭim adho dadhāti kurute nālāpam ābhāṣitā
çayyāyām parivṛtya tiṣṭhati balād ālin̄gitā vepate
niryāntīṣu sakhīṣu vāsabhavanān nirgantum evehate
jātā vāmatayaiva me ’dya sutarām prītyai navoḍhā priyā.
‘Looked at, she casts down her face; addressed, she gives no reply;
with head averted she lies on the couch; forcibly embraced, she
trembles; when her maidens leave her chamber, she seeks also to depart;
perverse though she be, my new-wed love delights me more and more.’ The
accuracy of the aim of love as an archer is described in the Ratnāvalī:
[383]
manaḥ prakṛtyaiva calaṁ durlakṣyaṁ ca tathāpi me
anan̄gena kathaṁ viddhaṁ samaṁ sarvaçilīmukhāiḥ.
‘Mind is naturally mobile and hard to find; nevertheless mine has been
pierced by love at once with all his darts.’ In entire harmony with
Indian taste Harṣa dwells on the points of physical perfection in the
adored one in the Nāgānanda: [384]
khedāya stanabhāra eṣa kim u te madhyasya hāro ’paras
tāmyaty ūruyugaṁ nitambabharataḥ kāñcyānayā kim punaḥ
çaktiḥ padayugasya noruyugalaṁ voḍhuṁ kuto nūpurau
svān̄gair eva vibhūṣitāsi vahasi kleçāya kiṁ maṇḍanam?
‘The burden of thy bosom serves to weary thy waist; why then add the
weight of thy necklace? Thy thighs are wearied by the bearing of thy
hips; why then thy girdle of bells? Thy feet can barely carry the load
of thy thighs; why add thine anklets? When in every limb thou dost
possess such grace, why dost thou wear ornaments to thy weariness?’
Harṣa is also capable of expressing a deeper side of love, as when the
king in the Ratnāvalī [385] fancies that Vāsavadattā has been driven to
suicide by his faithlessness:
samārūḍhaprītiḥ praṇayabahumānād anudinam
vyalīkaṁ vīkṣyedaṁ kṛtam akṛtapūrvaṁ khalu mayā
priyā muñcaty adya sphuṭam asahanā jīvitam asau
prakṛṣṭasya premṇaḥ skhalitam aviṣahyaṁ hi bhavati.
‘My beloved, whose love for me waxed daily because of my affection and
respect, has seen my falsity which she has never known before, and now
assuredly she seeks to lay life aside in despair; for unendurable is a
wrong against a noble love.’
5. THE LANGUAGE AND THE METRES OF HARṢA’S DRAMAS
Harṣa’s Sanskrit is of the usual classical type, eschewing any
deviation from the beaten paths, and his Prākrits, mainly Çaurasenī
with Māhārāṣṭrī in the verses, offer nothing of special interest,
beyond evidence of his careful study of Prākrit grammar. [386]
His use of metrical forms, on the other hand, marks the tendency to
reject the simplicity of the earlier dramatists, and to insist on the
use of the more elaborate metres, which in themselves are wholly
undramatic, but give a much wider range of opportunity for the
exhibition of merits of description. Harṣa’s favourite is the
Çārdūlavikrīḍita, which occurs 23 times in the Ratnāvalī, 20 times in
the Priyadarçikā, and 30 times in the Nāgānanda; the Sragdharā takes
second place with 11, 8, and 17 occurrences. The Çloka occurs in the
Ratnāvalī (9) and the Nāgānanda (24), the frequency in the latter being
due to the more epic character of the piece; its absence from the
Priyadarçikā is marked. The Āryā occurs 9 times each in the Nāṭikās,
and 16 times in the Nāgānanda. The Priyadarçikā suggests by its content
immaturity, and its poverty in metres supports this view; it has but
seven in all, including Indravajrā, Vasantatilaka (6), Mālinī, and
Çikhariṇī. The Nāgānanda has also Çālinī and Hariṇī, in common with the
Ratnāvalī, and Drutavilambita, while the Ratnāvalī adds Puṣpitāgrā,
Pṛthvī, and Praharṣiṇī. That play has 5 Prākrit Āryās and 1 Gīti, the
other two 3 Āryās apiece, while the Ratnāvalī contains a pretty pair of
rhymed verses, each with Pādas of 12 morae.
6. MAHENDRAVIKRAMAVARMAN
Almost a contemporary to a day of Harṣa was Mahendravikramavarman, son
of the Pallava king Siṅhaviṣṇuvarman, and himself a king with the
styles of Avanibhājana, Guṇabhara, and Mattavilāsa, all alluded to in
his play, [387] who ruled in Kāñcī, the scene of his drama, in the
first quarter of the seventh century A.D. [388] Chance rather than any
special merit has preserved for us his Prahasana, [389] which is so far
the only early farce published, and which has special interest as it
comes from the south, and, as we have seen, shows signs of the same
technique as that of Bhāsa. Thus the play is opened by the director at
the close of the Nāndī, which is not preserved, and the prologue is
styled Sthāpanā, and not, as usual, Prastāvanā. We have also a
reference to Karpaṭa as the writer of a text-book for thieves, as in
the Cārudatta of Bhāsa, but there is an essential difference in the
fact that great care is taken in the prologue to set out at length the
merits of the author as well as the name of the drama.
The director introduces the play by a dialogue in which he by skilled
flattery induces his first wife to aid him in the work, despite her
annoyance at his taking to himself of a younger bride, and the
transition to the actual drama is accomplished as in Bhāsa by his being
interrupted in the midst of a verse by a cry from behind the scene,
which leads him to complete his stanza by mentioning the appearance of
the chief actor and his companion. They are a Çaiva mendicant of the
skull-bearing order, a Kapālin, and his damsel, Devasomā by name. Both
are intoxicated, and the maiden asks for her companion’s aid to prevent
her from falling; he would hold her if he could, but his own condition
hinders aid; in remorse he proposes to forswear strong drink, but the
lady entreats him not for her sake thus to break his penance, and he
joyfully abandons the rash project, praising instead his rule of life:
[390]
peyā surā priyatamāmukham īkṣitavyam: grāhyaḥ svabhāvalalito
’vikṛtaç ca veṣaḥ
yenedam īdṛçam adṛçyata mokṣavartma: dīrghayur astu bhagavān sa
pinākapaṇiḥ.
‘Long live the god who bears the trident and who has revealed to men
this as the way of salvation, to drink brandy, to gaze on the face of
one’s beloved, to wear beautiful and becoming raiment.’ He is reminded
by his companions that the Arhants have a very different definition of
the path of salvation, but he has little trouble in disposing of them:
kāryasya niḥsaṁçayam ātmahetoḥ: sarūpatāṁ hetubhir abhyupetya
duḥkhasya kāryaṁ sukham āmanantaḥ: svenaiva vākyena hatā varākāḥ.
‘They establish that an effect, as self-caused, is of the same nature
as its causes; when, therefore, they declare that pleasure is the
effect of pain, the poor fools contradict their own dogmas.’ There
follows a complimentary description of Kāñcī, and a careful parallel
between the tavern where the pair are seeking more charity and a scene
of sacrifice; the Kapālin also discovers that Surā has a celestial
origin; it is none other than the form taken by the god of love when
burnt by the flame from Çiva’s eye, a conclusion heartily accepted by
his friend. The two are successful in attaining alms, but the tragic
discovery is made that the skull, which serves as begging bowl, and
which seems indeed at first to be the raison d’être of the Kapālin, is
lost, though he consoles himself by reflecting that it was only a sign
and that his occupation is still intact. A search through Kāñcī
follows, and suspicion falls on a Buddhist monk, Çākyabhikṣu, who is
lamenting the fact that despite the excellent fare he has received the
law forbids the enjoyment of strong drink and women; he concludes that
the true gospel of the Buddha contained no such ridiculous
restrictions, and expresses his desire to benefit the whole community
by discovering the authentic text. Naturally, when challenged, he
denies that his begging bowl is that of the Kapālin, and blesses the
master for his good sense in insisting on shaving the head, since it
prevents the damsel from succeeding in her well-meant effort to aid her
companion by pulling his hair. His arguments as to the identity of his
bowl are unconvincing to the Kapālin:
dṛṣṭāni vastūni mahīsamudra—: mahīdharādīni mahānti mohāt
apahnuvānasya sutaḥ kathaṁ tvam: alpaṁ na nihnotum alaṁ kapālam?
‘Thou art the son of one who denies in his folly things that we see,
the earth, the ocean, mountains and so forth; how then art thou not
ready to deny so small a thing as a bowl?’ Moreover, when the Buddhist,
politely and with commendable charity, picks up Devasomā when her
fruitless assault on his locks lands her on the ground, he accuses him
of taking her in marriage and invokes punishment on this violator of
the rights of Brahmins. A Pāçupata, a more respectable type of Çaiva
sectarian, comes on the scene and is appealed to as an arbitrator, but
finds the task too difficult; both claimants proudly assert their
adherence to a creed which forbids lying, and the Buddhist recites in
addition the whole list of moral rules which makes up the Çikṣāpada.
The obvious arguments from colour and shape in favour of the Buddhist
are made out by his rival to be no more than signs of his skill in
changing objects at pleasure. Finally the Pāçupata suggests that they
must take the matter before a court. En route, however, a diversion is
made by an Unmattaka, or madman, who has rescued the skull from a dog,
the real thief; he first appears willing to give it as a present to the
Pāçupata, who haughtily rejects the horrible object, but suggests the
Kapālin as the recipient; then he changes his mind, but, annoyed by the
cry of ‘mad’, asks the Kapālin to hold the skull and to show him the
madman; the Kapālin, nothing loth, accepts the skull, and misdirects
the madman. All are now happy; the Kapālin makes a handsome apology to
the Buddhist monk, and the usual Bharatavākya with a reference to the
ruling king, the author, concludes the work.
The author undoubtedly shows a considerable knowledge of the tenets of
the Buddhists, and the play is not unamusing, though the subject is
much too trivial for the pains taken to deal with it. The style is
certainly appropriate to the subject-matter; it is like that of Harṣa,
simple and elegant, while many of the verses are not without force and
beauty. In the prose speeches of the Kapālin, however, we have
occasional premonitions [391] of the unwieldy compounds of Bhavabhūti.
There is, as in all the later Prahasanas, a certain incongruity between
the triviality of the subject-matter and the elaboration of the form
but the king has the merit of avoiding the gross vulgarity which marks
normally the later works of this type.
Short as is the play, it shows a variety of Prākrits, for of the
dramatis personae only the Kapālin and the Pāçupata speak Sanskrit,
while the madman, the Buddhist, and Devasomā talk in Prākrit. That of
the Buddhist and of Devasomā is practically Çaurasenī, but the madman
uses Māgadhī. [392] The Prākrits show some of the signs of antiquity
which have been seen in Bhāsa’s dramas; thus forms of the plural in āṇi
and ññ in lieu of ṇṇ are found, doubtless as a result of the influence
of Bhāsa. The frequency of such forms as aho nu khalu and kiṁ nu khalu
is precisely in the manner of Bhāsa, and mention may be made of the
employment of mā with the infinitive in Prākrit in a prohibition.
The variety of metres is large in view of the brief extent of the play.
There are nine different stanzas employed; five each of the Çloka and
Çārdūlavikrīḍita, three each of Indravajrā type and Āryā, two each of
Vaṅçasthā type and Vasantatilaka, the solitary Prākrit verse being of
the former kind, and one each of Rucirā, Mālinī, and Sragdharā. [393]
VIII
BHAVABHŪTI
1. THE DATE OF BHAVABHŪTI
Bhavabhūti tells us in his prologues that he belonged to a family of
Brahmins styled Udumbaras, of Padmapura, apparently in Vidarbha, who
were of the Kāçyapa Gotra and followed the Taittirīya school of the
Black Yajurveda. His full name was Çrīkaṇṭha Nīlakaṇṭha, son of
Nīlakaṇṭha and Jātūkarṇī, grandson of Bhaṭṭa Gopāla, fifth in descent
from Mahākavi, a Vājapeya sacrificer, famed for his scholarship. He was
skilled in grammar, rhetoric, and logic, or perhaps in grammar, logic,
and Mīmāṅsā, [394] if we may believe the legend that he was a pupil of
Kumārila preserved in one manuscript of the Mālatīmādhava, which
complicates the matter by styling the author also Umvekācārya, a
commentator on Kumārila’s works. As he expressly mentions his knowledge
of the Vedas, the Upaniṣads, Sāṁkhya and Yoga, and gives Jñānanidhi as
his teacher, we may probably discard this suggestion. The whole three
of his plays were performed for the feast of the Lord Kālapriya, who is
normally identified with Mahākāla of Ujjayinī, though the scene of the
Mālatīmādhava is laid in Padmāvatī. We may conjecture, therefore, that
he left his home and proceeded to Ujjayinī or Padmāvatī in search of
fortune. From the silence in his dramas on any good luck, it is strange
to find that Kalhaṇa in the Rājataran̄giṇī [395] expressly asserted that
he was a member of the entourage of Yaçovarman of Kanyakubja, who was
defeated by Muktāpīḍa Lalitāditya of Kashmir, not earlier, probably,
than A.D. 736. A further indication of date is afforded by the
reference in Vākpati’s Gaüḍavaha [396] to Bhavabhūti’s ocean of poetry;
the poem is a prelude to a description in Prākrit of Yaçovarman’s
defeat of a Gauḍa king, and, as it seems never to have been finished,
it presumably was interrupted by the king’s own defeat. We must,
therefore, place Bhavabhūti somewhere about A.D. 700. The silence of
Bāṇa regarding him suggests that he was not known to him, while it is
certain that he knew Kālidāsa; the first writer on poetics to cite him
is Vāmana. [397] Verses not in our extant dramas are ascribed to him,
so he may have written other works than the three dramas, two Nāṭakas
on the Rāma legend and a Prakaraṇa, which we have. His friendship with
actors is a trait to which he himself refers, and efforts have been
made to trace in his works evidence of revision for stage purposes.
2. THE THREE PLAYS
Perhaps the earliest of the works is the Mahāvīracarita, but the
evidence for this is uncertain, and there is no reason to assign it
definitely to an earlier date than the Mālatīmādhava; both antedate,
perhaps considerably, the Uttararāmacarita. The Mālatīmādhava, [398] as
a Prakaraṇa, should have a plot invented by the author, and this is
true to the extent that the combination of elements which make up the
intrigue is clearly the poet’s, though the main motif of the story and
the chief episodes can all be paralleled in the Kathā literature even
as we have it.
Bhūrivasu, minister of the king of Padmāvatī, has asked an old friend,
now turned nun, Kāmandakī, to arrange a marriage between his daughter,
Mālatī, and Mādhava, son of an old friend Devarāta, minister of the
king of Vidarbha, who has sent his son to Padmāvatī, mainly in the hope
that Bhūrivasu would remember a compact of their student days to marry
their children to each other. The obstacle in the way is the desire of
Nandana, the king’s boon companion (narmasuhṛd), to wed Mālatī with the
king’s approval. Kāmandakī, therefore, decides to arrange the meeting
of the young people and their marriage, so as to be able to present the
king with a fait accompli. Both hero and heroine have friends,
Makaranda and Madayantikā, sister of Nandana, and, after Acts I and II
have made the main lovers sufficiently enamoured, in Act III, when the
lovers are meeting in a temple of Çiva, Madayantikā is in danger of
death from an escaped tiger, and is rescued by Makaranda, not without
injury. These two then are deeply in love. But Act IV shows us the king
resolved on the mating of Mālatī and Nandana; Mādhava, despairing of
success through Kāmandakī’s aid alone, decides to win the favour of the
ghouls of the cemetery by an offering of fresh flesh; this leads him in
Act V to a great adventure, for on his ghastly errand he hears cries
from a temple near by, and rushes in just in time to save Mālatī whom
the priest Aghoraghaṇṭa and his acolyte Kapālakuṇḍalā were about to
offer in sacrifice to the goddess Cāmuṇḍā. He slays Aghoraghaṇṭa. In
Act VI Kapālakuṇḍalā swears revenge, but for the moment all goes well;
Mālatī is to wed Nandana, but by a clever stratagem Makaranda takes her
place at the temple where she goes to worship before her marriage, and,
while Mādhava and Mālatī flee, Makaranda is led home as a bride. In Act
VII we hear how poor Nandana has been repulsed by his bride;
Madayantikā comes to rebuke her sister-in-law, finds her lover, and
elopes. But they are pursued, as they make their way to rejoin their
friends, and in Act VIII we learn that the fugitives were succoured by
Mādhava and so splendidly routed their foes that the king, learning of
it, gladly forgives the runaways. But in the tumult Mālatī has been
stolen away by Kapālakuṇḍalā, and Act IX is devoted to Mādhava’s wild
search with his friend to find her, which would have been fruitless,
had not Saudāminī, a pupil of Kāmandakī, by good fortune come on
Kapālakuṇḍalā and rescued her victim. A scene of lament at the
beginning of Act X is interrupted by the return of the lovers, and the
king approves the marriage.
The source of the Mahāvīracarita [399] is very different; it is an
effort to describe the main story of the Rāmāyaṇa by the use of
dialogue narrating the main events, but a deliberate bid for dramatic
effect is made through treating the whole story as the feud of Rāvaṇa,
and his plots to ruin Rāma. The motif is introduced in Act I; at
Viçvāmitra’s hermitage Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa see and love Sītā and Ūrmilā,
daughters of Janaka of Videha. Rāvaṇa, however, sends a messenger to
demand Sītā’s hand in marriage, but Rāma defeats the demon Tāḍakā, and
Viçvāmitra gives him celestial weapons, and summons Çiva’s bow, which,
if he bends, he may have Sītā. The bow is broken and Rāvaṇa’s envoy
departs in rage. In Act II Rāvaṇa’s minister Mālyavant plots with his
sister Çūrpaṇakhā how to make good the defeat sustained; a letter from
Paraçurāma suggests a means; they incite him to avenge the breaking of
Çiva’s bow. Paraçurāma acts on the hint in his usual haughty pride; he
arrives at Mithilā, insults Rāma and demands a conflict. In the next
Act the exchange of insults continues; Vasiṣṭha, Viçvāmitra, Çatānanda,
Janaka, and Daçaratha in vain seek to avoid a struggle between the
youth and the savage Brahmin, slayer of his own mother and exterminator
of Kṣatriyas, but they fail. Act IV reveals that Paraçurāma has been
defeated, and has saluted with respect the victor; Mālyavant bethinks
him of a new device, Çūrpaṇakhā will assume the dress of Mantharā,
servant of Kaikeyī, Daçaratha’s favourite wife, and destroy the concord
of the royal family. That family is in excellent spirits; Rāma is at
Mithilā with his father-in-law when the supposed Mantharā appears,
bearing an alleged letter from Kaikeyī asking him to secure Daçaratha’s
fulfilment of two boons he had once granted her; these are the
selection of her son Bharata as crown prince and Rāma’s banishment for
fourteen years. Meanwhile Bharata and his uncle Yudhājit have asked
Daçaratha to crown Rāma forthwith; he is only too willing, but Rāma
arrives, reports the demands of Kaikeyī and insists on leaving for the
forest, accompanied by Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa, while Bharata is bidden
remain, though he treats himself but as vicegerent. In Act V a dialogue
between the aged vultures Jaṭāyu and Sampāti informs us of Rāma’s
doings in the forest and destruction of demons; Sampāti is uneasy and
bids Jaṭāyu guard Rāma well. Jaṭāyu fares on his duty, sees Sītā stolen
by Rāvaṇa, and is slain in her defence. We see Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa in
mourning; they wander in the forest, save, and receive tidings from, an
ascetic; Vibhīṣaṇa, brother of Rāvaṇa, exiled from Lan̄kā, wishes to
meet them at Ṛṣyamukha where also are the jewels dropped by Sītā in her
despair. Vālin, however, on the instigation of Mālyavant, seeks to
forbid their entry; Rāma persists and slays his foe, who bids his
brother Sugrīva lend his aid to Rāma’s search. In Act VI Mālyavant
appears desolated by the failure of his plans; he hears of Hanumant’s
setting Lan̄kā on fire. Rāvaṇa appears, doting on Sītā; in vain
Mandodarī warns him of the advance of the enemy, but his disbelief is
rudely dispelled; An̄gada bears terms of surrender of Sītā and
humiliation before Lakṣmaṇa; he refuses, and seeks to punish the envoy,
who escapes. He then goes out to battle, described at length by Indra
and Citraratha, who, as divine, can watch it from the sky; Rāvaṇa
performs feats of valour, but Hanumant revives with ambrosia Rāma and
his comrades, and Rāvaṇa finally falls dead beside his gallant son,
Meghanāda. In Act VII the cities Lan̄kā and Alakā, represented by their
deities, exchange condolences; it is reported that Sītā has by the fire
ordeal proved her chastity. The whole of Rāma’s party are now
triumphant; an aerial journey carries them to the north, where they are
welcomed by Rāma’s brothers and Daçaratha’s widows, and Viçvāmitra
crowns Rāma.
The Uttararāmacarita [400] is based on the last and late book of the
Rāmāyaṇa. Janaka has departed; Sītā enceinte is sad and Rāma is
consoling her. News is brought from Vasiṣṭha; he bids the king meet
every wish of his wife, but rank first of all his duty to his people.
Lakṣmaṇa reports that the painter, who has been depicting the scenes of
their wanderings, has finished; they enter the gallery, and live over
again their experiences, Rāma consoling Sītā for her cruel separation
from her husband and friends; incidentally he prays the holy Gan̄gā to
protect her and that the magic arms he has may pass spontaneously to
his sons. Sītā, wearied, falls asleep. The Brahmin Durmukha, who has
been sent to report on the feeling of the people, reveals that they
doubt Sītā’s purity. Rāma has already promised Sītā to let her visit
again the forest, scene of her wanderings; he now decides that, when
she has gone, she must not return, and the command is obeyed. Act II
shows an ascetic Ātreyī in converse with the spirit of the woods,
Vāsantī; we learn that Rāma is celebrating the horse sacrifice, and
that Vālmīki is bringing up two fine boys entrusted to him by a
goddess. Rāma enters, sword in hand, to slay an impious Çūdra Çambūka;
slain, the latter, purified by this death, appears in spirit form and
leads his benefactor to Agastya’s hermitage. In Act III two rivers
Tamasā and Muralā converse; they tell us that Sītā abandoned would have
killed herself but Gan̄gā preserved her, and entrusted her two sons,
born in her sorrow, to Vālmīki to train. Then Sītā in a spirit form
appears, unseen by mortals; she is permitted by Gan̄gā to revisit under
Tamasā’s care the scenes of her youth. Rāma also appears. At the sight
of the scene of their early love, both faint, but Sītā, recovering,
touches unseen Rāma who recovers only to relapse and be revived again.
Finally Sītā departs, leaving Rāma fainting.
The scene changes in Act IV to the hermitage of Janaka, retired from
kingly duties; Kauçalyā, Rāma’s mother, meets him and both forget self
in consoling each other. They are interrupted by the merry noises of
the children of the hermitage; one especially is pre-eminent;
questioned, he is Lava, who has a brother Kuça and who knows Rāma only
from Vālmīki’s work. The horse from Rāma’s sacrifice approaches,
guarded by soldiers. Lava joins his companions, but, unlike them, he is
undaunted by the royal claim of sovereignty and decides to oppose it.
Act V passes in an exchange of martial taunts between him and
Candraketu, who guards the horse for Rāma, though each admires the
other. In Act VI a Vidyādhara and his wife, flying in the air, describe
the battle of the youthful heroes and the magic weapons they use. The
arrival of Rāma interrupts the conflict. He admires Lava’s bravery,
which Candraketu extols; he questions him, but finds that the magic
weapons came to him spontaneously. Kuça enters from Bharata’s
hermitage, whither he has carried Vālmīki’s poem to be dramatized. The
father admires the two splendid youths, who are, though he knows it
not, his own sons.
In Act VII all take part in a supernatural spectacle devised by Bharata
and played by the Apsarases. Sītā’s fortunes after her abandonment are
depicted; she weeps and casts herself in the Bhāgīrathī; she reappears,
supported by Pṛthivī, the earth goddess, and Gan̄gā, each carrying a
new-born infant. Pṛthivī declaims against the harshness of Rāma, Gan̄gā
excuses his acts; both ask Sītā to care for the children until they are
old enough to hand over to Vālmīki, when she can act as she pleases.
Rāma is carried away, he believes the scene real, now he intervenes in
the dialogue, now he faints. Arundhatī suddenly appears with Sītā, who
goes to her husband and brings him back to consciousness. The people
acclaim the queen, and Vālmīki presents to them Rāma’s sons, Kuça and
Lava.
Indian tradition asserts that of the Mahāvīracarita Bhavabhūti wrote
only up to stanza 46 of Act V, the rest being completed by Subrahmaṇya
Kavi; if this were to be taken as certain, it would be a sign that that
drama was never completed, and so was the last work of the author, but
the maturity of the Uttararāmacarita makes it clear that, whatever
there may be of truth in the story, the incompleteness cannot have been
due to lack of time.
3. BHAVABHŪTI’S DRAMATIC ART AND STYLE
It is difficult to doubt that Bhavabhūti must have been induced to
write his Prakaraṇa in an effort to vie with the author of the
Mṛcchakaṭikā. It is true that no such humour as lightens that drama is
found in the Mālatīmādhava, but that was doubtless due to Bhavabhūti’s
own temperament; conscious that he had no gift [401] in that direction,
he omitted boldly the part of the Vidūṣaka which he could clearly not
have handled effectively. But in doing so he lessened greatly his
resources, and has to select for his theme in lieu of comic relief
incidents of the terrible and horrible type blended with the
supernatural. The main love-story, with the episode of the two young
lovers, whose desires are thwarted by interposition of a powerful
suitor, and whose affairs are mixed up with those of two other lovers,
both affections ending in elopements, occurs in the Kathāsaritsāgara,
[402] and in that collection as elsewhere [403] we find the motifs of
the sacrifice of a maiden by a magician and the offering of flesh to
the demons to obtain their aid. But the credit is due to Bhavabhūti of
combining them in an effective enough whole, and of producing in Act V
a spectacle at once horrible and exciting. He has also improved his
authorities in detail; the escaped tiger replaces the more conventional
elephant; and the intrigue is more effectually welded together by
making Madayantikā the sister of Nandana, the king’s favourite.
Further, he has introduced the machinery of Kāmandakī and her
assistants Avalokitā and Saudāminī. This again is taken from the
romance; Daṇḍin, as Brahmanical an author as Bhavabhūti himself, adopts
Buddhist nuns as go-betweens, and Kāmandakī’s offices are perfectly
honourable; she merely undertakes, at the request of the parents, to
subtract Mālatī from marriage with one unworthy of her and not her
father’s choice. The influence of Kālidāsa explains Act IX, which is a
manifest effort to rival Act IV of the Vikramorvaçī, which it excels in
tragic pathos, if it is inferior to it in grace and charm. The same Act
has a flagrant imitation of the Meghadūta in Mādhava’s idea of sending
a cloud message to his lost love, and is full of verbal reminiscences
of that text.
The plot, however interesting, is extremely badly knit together; the
action is dependent to an absurd degree on accident; Mālatī twice on
the verge of death is twice saved by mere chance. Moreover, the
characters live apart from all contact with real life; they are in a
city like the characters of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, but seem to exist in a
world of their own in which the escape of tigers and the abduction of
maidens with murderous intent cause no surprise. There is little
individuality in hero or heroine, though the shy modesty of the latter
contrasts with the boldness of Madayantikā, who flings herself at
Makaranda’s head. A friend of Mādhava, Kalahaṅsa, is asserted later
[404] to be a Viṭa, but has nothing characteristic, and probably the
assertion is without ground.
The Mahāvīracarita lacks the novelty of the Mālatīmādhava, but
Bhavabhūti’s effort to give some unity to the plot is commendable,
though it is unsuccessful. The fatal error, of course, is the narration
of events in long speeches in lieu of action. The conversations of
Mālyavant and Çūrpaṇakhā, of Jaṭāyu and Sampāti, of Indra and
Citraratha, and of Alakā and Lan̄kā are wholly undramatic; the
word-painting of the places of their adventures, as seen from the
aerial car on the return home, has not the slightest conceivable right
to a place in drama. The elaborate exchange of passionate and grandiose
defiances between Rāma and Paraçurāma which drags through two Acts does
credit to the rhetorical powers of the dramatist, but is wearisome and
a mere hindrance to the action. On the other hand, the scene where
Bharata determines to act as vicegerent and that between Vālin and
Sugrīva are effective, while with excellent taste Vālin is made an
enemy, who opposes Rāma under bad advice, and the treachery and
fraternal strife of the Rāmāyaṇa disappear for good. The
characterization is feeble; Rāma and Sītā are tediously of one pattern
without shadow on their virtue, and neither Mālyavant nor Rāvaṇa
surpasses mediocrity.
The Uttararāmacarita reaches no higher level as a drama; he has a
period of twelve years to cover, as he had fourteen in the
Mahāvīracarita, and to produce effective unity would be hard for any
author; Bhavabhūti has made no serious effort to this end; he has
contented himself with imagining a series of striking pictures. The
first Act is admirably managed; the tragic irony of Sītā’s gazing on
the pictures of a sorrow over for good just on the verge of an even
crueller fate, and of asking for a visit to see the old scenes of her
unhappiness as well as her joy, which affords the king the means of
immediately abandoning her, is perfectly brought out. Yet excuses are
made for the king; it is the voice of duty that he hears; his
counsellors who might have stayed his rash act are away. The scene in
Act III, when Sītā sees and forgives her spouse, is admirable in its
delicacy of the portrayal of her gradual but generous surrender to the
proof that, though harsh, he deeply loved her. Lava again is a fine
study in his pride, followed by submission to the great king when
approached with courtesy, but the Vidyādhara’s tale of the use of the
magic weapons, doubtless an effort to vie with Bhāravi’s Kirātārjunīya,
is ineffective. The last Act, however, reveals Bhavabhūti at his best;
the plain tale of the Rāmāyaṇa makes Kuça and Lava recite the story of
the Rāmāyaṇa at a sacrifice and be recognized by their father; here a
supernatural drama with goddesses as actors leads insensibly to a happy
ending, for Bhavabhūti again defies tradition to attain the end,
without which the drama would be defective even in our eyes. Sītā and
Rāma are splendidly characterized; the one in his greatness of power
and nobility of spirit, the other ethereal and spiritual, removed from
the gross things of earth. Janaka and Kauçalyā are effectively drawn;
their condolences have the accent of sincerity, but the other
characters—there are twenty-four in all—present nothing of note. It was
not within Bhavabhūti’s narrow range to create figures on a generous
scale; in his other dramas they are reduced to the minimum necessary
for the action.
As a poem the merits of the Uttararāmacarita are patent and undeniable.
The temper of Bhavabhūti was akin to the grand and the inspiring in
nature and life; the play blends the martial fervour of Rāma and his
gallant son with the haunting pathos of the fate of the deserted queen,
and the forests, the mountains, the rivers in the first three Acts
afford abundant opportunity for his great ability in depicting the
rugged as well as the tender elements of nature; what is awe-inspiring
and magnificent in its grandeur has an attraction for Bhavabhūti, which
is not shown in the more limited love of nature in Kālidāsa. He excels
Kālidāsa also in the last Act, for the reunion of Sītā and Rāma has a
depth of sentiment, not evoked by the tamer picture of the meeting of
Duḥṣanta and Çakuntalā; both Rāma and Sītā are creatures of more vital
life and deeper experience than the king and his woodland love.
We find, in fact, in Bhavabhūti, in a degree unknown to Kālidāsa, child
of fortune, to whom life appeared as an ordered joyous whole, the sense
of the mystery of things; ‘what brings things together’, he says, ‘is
some mysterious inward tie; it is certainly not upon outward
circumstances that affection rests’. [405] Self-sacrifice is a reality
to Bhavabhūti; Rāma is prepared to abandon without a pang affection,
compassion, and felicity, nay Sītā herself, for the sake of his people,
[406] and he acts up to his resolve. Friendship is to him sacred; to
guard a friend’s interests at the cost of one’s own, to avoid in
dealings with him all malice and guile, and to strive for his weal as
if for one’s own is the essential mark of true friendship. [407]
Admirable also is his conception of love, far nobler than that normal
in Indian literature; it is the same in happiness and sorrow, adapted
to every circumstance of life, in which the heart finds solace,
unspoiled by age, mellowing and becoming more valuable as in course of
time reserve dies away, a supreme blessing attained only by those that
are fortunate and after long toil. [408] The child completes the union;
it ties in a common knot of union the strands of its parents’ hearts.
[409] Bhavabhūti was clearly a solitary soul; this is attested by the
prologue of the Mālatīmādhava:
ye nāma kecid iha naḥ prathayanty avajñām: jānanti te kim api tān
prati naiṣa yatnaḥ
utpatsyate ’sti mama ko ’pi samānadharmā: kālo hy ayam anavadhir
vipulā ca pṛthvī.
‘Those that disparage me know little; for them my effort is not made;
there will or does exist some one with like nature to mine, for time is
boundless and the earth is wide.’ Yet we may sympathize with those who
felt [410] that his art was unfit for the stage, for Bhavabhūti’s style
has many demerits in addition to the defects of his technique.
Bhavabhūti in fact proclaims here as his own merit richness and
elevation of expression (prauḍhatvam udāratā ca vacasām) and depth of
meaning, and we must admit that he has no small grounds for his claims.
The depth of thought and grandeur which can be admitted in the case of
Bhavabhūti must be measured by Indian standards, and be understood
subject to the grave limitations which are imposed on any Brahmanical
speculation as to existence by the orthodoxy which is as apparent in
Bhavabhūti as it is in the lighter-hearted Kālidāsa. When, therefore,
we are told [411] that ‘with reference to Kālidāsa he holds a position
such as Aeschylus holds with reference to Euripides’, we must not take
too seriously the comparison. No poet, in fact, suggests less readily
comparison with Euripides than does Kālidāsa. He has nothing whatever
of the questioning mind of the Greek dramatist, contemporary of the
Sophists, and eager inquirer into the validity of all established
conventions. In style again he aims at a level of perfection of
achievement, which was neither sought nor attained by Euripides.
Unquestionably, if any parallel were worth making, Kālidāsa would fall
to be ranked as the Sophokles of the Indian drama, for as far as any
Indian poet could, ‘he saw life steadily and saw it whole’, and was
free from the vain questionings which vexed the soul of Euripides.
Bhavabhūti again cannot seriously be compared with Aischylos, for he
accepted without question the Brahmanical conceptions of world order,
unlike the great Athenian who sought to interpret for himself the
fundamental facts of existence, and who found for them no solution in
popular belief or traditional religion. There can, moreover, be no
greater contrast in style than that between the simple strength of
Aischylos, despite his power of brilliant imagery, [412] and the
over-elaboration and exaggeration of Bhavabhūti. The distinction
between Kālidāsa and his successor is of a different kind. Both
accepted the traditional order, but Kālidāsa, enjoying, we may feel
assured, a full measure of prosperity in the golden age of India under
the Gupta empire, viewed with a determined optimism all that passed
before him in life, in strange contrast to the bitterness of the
denunciations of existence which Buddhism, then losing ground, has set
forth as its contribution to the problems of life. Bhavabhūti, on his
part, recognized with a truer insight, sharpened perhaps by the obvious
inferiority of his fortunes and failure to enjoy substantial royal
favour, the difficulties and sorrows of life; his theme is not the joys
of a pleasure-loving great king or the vicissitudes of a Purūravas, too
distant from humanity to touch our own life, but the bitter woes of
Rāma and Sītā, who have for us the reality of manhood and womanhood, as
many a touch reminds us: [413]
kim api kim api mandam mandam asattiyogād: avicalitakapolaṁ
jalpatoç ca krameṇa
açithilaparirambhavyāpṛtaikaikadoṣṇor: aviditagatayāmā rātrir evaṁ
vyaraṅsīt.
‘As slowly and gently, cheek pressed against cheek, we whispered soft
nothings, each clasping the other with warm embrace, the night, whose
watches had sped unnoticed, came to an end.’
As regards the formal side of Bhavabhūti’s style we must unquestionably
admit his power of expression, which is displayed equally in all three
dramas. To modern taste Bhavabhūti is most attractive when he is simple
and natural, as he can be when it pleases him. Thus in Act VI of the
Mālatīmādhava we have a pretty expression of Mādhava’s joy at the words
of love of him uttered by Mālatī when she has no idea of his presence
near her:
mlānasya jīvakusumasya vikāsanāni: saṁtarpaṇāni
sakalendriyamohanāni
ānandanāni hṛdayaikarasāyanāni: diṣṭyā mayāpy adhigatāni
vacomṛtāni.
‘Fortune has favoured me, for I have heard the nectar of her words that
make to bloom again the faded flower of my life, delightful, disturbing
every sense, causing gladness, sole elixir for my heart.’ The
deliberate rhyming effect is as appropriate as it is uncommon in such
elaboration, and it is characteristic that the same effect is shortly
afterwards repeated. Effective simplicity and directness also
characterize the speech, in Sanskrit contrary to the usual rule, of
Buddharakṣitā in Act VII, when she clinches the argument in favour of
the elopement of Madayantikā and Makaranda:
preyān manorathasahasravṛtaḥ sa eṣaḥ: suptapramattajanam etad
amātyaveçma
prauḍhaṁ tamaḥ kuru kṛtajñatayaiva bhadram: utkṣiptamūkamaṇinūpuram
ehi yāmaḥ.
‘Here is thy beloved, on whom a thousand times thy hopes have rested;
in the minister’s palace the men are asleep or drunken; impenetrable is
the darkness; be grateful and show thy favour; come, let us silence our
jewelled anklets by laying them aside, and depart hence.’ Equally
effective is the expression of the admirable advice tendered to Mādhava
and Mālatī at the moment when Kāmandakī has succeeded in securing their
union:
preyo mitram bandhutā vā samagrā: sarve kāmāḥ çevadhir jīvitaṁ vā
strīṇām bhartā dharmadārāç ca puṅsām: ity anyonyaṁ vatsayor jñātam
astu.
‘Know, my dear children, that to a wife her husband and to a husband
his lawful wife are, each to each, the dearest of friends, the sum
total of relationships, the completeness of desire, the perfection of
treasures, even life itself.’ Pretty again are the terms in which
Kāmandakī laments Mālatī in Act X when she learns of her disappearance:
ā janmanaḥ pratimuhūrtaviçeṣaramyāṇy: āceṣṭitāni tava samprati tāni
tāni
cāṭūni cārumadhurāṇi ca saṁsmṛtāni: dehaṁ dahanti hṛdayaṁ ca
vidārayanti.
‘My body is aflame and my heart torn in sunder by the memory of thy
childish movements which grew more delightful every hour from thy
birth, and of the beauty and sweetness of thy loving words.’
It is, therefore, the more to be regretted that Bhavabhūti was not
content with simplicity, but is often too fond of elaborate and
overloaded descriptions, which are fatally lacking in simplicity and
intelligibility and can be fully comprehended only after careful study
and examination. We must, however, it is clear, admit that Bhavabhūti
definitely improved in taste as the years went on. The latest of his
dramas, the Uttararāmacarita, is far less obnoxious to criticism for
defects of judgement than the Mālatīmādhava, which may be set down as
an adventure in a genre unsuited to the poet’s talent. There is an
admirable touch in the scene in Act I of the play where Sītā, wearied,
falls to rest on the pillow of Rāma’s arm, that arm which no other
woman can claim and which has ever lulled her to sleep, and he gazes on
her in fond admiration: [414]
iyaṁ gehe lakṣmīr iyam amṛtavartir nayanayor
asāv asyāḥ sparço vapuṣi bahulaç candanarasaḥ
ayaṁ kaṇṭhe bāhuḥ çiçiramasṛṇo mauktikasaraḥ
kim asyā na preyo yadi param asahyas tu virahaḥ.
‘She is Fortune herself in my home; she is a pencil of ambrosia for the
eyes; her touch here on my body is as fragrant as sandal juice; her arm
round my neck is cool and soft as a necklace of pearls; what in her is
there that is not dear, save only the misery of separation from her?’
Scarcely are the words said than the attendant enters with the word,
‘It has come’, which on her lips is to announce the advent of the spy
whose report is to lead to Sītā’s banishment, while the audience,
following the words, applies it at once to the separation which Rāma
was deploring, and which to him was the parting in the past when Rāvaṇa
stole his bride.
The spontaneous regard which springs up for each other in the hearts of
the two princes Lava and Candraketu when they meet is admirably
depicted: [415]
yadṛcchāsampātaḥ kim u guṇagaṇānām atiçayaḥ
purāṇo vā janmāntaranibiḍabandhaḥ paricayaḥ
nijo vā sambandhaḥ kim u vidhivaçāt ko ’py avidito
mamaitasmin dṛṣṭe hṛdayam avadhānaṁ racayati?
‘Is it this chance encounter, or his wealth of splendid qualities, or
an ancient love, firm bound in a former birth, or a common tie of blood
unknown through the might of fate, which draws close my heart to him
even at first sight?’
The rebuke which Vāsantī addresses to Rāma for his treatment of Sītā,
despite the loyalty of the queen, is effectively broken off by a faint:
[416]
tvaṁ jīvitaṁ tvam asi me hṛdayaṁ dvitīyam
tvaṁ kaumudī nayanayor amṛtaṁ tvam an̄ge
ity ādibhiḥ priyaçatair anurudhya mugdhām
tām eva çāntam athavā kim ataḥ pareṇa.
‘“Thou art my life, my second heart, thou the moonlight of my eyes, the
ambrosia for my body thou”: with these and a hundred other endearments
didst thou win her simple soul, and now alas—but what need to say
more?’
Elsewhere we have less simplicity, but in these cases we must
distinguish carefully between those instances in which the difficulty
and complexity of expression serve to illustrate the thought, and those
in which the words are made to stand in lieu of ideas. In many cases
Bhavabhūti may justly claim to have achieved substantial success, even
when he is not precisely simple. The effect of love on Mādhava is
effectively expressed: [417]
paricchedātītaḥ sakalavacanānām aviṣayaḥ
punarjanmany asminn anubhavapathaṁ yo na gatavān
vivekapradhvaṅsād upacitamahāmohagahano
vikāraḥ ko ’py antar jaḍayati ca tāpaṁ ca kurute.
‘An emotion, evading determination, inexpressible by words, never
before experienced in this birth of mine, wholly confusing because of
the impossibility of examination, is at once numbing me within and
filling me with a torment of fire.’
The poet’s command of the philosophical conceptions of his day is shown
in the verse following:
paricchedavyaktir bhavati na puraḥsthe ’pi viṣaye
bhavaty abhyaste ’pi smaraṇam atathābhāvavirasam
na saṁtāpacchedo himasarasi vā candramasi vā
mano niṣṭhāçūnyam bhramati ca kim apy ālikhati ca.
‘Though an object be before one’s gaze, determination is not easy;
brought back, memory intervenes to introduce an element of falsity;
neither in the cool lake nor in the moonbeams can passion be quenched;
my mind, powerless to attain a fixed result, wanders, and yet records
something.’
We have a further effective picture of the physical effect of love on
Mādhava when he seeks to assuage his sorrows by depicting his beloved
from memory: [418]
vāraṁ vāraṁ tirayati dṛçor udgamam bāṣpapūras
tatsaṁkalpopahitajaḍima stambham abhyeti gātram
sadyaḥ svidyann ayam aviratotkampalolān̄gulīkaḥ
pāṇir lekhāvidhiṣu nitarāṁ vartate kiṁ karomi.
‘Time after time the tears that stream from my eyes blind my sight; my
body is paralysed by the numbness born of the thought of her; when I
seek to draw, my hand grows moist and trembles incessantly; ah, what is
there that I can do?’
It is, however, easy to pass into exaggeration, as in: [419]
līneva pratibimbiteva likhitevotkīrṇarūpeva ca
pratyupteva ca vajralepaghaṭitevāntarnikhāteva ca
sā naç cetasi kīliteva viçikhaiç cetobhuvaḥ pañcabhiç
cintāsaṁtatitantujālanibiḍasyūteva ca lagnā priyā.
‘So have I grasped my dear one that she is as it were merged in me,
reflected in me, depicted in me, her form mingled in me, cast into me,
cemented with adamant to me, planted within me, pinned to my soul by
the five arrows of love, firmly sewn into the fabric of my thought
continuum.’
A stanza like this, whatever credit it may do to the ingenuity of its
author, hardly gives any high opinion of his literary taste, but we are
undoubtedly forced to assume that he believed deliberately in the
merits of the style he adopted, which as contrasted with that of
Kālidāsa belongs to the Gauḍī type, [420] which loves compounds in
prose, and aims at the grandiose rather than sweetness and grace. The
adoption of such a style, possibly under the influence of the
reputation of Bāṇa, is wholly unjustified in drama; the prose, which
normally in the plays moves freely and easily, is hampered by compounds
of ridiculous length which must have been nearly as unintelligible to
his audiences as they are now without careful study. The defect, it is
true, gradually diminishes; the Uttararāmacarita is far freer from sins
of this type. In the verse the theory does not make such demands for
compounds, so that the poetry is often better than the prose;
especially in his latest drama it gains clearness and intelligibility.
Sanskrit, however, was clearly in large measure an artificial language
to Bhavabhūti; he employs far too freely rare terms culled from the
lexicons, honourable to his scholarship but not to his taste, and the
same lack of taste is displayed in the excess of his exaggerations. Of
the sweetness and charm of Kālidāsa he has as little as of the power of
suggestion displayed by his predecessor; but he excels in drawing with
a few strokes the typical features of a situation or emotion. He seeks
propriety in his characters’ utterances; Janaka shows his philosophical
training, as do the two ascetics in Act IV; Lava manifests his
religious pupilship under Vālmīki; Tamasā as a river goddess uses
similes from the waters. Effective is the speech of the old chamberlain
who addresses the newly-crowned Rāma as ‘Rāma dear’ to remember the
change and fall back on ‘Your Majesty’. It may be admitted also that in
many passages Bhavabhūti does produce effective concatenations of
sounds, but only at the expense of natural expression and clearness of
diction. The appreciation which he has excited in India is often due
not to his real merits, but to admiration of these linguistic tours de
force, such as the following:
dordaṇḍāñcitacandraçekharadhanurdaṇḍāvabhan̄godyataṣ
ṭan̄kāradhvanir āryabālacaritaprastāvanāḍiṇḍimaḥ
drākparyastakapālasampuṭamiladbrahmāṇḍabhāṇḍodara—
bhrāmyatpiṇḍitacaṇḍimā katham aho nādyāpi viçrāmyati.
‘The twang, emanating from the broken staff of Çiva’s bow, bent by his
staff-like arms, is the trumpet sound proclaiming to the world the
youthful prowess of my noble brother; it ceases not yet, its
reverberations enhanced by its rumbling through the interstices of the
fragments of the universe rent asunder by the dread explosion.’ It may
readily be admitted that the sound effect of such a verse is admirable,
but it is attained only at the sacrifice of clearness and propriety of
diction.
4. THE LANGUAGE AND THE METRES
Bhavabhūti, with his limited scope, confines himself to Çaurasenī, and
models his style on Sanskrit, so that the speakers of Prākrit are
committed to the absurdity of elaborate style in what is supposed to be
a vernacular. For him doubtless as for later poets the production of
Prākrit was a mechanical task of transforming Sanskrit according to the
rules of Vararuci or other grammarians.
In metre the Mahāvīracarita shows a free use of the Çloka, as is
inevitable in an epic play; it is found 129 times; the Çārdūlavikrīḍita
(75), Vasantatilaka (39), Çikhariṇī (31), and Sragdharā (28) are the
other chief metres; the Upajāti, Mandākrāntā, and Mālinī are not rare,
but the Āryā (3) and Gīti (1) are almost gone, and there are only
sporadic Aupacchandasika, Puṣpitāgrā, Pṛthvī, Praharṣiṇī, Rathoddhatā,
Vaṅçasthā, Çālinī, and Hariṇī. The Uttararāmacarita has the same
metres, save the Sragdharā, a curious omission; it adds the
Drutavilambita and Mañjubhāṣiṇī; the occurrences of the Çloka are 89,
the Çikhariṇī is second (30), Vasantatilaka third (26), and
Çārdūlavikrīḍita fourth (25). The Mālatīmādhava has the same metres as
the Uttararāmacarita plus the Narkuṭaka [421] and a Daṇḍaka of six
short syllables and sixteen amphimacers; here the Vasantatilaka takes
first place (49), Çārdūlavikrīḍita (32), Çikhariṇī (21), and Hariṇī
(12). The Mālinī (21) and Mandākrāntā (15) take on greater importance,
while the Çloka is negligible (14). The fact that there are only 8
Āryās reflects the changed character of Bhavabhūti’s versification from
that of Kālidāsa.
IX
VIÇĀKHADATTA AND BHAṬṬA NĀRĀYAṆA
1. THE DATE OF VIÇĀKHADATTA
A curious vagueness besets our knowledge of Viçākhadatta or
Viçākhadeva, son of the Mahārāja Bhāskaradatta or the minister Pṛthu,
grandson of the feudatory Vaṭeçvaradatta. None of these persons are
elsewhere known, and for his date we are reduced to conjectures. The
play ends with a stanza mentioning Candragupta as would be natural in a
play of which he is hero, but there are variants in the manuscripts,
including Dantivarman, Rantivarman, and (A)vantivarman. The last has
been utilized to fix the date, but in two different ways; Avantivarman
might be the Maukhari king whose son married Harṣa’s daughter, or the
king of Kashmir (A.D. 855–83); Jacobi [422] identifies the eclipse
referred to in the play as that of December 2, 860, when, he holds,
Çūra, the king’s minister, had the play performed. There is no
conclusive argument for or against this clever combination. Konow [423]
sees in Candragupta the ruler of the Gupta line, and would make the
poet a younger contemporary of Kālidāsa, but this is fantasy. We have
some evidence of imitation of Ratnākara by Viçākhadatta, but it is
possibly not conclusive as to date. Still less weight attaches to the
fact that in one manuscript the Nāndī is supposed to be over before the
play begins, for that is merely a habit of South Indian manuscripts,
true to the Bhāsa tradition. There is nothing that prevents a date in
the ninth century, though the work may be earlier. [424]
2. THE MUDRĀRĀKṢASA
Whatever its date, the Mudrārākṣasa [425] is one of the great Sanskrit
dramas, although in India itself its merits have long been underrated,
because it does not conform to the normal model. It is a drama of
political intrigue, centred in the person of Rākṣasa, formerly minister
of the Nandas, who is now sworn to revenge their destruction on
Cāṇakya, the Brahmin who vowed to ruin them, and who, in pursuance of
this end, secured an alliance between Candragupta, their rival, and
Parvateça [426] and attacked Pāṭaliputra. Rākṣasa seeing resistance
vain surrendered the city; the last of the royal house,
Sarvārthasiddhi, retired to an ascetic life, and Rākṣasa left to weave
plots elsewhere. His effort by a poison maiden to slay Candragupta
miscarried; instead, Parvateça fell a victim through Cāṇakya’s cunning.
This so far aided Rākṣasa that his son Malayaketu left Candragupta and
is now his ally, preparing with the aid of a host of motley origin,
including princes of Kulūta, Malaya, Kashmir, Scind, and Persia to
attack the capital. Act I shows Cāṇakya’s schemes; in a monologue he
expresses his detestation of the Nandas and his determination to secure
Rākṣasa as minister for his lord, for he is convinced of Rākṣasa’s
worth and has no desire himself to rule. Nipuṇaka, his spy, enters; he
has found a Jain Jīvasiddhi hostile to the king—he is in reality
Cāṇakya’s agent; the scribe Çakaṭadāsa is a real enemy, as is the
jeweller Candanadāsa, in whose house are Rākṣasa’s wife and child; by
good fortune he has secured the signet ring of Rākṣasa, dropped by the
former in pulling indoors the child. Cāṇakya sees his chance; he writes
a letter, has it copied in good faith by Çakaṭadāsa and sealed with
Rākṣasa’s seal; Çakaṭadāsa is then arrested, but on the point of
impalement is rescued by Siddhārthaka, another spy of the minister’s,
who flees to Rākṣasa; Jīvasiddhi is banished in ignominy to the same
destination, and Candanadāsa is flung into prison, to await death for
having harboured Rākṣasa’s family, which has escaped. Finally, it is
reported that Bhāgurāyaṇa and others of the court are also fled, news
received by Cāṇakya with admirable composure, for they are also his
emissaries.
Act II shows Rākṣasa’s counter-plots. Virādhaka, in a serpent-charmer’s
disguise, bears him news of ill import: the scheme to murder
Candragupta, as he passed under a coronation arch, has failed,
Vairodhaka, uncle of Malayaketu, who stayed when his nephew fled and
had been crowned also as lord of half the realm, being slain in lieu of
Candragupta; Abhayadatta, who offered him poison, has been forced to
drink the draught; Pramodaka, the chamberlain, has flaunted the wealth
sent to him to use in bribes, and is dead in misery; the bold spirits,
who were to issue from a subterranean passage into the king’s
bedchamber, have been detected by the king through the sight of ants
bearing a recent meal, and burnt in agony in their hiding place;
Jīvasiddhi is banished, Çakaṭadāsa condemned to the stake, Candanadāsa
to the same fate. The tale of woe is interrupted by the advent of
Çakaṭadāsa with Siddhārthaka, who restores his seal to Rākṣasa, saying
he had picked it up at Candanadāsa’s house, and begs permission to
remain in his train. Virādhaka now gives the one piece of good news:
Candragupta is tired of Cāṇakya. At this moment Rākṣasa is asked if he
will buy some precious jewels, and hastily bids Çakaṭadāsa see to the
price, little knowing that they are sent by Cāṇakya to entrap him. Act
III displays Cāṇakya at his ablest; a fine scene takes place between
him and Candragupta, on the score that he has forbidden all feasting
without telling the king; the monarch finally upbraids him, the
minister taunts him with ingratitude and insolence, resigns office, and
leaves in high dudgeon; none but the chief actors know the whole is but
a ruse, and Rākṣasa’s fortunes seem again fair. In Act IV the bright
prospect begins to darken; Bhāgurāyaṇa, for the officials who have
deserted to Malayaketu, explains to that monarch that they desire to
deal direct with him, not Rākṣasa; the latter, they suggest, is no real
foe of Candragupta; if Cāṇakya were out of the way, there would be
nothing to hinder his allying himself with Candragupta. The king is
perplexed, and his doubt increases when he overhears a conversation
between Rākṣasa and a courier who bears the glad tidings of the split
between the king and Cāṇakya; Rākṣasa eagerly exclaims that Candragupta
is now in the palms of his hands (hastatalagata), a phrase which
unhappily lends itself to the suspicious interpretation that he
meditates alliance with that king. Malayaketu’s conversation with
Rākṣasa, which ensues, leaves him half-hearted for an advance, for he
cannot rid himself of his suspicions of the minister. The Act ends with
Jīvasiddhi’s admission to see Rākṣasa, who asks him in vain for
intelligible advice as to the time for an advance, receiving in lieu
much astrological lore and what is really a presage of disaster. This
is achieved in Act V. First Jīvasiddhi approaches Bhāgurāyaṇa, who is
entrusted with the grant of permits to leave the camp, and admits—with
feigned reluctance—in order to get a permit, that he fears Rākṣasa, who
used him formerly when he was arranging for the poisoning of Parvateça,
but now seeks to slay him. The king, who overhears this, is wild with
rage; he had deemed his father slain by Cāṇakya, and Bhāgurāyaṇa has
great difficulty in persuading him that Rākṣasa’s action might be
deemed justifiable, and that at any rate vengeance must wait.
Siddhārthaka, however, now appears a prisoner, caught trying to escape
without a passport; beaten, he finally gives evidence against Rākṣasa
in the shape of the letter written in Act I by Çakaṭadāsa, which he
asserts he was to bear from Rākṣasa to Candragupta, a jewel sealed,
like the letter, with Rākṣasa’s seal—one given by Malayaketu to Rākṣasa
and by him to Siddhārthaka for rescuing Çakaṭadāsa, and a verbal
message, stating the terms demanded by the allied kings for their
treachery, and Rākṣasa’s own demand, the removal of Cāṇakya. The king
confronts Rākṣasa with the proofs, and the minister has made his case
worse from the start, for, asked the order of march proposed, he
assigns to the allied kings the proud duty of guarding the king’s
person, which Malayaketu interprets as a device to facilitate their
treachery. Rākṣasa is bewildered; he can deny the message, but the seal
and the writing are genuine; can Çakaṭadāsa have turned traitor through
fear? The argument against him is clinched by the king’s seeing that he
wears a fine jewel, one of those purchased at the close of Act II; it
was the king’s father’s, and must, he insists, be the price of the
minister’s treachery. Incensed, the foolish king gives orders to bury
alive those allied kings who craved territory as their reward, and to
trample under elephants those who sought them as their share. All is
confusion, and Rākṣasa, insolently spared, slips away to fulfil his
duty of rescuing his friend Candanadāsa.
Act VI reveals Rākṣasa in the capital deeply soliloquizing on the
failure of all his ends, and the fate of his friend. A spy of
Candragupta’s approaches him, and passes himself off as one seeking
death, in despair for Candanadāsa’s fate, on which Candragupta’s mind
is relentlessly set. He warns Rākṣasa that he may not attempt a rescue,
for, when they fear one, the executioners slay the victim out of hand,
and Rākṣasa sees that nothing save self-sacrifice is left for him. The
net is now firmly cast; Act VII sees Candanadāsa led out to death, his
wife and child beside him, a scene manifestly imitated from the
Mṛcchakaṭikā; the wife is determined to die also, but Rākṣasa
intervenes; Cāṇakya and Candragupta come on the scene, and Rākṣasa
decides to accept the office of minister pressed on him by both, when
thus alone he can save, not his own life, but that of Candanadāsa and
his friends. They, indeed, are in sore case, for Malayaketu’s massacre
of the kings has broken the host into fragments, and the apparent
rebels have taken the moment to capture him and his court. As minister,
Rākṣasa is permitted to free Malayaketu and restore his lands,
Candanadāsa is rewarded, and a general amnesty approved.
The interest in the action never flags; the characters of Cāṇakya and
Rākṣasa are excellent foils. Each in his own way is admirable; Cāṇakya
in his undying and just hatred of the Nandas, and Rākṣasa in his
unsparing devotion to their cause, his noble desire to save
Candanadāsa, and his fine submission, for the sake of others, to a yoke
he had purposed never to bear. The maxims of politics in which both
delight may amuse us; they are essentially the Indian views of polity
and give the play a contact with reality which Professor Lévi [427]
wrongly denies; the plots and counterplots of both ministers are the
type in which Indian polity has ever delighted. The minor figures are
all interesting; Siddhārthaka and Samiddhārthaka, gentlemen who even
disguise themselves as Caṇḍālas in the last Act, so that they may serve
Cāṇakya’s aims; Nipuṇaka, whose cleverness in finding the seal
justifies the name he bears; the disguised Virādhaka, the honest
Çakaṭadāsa, the noble Candanadāsa and his wife, the one female figure
in the play. The kings Candragupta and Malayaketu represent the
contrast of ripe intelligence with youthful ardour, and the weak
petulance of one who does not know men’s worth, and who rashly and
cruelly slays his allies on the faith of treachery. Bhāgurāyaṇa, who is
the false friend deluding Malayaketu in Candragupta’s interest, is a
carefully drawn figure; he dislikes the work, but dismisses his
repulsion as essentially the result of dependence which forbids a man
to judge between right and wrong.
Viçākhadatta’s diction is admirably forcible and direct; the martial
character of his dramas reflects itself in the clearness and rapidity
of his style, which eschews the deplorable compounds which disfigure
Bhavabhūti’s works. An artist in essentials, he uses images, metaphors,
and similes with tasteful moderation; alone of the later dramatists, he
realizes that he is writing a drama, not composing sets [428] of
elegant extracts. Hence is explained the paucity of citations from him
in the anthologies, which naturally find little to their purpose in an
author of a more manly strain than is usual in the drama. It is
significant that the Subhāṣitāvali cites but two stanzas, under his
name, as Viçākhadeva, both pretty but undistinguished; the second [429]
is graceful:
sendracāpaiḥ çṛtā meghair nipatannirjharā nagāḥ
varṇakambalasaṁvītā babhur mattadvipā iva.
‘The mountains, with their leaping waterfalls, girt with rainbow
clouds, shone like rutting elephants clad in raiment of bright hue.’
More characteristic is the terse and effective phraseology in which he
describes the dilemma of Malayaketu when his mind has been poisoned
against Rākṣasa: [430]
bhaktyā Nandakulānurāgadṛḍhayā Nandānvayālambinā
kiṁ Cāṇakyanirākṛtena kṛtinā Mauryeṇa saṁdhāsyate
sthairyam bhaktiguṇasya vā vigaṇayan satyasandho bhavet
ity ārūḍhakulālacakram iva me cetaç ciram bhrāmyati.
‘His loyalty was founded on his love for the family of Nanda, it rested
on a scion of that house; now that the cunning Maurya is severed from
Cāṇakya, will he make terms with him? Or, faithful ever in loyalty,
will he keep his pact with me? Perplexed with these thoughts my mind
revolves as on a potter’s wheel.’
There is effective gravity in the manner in which the aged chamberlain
handles the regular topic of his failing powers in old age: [431]
rūpādīn viṣayān nirūpya karaṇair yair ātmalābhas tvayā
labdhas teṣv api cakṣurādiṣu hatāḥ svārthāvabodhakriyāḥ
an̄gāni prasabhaṃ tyajanti paṭutām ājñāvidheyāni me
nyastam mūrdhni padaṁ tavaiva jarayā tṛṣṇe mudhā tāmyasi.
‘Sight, alas, and the other organs, wherewith aforetime I was wont to
grasp for myself the sights and objects of desire which I beheld, have
lost their power of action. My limbs obey me not and suddenly have lost
their cunning; thy foot is placed on my head, old age; vainly, O
desire, dost thou weary thyself.’
Rākṣasa’s name inevitably demands the usual play on its sense of
demoniac, but Malayaketu’s feeling redeems the use from triviality:
[432]
mitram mamāyam iti nirvṛtacittavṛttim
viçrambhatas tvayi niveçitasarvakāryam
tātaṁ nipātya saha bandhujanākṣitoyair
anvarthasaṃjña nanu Rākṣasa rākṣaso ’si?
‘My father’s mind rested secure in thy friendship; in his confidence he
entrusted to thee the whole burden of his affairs; when, then, thou
didst bring him low midst the tears of all his kin, didst thou not act,
O Rākṣasa, like the demon whose name thou dost bear?’
The martial spirit of Rākṣasa is admirably brought out in Act II: [433]
prakārān paritaḥ çarāsanadharaiḥ kṣipram parikṣipyatām
dvāreṣu dvipadaiḥ pratidvipaghaṭābhedakṣamaiḥ sthīyatām
muktvā mṛtyubhayam prahartumanasaḥ çatror bale durbale
te niryāntu mayā sahaikamanaso yeṣām abhīṣṭaṁ yaçaḥ.
‘Around the ramparts be the archers set at once; station at the portals
the elephants, strong to overthrow the host of the foeman’s herd; lay
fear aside, in eagerness to smite the host of the foe that cannot
withstand us, and issue forth with me with one accord, all to whom
glory is dear.’ The burden of duty is expressed admirably: [434]
kiṁ Çeṣasya bharavyathā na vapuṣi kṣāṁ na kṣipaty eṣa yat
kiṁ vā nāsti pariçramo dinapater āste na yan niçcalaḥ
kiṁ tv an̄gīkṛtam utsṛjan kiraṇavac chlāghyo jano lajjate
nirvyūḍhiḥ pratipannavastuṣu satām ekaṁ hi gotravratam.
‘Is it because Çeṣa feels not the pain of the burden of the earth that
he flings it not aside? Is it that the sun feels no weariness that he
does not stand still in his course? Nay, a noble man feels shame to lay
aside the duty he has taken on him, like a meaner creature; for the
good this is the one common law, to be faithful to what one has
undertaken.’ The minister’s resolve to save his friend is forcibly put:
[435]
audāsīnyaṁ na yuktaṁ priyasuḥrdi gate matkṛtām eva ghorām
vyāpattiṁ jñātam asya svatanum aham imāṁ niṣkrayaṁ kalpayāmi.
‘Indifference is impossible since my dear friend has fallen into this
disaster for my sake; I have it: my own life do I set as ransom for
his.’ There is grim humour in the command of the infuriated Malayaketu:
[436] ‘Those who desired my land, take and cast into a pit and cover
with dust; those two who sought my army of elephants slay by an
elephant,’ and in the Caṇḍāla’s remark [437] when he bids his friend
impale Candanadāsa: ‘His family will go off quickly enough of their own
accord.’ The revelation of Jīvasiddhi’s treachery wrings from Rākṣasa
the cry: [438] ‘My very heart has been made their own by my foes
(hṛdayam api me ripubhiḥ svīkṛtam).’ Proverbs are aptly used, as in the
same context the Sanskrit equivalent for an accumulation of evils (ayam
aparo gaṇḍasyopari sphoṭaḥ).
3. THE LANGUAGE AND THE METRES OF THE MUDRĀRĀKṢASA
The Sanskrit of the Mudrārākṣasa is classical, and the Prākrits number
three, for, in addition to the normal Çaurasenī and Māhārāṣṭrī, Māgadhī
is used by the Jain monk, by Siddhārthaka and Samiddhārthaka as
Caṇḍālas, by a servant and an envoy. We may take it that Viçākhadatta
wrote from the grammars, and this is confirmed by the fact that we find
in some of the manuscripts traces of the carrying through of
characteristic Māgadhī features, ññ for ṇṇ for Sanskrit ny; ẖk for kṣ;
çc for cch, st for sth, sṭ for ṣṭ and for ṣṭh, and the usual ç, l, and
e. It is possible, of course, that these are no more than restorations
by scribes, but they may easily be more venerable. It is also
interesting to note that there appear traces of Çaurasenī verses, which
is perfectly possible, as the theory does not necessitate all persons
who use Çaurasenī in prose singing in Māhārāṣṭrī; that is given as
requisite for women only, and in this play they are men who use these
Çaurasenī verses.
The metres most used are Çārdūlavikrīḍita (39), Sragdharā (24),
Vasantatilaka (19), and Çikhariṇī (18); the Çloka occurs also 22 times.
Other metres are sporadic, save Prākrit Āryās; they include Upajāti,
Aupacchandasika, Puṣpitāgrā, Praharṣiṇī, Mālinī, Mandākrāntā, Rucirā,
Vaṅçasthā, Suvadanā (iv. 16), and Hariṇī.
4. THE DATE OF BHAṬṬA NĀRĀYAṆA
The age of Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa, Mṛgarājalakṣman is unknown. But he is cited
by Vāmana (iv. 3. 28) and Ānandavardhana [439] and so is before A.D.
800. Tradition, preserved in the Tagore family, makes him out to be a
Brahmin summoned from Kanyakubja to Bengal by Ādisūra, the founder of a
dynasty of eleven kings, who are supposed to have reigned before the
Pāla dynasty came to the throne in the middle of the eighth century
A.D. It has been suggested [440] that it was identical with the Guptas
of Magadha since Ādityasena, son of Mādhavagupta of Magadha, made
himself independent of Kanyakubja; this would make Ādisūra Ādityasena,
who was alive in A.D. 671. The date, however, is clearly conjectural
for the present.
5. THE VEṆĪSAṀHĀRA
Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa has chosen as his topic [441] one episode from the
great epic and has endeavoured to make it capable of dramatic
representation. One of the worst of the insults heaped on Draupadī in
the gambling scene of the epic is the dragging of her by the hair
before the assembly by Duḥçāsana, one of the Kauravas. Draupadī vows
never to braid her hair again until the insult is avenged, as it
ultimately is.
Act I shows Bhīma in conversation with Sahadeva as they await the
result of Kṛṣna’s visit as an envoy to seek to settle the feud between
Pāṇḍavas and Kauravas; Bhīma shows his insolent confidence in his power
and his bitter anger, by declaring that he will break with Yudhiṣṭhira
if he makes peace before the insult to Draupadī has been avenged.
Sahadeva in vain seeks to appease him, and Draupadī adds to his
bitterness by relating a fresh insult in a careless allusion by
Duryodhana’s queen. Kṛṣṇa returns, nothing effected; indeed he has had
to use his magic arms to escape detention in the enemies’ camp. War is
inevitable, but Draupadī, more human now, bids her husbands take care
of their lives against the enemy. Act II opens with an ominous dream of
Bhānumatī, Duryodhana’s queen; an ichneumon (nakula) has slain a
hundred serpents; it is a presage that the Pāṇḍavas—of whom Nakula is
one—will slay the hundred Kauravas. The king, overhearing but not
understanding, thinks he is betrayed; learning the truth, at first he
inclines to fear, but shakes off the temporary depression. The queen
offers oblation to the sun to remove the evil omen; the king appears to
comfort her: a storm arises, and they seek security in a pavilion,
where they indulge in passages of love. Then appears the mother of
Jayadratha of Sindhu, slayer of Abhimanyu, son of Arjuna, who fears the
revenge of the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana makes light of her fears; he
despises the resentment of the Pāṇḍavas, gloating over the remembrance
of the insults heaped on Draupadī. Finally he mounts his chariot for
the battle. Act III presents an episode of horror but also of power; a
Rākṣasī and her husband feed on the blood and flesh of the dead on the
battlefield; they have been summoned thither, for Ghaṭotkaca, son of
Hiḍimbā by Bhīma, is dead, and his demon mother has bidden them attend
Bhīma in his revenge on the Kuru host. They see the first-fruits in
Droṇa’s death at the hands of Dhṛṣṭadyumna, when he lets fall his arms,
deceived by the lie of his son’s death. They retire before Açvatthāman
who advances, but is filled with grief when he learns of the
treacherous device which cost his father’s life. His uncle Kṛpa
consoles him, and bids him ask Duryodhana for the command in the
battle. But in the meantime Karṇa has poisoned Duryodhana’s mind; Droṇa
had fought, only to win the imperial authority for his son, and has
sacrificed his life in disappointment at the failure of his plans. Kṛpa
and Açvatthāman come up; Duryodhana condoles, Karṇa sneers, Açvatthāman
asks for the command, but is refused it, as Karṇa has been promised it.
Açvatthāman quarrels with Karṇa, and a duel is barely prevented;
Açvatthāman accuses Duryodhana of partiality, and will fight no more.
Their disputes are interrupted by Bhīma’s boast that he will now slay
Duḥçāsana; Karṇa at Açvatthāman’s instigation makes ready to rescue
him, Duryodhana follows suit, Açvatthāman would go also, but is stayed
by a voice from heaven and can only bid Kṛpa lend his aid.
In Act IV Duryodhana is brought in wounded; recovering, he learns of
Duḥçāsana’s death and a Kuru disaster; a messenger from Karṇa tells in
a long Prākrit speech of the death of Karṇa’s son, and gives an appeal
for aid written in Karṇa’s blood. Duryodhana makes ready for battle,
but is interrupted by the arrival of his parents, Dhṛtarāṣṭra and
Gāndhārī with Sañjaya, whose advent begins Act V. The aged couple and
Sañjaya urge in vain Duryodhana to peace; he refuses, and again,
hearing of Karṇa’s death, unaided, is ready to part for the field, when
Arjuna and Bhīma appear; Bhīma insists on their saluting with insults
their uncle; Duryodhana reproves them, but Arjuna insists that it is
just retribution for the acquiescence of the aged king in Draupadī’s
ill-treatment. Duryodhana defies Bhīma, who would fight, but Arjuna
forbids, and Yudhiṣṭhira’s summons takes them away. Açvatthāman
arrives, and seeks reconciliation with Duryodhana, who receives him
coldly; he withdraws, followed by Sañjaya, bidden by Dhṛtarāṣṭra to
appease him.
Act VI tells us from an announcement to Yudhiṣṭhira and Draupadī of
Duryodhana’s death at Bhīma’s hands. But a Cārvāka comes in, who tells
a very different story; Bhīma and Arjuna are dead. Yudhiṣṭhira and
Draupadī resolve on death, and the Cārvāka, who is really a Rākṣasa,
departs in glee. When, however, they are about to die, a noise is
heard; Yudhiṣṭhira, deeming it Duryodhana, rushes to arms, while
Draupadī runs away, and is caught by her hair by Bhīma, whom
Yudhiṣṭhira seizes. The ludicrous error is discovered, and Draupadī
binds up at last her locks. Arjuna and Vāsudeva arrive, the Cārvāka has
been slain by Nakula, and all is well.
The play is on the whole undramatic, for the action is choked by
narrative, and the vast abundance of detail served up in this form
confuses and destroys interest. Yet the characterization is good;
Duryodhana, as in the later Indian tradition, is unlovable; he is proud
and arrogant, self-confident, vain, and selfish; he laughs at
Bhānumatī’s fears and has no sympathy for the maternal anxiety of
Jayadratha’s mother. He is suspicious of Droṇa and Açvatthāman, and
thus deprives himself of their effective aid; Karṇa, whose jealous
advice he accepts, he leaves to perish. Bhīma again is a bloodthirsty
and boastful bully; Arjuna is equally valiant, but he is less an
undisciplined savage, while Kṛṣṇa intervenes with wise moderation.
Yudhiṣṭhira is, as ever, grave and more concerned with the interest of
his subjects than his personal feelings. Horror and pathos are not
lacking, but the love interest is certainly not effective, and it may
be that it was forced on the author by tradition rather than any
thought of producing a real interest of itself. Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa’s
slavish fidelity to rule brought him censure even from Indian critics.
The style of the play is clear and not lacking either in force or
dignity: dismayed by the dream of Bhānumatī Duryodhana comforts
himself. [442] An̄giras says:
grahāṇāṁ caritaṁ svapno nimittāny upayācitam
phalanti kākatālīyaṁ tebhyaḥ prajñā na bibhyati.
‘The movements of the planets, dreams, omens, oblations, bear fruit by
accident; therefore wise men fear them not.’ Graceful is his address to
Bhānumatī if out of place: [443]
kuru ghanoru padāni çanaiḥ çanair: api vimuñca gatiṁ parivepinīm
patasi bāhulatopanibandhanam: mama nipīḍaya gāḍham uraḥsthalam.
‘O firm-limbed one, make slow thy steps; stay thy trembling gait; thou
dost fall into the shelter of my arms; clasp me closely in thine
embrace.’ But any display of tenderness is abnormal in Duryodhana; he
rebukes his aged mother when she urges him to save his life by coming
to terms with the enemy: [444]
mātaḥ kim apy asadṛçaṁ vikṛtaṁ vacas te: sukṣatriyā kva bhavatī kva
ca dīnataiṣā
nirvatsale sutaçatasya vipattim etām: tvaṁ nānucintayasi rakṣasi
mām ayogyam.
‘O mother, strange and unseemly is thy bidding. Ill accord thy noble
birth and this faintness of spirit. Shame on thee, without natural
affection, in that thou dost forget the cruel fate of thy hundred sons
in seeking to save my life.’ In vain is Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s manly appeal to
him: [445]
dāyādā na yayor balena gaṇitās tau Droṇabhīṣmau hatau
Karṇasyātmajam agrataḥ çamayato bhītaṁ jagat Phālgunāt
vatsānāṁ nidhanena me tvayi ripuḥ çesapratijño ’dhunā
krodhaṁ vairiṣu muñca vatsa pitarāv andhāv imau pālaya.
‘Slain are Droṇa and Bhīṣma whose peers none were deemed in might; all
shrank in terror before Arjuna as he slew Karṇa’s son before his eyes;
my dear ones slain, the foe’s whole aim is against thee now; lay aside
thine anger with thy foes, and guard these thy blind parents.’
Admirably expressed is Bhīma’s wild fury when he disdains Yudhiṣṭhira’s
effort to secure peace: [446]
mathnāmi Kauravaçataṁ samare na kopād: Duḥçāsanasya rudhiraṁ na
pibāmy urastaḥ
saṁcūrṇayāmi gadayā na Suyodhanoru: sandhiṁ karotu bhavatāṁ nṛpatiḥ
paṇena.
‘Shall I not in anger crush the hundred Kauravas in battle; shall I not
drink the blood from Duḥçāsana’s breast; shall I not break with my club
the thighs of Duryodhana, although your master buy peace at a price?’
Admirable also is his description of the sacrifice of battle: [447]
catvāro vayam ṛtvijaḥ sa bhagavān karmopadeṣṭā hariḥ
saṁgrāmādhvaradīkṣito narapatiḥ patnī gṛhītavratā
Kauravyāḥ paçavaḥ priyāparibhavakleçopaçāntiḥ phalam
rājanyopanimantraṇāya rasati sphītaṁ yaçodundubhiḥ.
‘We are the four priests, and the blessed Hari himself directs the
rite; the king has consecrated himself for the sacrament of battle, the
queen has taken on herself the vow; the Kauravyas are the victims, the
end to be achieved the extinction of our loved one’s bitterness of
shame at the insult done her; loudly the drum of fame summons the
warrior to the fray.’ Equally effective is his summing up of his feat:
[448]
bhūmau kṣiptaṁ çarīraṁ nihitam idam asṛk candanam Bhīmagātre
lakṣmīr ārye niṣaṇṇā caturudadhipayaḥsīmayā sārdham urvyā
bhṛtyā mitrāṇi yodhāḥ Kurukulam akhilaṁ dagdham etadraṇāgnau
nāmaikaṁ yad bravīṣi kṣitipa tad adhunā Dhārtarāṣṭrasya çeṣam.
‘His body is cast upon the ground; his blood is smeared as sandal paste
on Bhīma’s limbs; the goddess of fortune, with the earth bounded by the
waters of the four oceans, rests on my noble brother’s lap; servants,
friends, warriors, the whole house of the Kurus has been burned in this
fire of battle; the name alone, O king, is left of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s race.’
Effective is the appeal which Dhṛtarāṣṭra bids the faithful Sañjaya
address to the righteously indignant Açvatthāman: [449]
smarati na bhavān pītaṁ stanyaṁ cirāya sahāmunā
mama ca malinaṁ kṣaumam bālye tvadan̄gavivartanaiḥ
anujanidhanasphītāc chokād atipraṇayāc ca tad—
vikṛtavacane māsmin krodhaç ciraṁ kriyatāṁ tvayā.
‘Forget not the milk which thou didst so long drink from the same
breast with him; forget not my robe that thy childish feet so often
soiled in play; his grief is bitter for the death of the younger
brother whom he loved so dearly; be not, therefore, wroth for the
unjust words he hath spoken to thee.’
On the other hand, we find in Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa many of the defects of
Bhavabhūti, in special the fondness for long compounds both in Prākrit
and in Sanskrit prose [450] and the same straining after effect which
gives such a description of the battle as that vouchsafed to Draupadī
by Bhīma, when she warns him nor to be overrash in battle: [451]
anyonyāsphālabhinnadviparudhiravasāmāṅsamastiṣkapan̄ke
magnānāṁ syandanānām upari kṛtapadanyāsavikrāntapattau
sphītāsṛkpānagoṣṭhīrasadaçivaçivātūryanṛtyatkabandhe
samgrāmaikārṇavāntaḥpayasi vicaritum paṇḍitāḥ Pāṇḍuputrāḥ.
‘The sons of Pāṇḍu are well skilled to disport in the waters of the
ocean of the battle, wherein dance headless corpses to the music of the
unholy jackals, that yell in joy as they drink the thick blood of the
dead, and the footmen in their valour leap over the chariots that are
sunk in the mud of the blood, fat, flesh, and brains of the elephants
shattered in mutual onslaught.’ The adaptation of sound to sense here
is doubtless admirable, and the picture drawn is vivid in a painful
degree, but the style is too laboured to be attractive to modern taste.
None the less Nārāyaṇa has the merit, shared by Viçākhadatta, of fire
and energy; much of the fierce dialogue is brutal and violent, but it
lives with a reality and warmth which is lacking in the tedious
contests in boasting, which burden all the descriptions in the Rāma
dramas of the meeting of Rāma and Paraçurāma. Duryodhana is not behind
Bhīma himself in insolence, though perhaps more subtle than that of the
violent son of the Wind-god: [452]
kṛṣṭā keçeṣu bhāryā tava tava ca paços tasya rājñas tayor vā
pratyakṣam bhūpatīnām mama bhuvanapater ājñayā dyūtadāsī
tasmin vairānubandhe vada kim apakṛtaṁ tair hatā ye narendrā
bāhvor vīryātibhāradraviṇagurumadam mām ajitvaiva darpaḥ.
‘Thy wife—whether thine, O beast, or that king’s or the twins’—was
seized by the hair, in the presence of all the princes, by my command
as lord of the earth, she won as my slave at the dice. With this
abiding cause of hatred between us, say what wrong was wrought by the
kings whom thou hast slain? When thou hast not conquered me, why vainly
dost thou boast of the cumbrous strength of thy huge arms?’
Violent as is the language, there is some excuse for it in the
extraordinarily heartless character of Bhīma’s address to the ill-fated
Dhṛtarāṣṭra, which almost justifies the recalling of the disgraceful
slight put on Draupadī: [453]
nihatāçeṣakauravyaḥ kṣībo Duḥçāsanāsṛjā
bhan̄ktā Duryodhanasyorvor Bhīmo ’yaṁ çirasā nataḥ.
‘Bhīma bows low his head before thy feet, Bhīma who has slain all the
scions of Kuru, who is drunk with the blood of Duḥçāsana, and who shall
shatter the thighs of Duryodhana.’ Effectively contrasted is the stern,
but courteous rebuke addressed by Yudhiṣṭhira to Kṛṣṇa’s elder brother:
[454]
jñātiprītir manasi na kṛtā kṣatriyāṇāṁ na dharmo
rūḍhaṁ sakhyaṁ tad api gaṇitaṁ nānujasyārjunena
tulyaḥ kāmam bhavatu bhavataḥ çiṣyayoḥ snehabandhaḥ
ko ’yam panthā yad asi vimukho mandabhāgye mayi tvam?
‘Thou hast forgotten the love due to kindred blood, thou hast violated
the law of the warrior, thou hast ignored the deep friendship between
thy younger brother and Arjuna. Granted that thy love for both thy
pupils may be equal, nevertheless what is the cause that thou dost show
hostility to me in my misfortune?’
These and many other passages are cited by the writers on poetics who
find in the Veṇīsaṁhāra an inexhaustible mine of illustration of the
theory which doubtless deeply affected the author in his composition.
They do not, however, eulogize him blindly; the love scene with
Bhānumatī is definitely treated as out of place. [455]
6. THE LANGUAGE AND THE METRES OF THE VEṆĪSAṀHĀRA.
The Sanskrit and the Prākrits offer no special features of interest.
The latter is mainly in Çaurasenī, but the speeches of the Rākṣasa and
his wife at the beginning of Act III are clearly in Māgadhī; they show
the characteristic signs of e for the nominative singular, both
masculine and neuter, of a-stems; l for r, and ā in the vocative of
a-stems. The suggestion of Grill [456] that the dialect is more
precisely Ardha-Māgadhī is not necessary, for the points enumerated—the
presence of s beside ç, the variation of o and aṁ in the nominative for
e, and the use of jj for ry, and not yy—can be explained readily by the
error of the scribes or the mistakes of the author. The freedom with
which those worthies acted is seen clearly enough in the fact that one
representative of the Bengālī as opposed to the Devanāgarī recension of
the text has systematically rewritten the Prākrit into Çaurasenī.
The metrical treatment is noteworthy for the almost equal use of
Vasantatilaka (39), Çārdūlavikrīḍita (32), Çikhariṇī (35), and
Sragdharā (20). There are 53 Çlokas, and a few stanzas of Mālinī,
Puṣpitāgrā, Praharṣiṇī, and one each of Aupacchandasika, Vaitālīya,
Indravajrā, and Drutavilambita, with 6 Āryās, and 2 Prākrit Vaitālīyas.
The versification is thus decidedly of the later type.
X
MURĀRI, RĀJAÇEKHARA, THEIR PREDECESSORS AND SUCCESSORS
1. THE PREDECESSORS OF MURĀRI
We know definitely of very few dramatists of the eighth and ninth
centuries. Kalhaṇa [457] mentions expressly Yaçovarman of Kanyakubja as
a patron of literature, who, as we have seen, patronized Bhavabhūti and
Vākpati, and we learn of his drama Rāmābhyudaya, which is mentioned by
Ānandavardhana in the Dhvanyāloka, by Dhanika and Viçvanātha, but has
not yet been found. To Kalhaṇa [458] also we are indebted for knowledge
of the period of Çivasvāmin, who lived under Avantivarman of Kashmir
(A.D. 855–83) and was a contemporary of the poet Ratnākara. He wrote
many Nāṭakas and Nāṭikās, and also Prakaraṇas, but save an occasional
verse in the anthologies his fame is lost.
Anan̄gaharṣa Mātrarāja, [459] on the other hand, is known to
Ānandavardhana and Abhinavagupta, and his play Tāpasavatsarājacarita is
a variation on the theme of the ruse of Yaugandharāyaṇa to secure the
marriage of Vatsa and Padmāvatī, in face of the deep love of the king
for Vāsavadattā. Vatsa in this drama, which is of little poetic or
dramatic value, becomes an ascetic on learning of his queen’s supposed
fate, whence the title of the play. Padmāvatī, who had become enamoured
of the king from a portrait sent by the minister, follows suit.
Eventually Vāsavadattā and Vatsa are united in Prayāga when each is
about to commit suicide in sorrow at separation, and the usual victory
is reported by Rumaṇvant to give a happy ending. There seems little
doubt that the author used the Ratnāvalī, which gives the upper limit
of his date. His father’s name is given as Narendravardhana.
Māyurājā [460] has been less fortunate in that his Udāttarāghava is
known only by reference. Rājaçekhara represents him as a Karaculi or
Kulicuri, which suggests the possibility that he was a king of the
Kalacuri dynasty, of which unhappily we know little during the period
in which he is probably to be set. He seems to have known Bhavabhūti.
Like him he eliminated treachery from the slaying of Vālin by Rāma, and
he represents Lakṣmaṇa as first to follow the magic gazelle, and Rāma
as going later in pursuit. He is cited more than once in Dhanika’s
commentary on the Daçarūpa.
No other dramatist of this period is known with any certainty; the
Pārvatīpariṇaya once ascribed to Bāṇa is now allotted to Vāmana Bhaṭṭa
Bāṇa (c. A.D. 1400), and the Mallikāmāruta, wrongly thought to be
Daṇḍin’s, is the work of one Uddaṇḍin of the seventeenth century.
Of these dramatists Yaçovarman has had the honour of being considered
worthy of quotation by the writers on theory who have preserved for us
some interesting verses: [461]
ākrandāḥ stanitair vilocanajalāny açrāntadhārāmbhubhis
tvadvicchedabhuvaç ca çokaçikhinas tulyās taḍidvibhramaiḥ
antar me dayitāmukhaṁ tava çaçī vṛttiḥ samāpy āvayoḥ
tat kim mām aniçaṁ sakhe jaladhara dagdhum evodyataḥ.
‘My moans are like thy thunder, the floods of my tears thy
ever-streaming showers, the flame of my sorrow at severance from my
beloved thy flickering lightning, in my mind is her face reflected, in
thee the moon; like is our condition; why then, O friend, O cloud, dost
thou ever seek to consume me with the burning pangs of love?’
This is decidedly pretty, and there is elegance and beauty in another
verse: [462]
yat tvannetrasamānakānti salile magnaṁ tad indīvaram
meghair antaritaḥ priye tava mukhacchāyānukāraḥ çaçī
ye ’pi tvadgamanānukāragatayas te rājahaṅsā gatās
tvatsādṛçyavinodamātram api me daivena na kṣamyate.
‘The blue lotus which rivalled thine eyes in beauty is now sunk in the
lake; the moon which imitated the fairness of thy face, beloved, is
hidden by the clouds; the royal swans which aped thy lovely gait are
departed; cruel fate will not grant me even the consolation of thy
similitude.’
This verse is appropriated by the Mahānāṭaka, and so is the following,
[463] which deals elegantly enough with the commonplace contrast
between the sad lover and the Açoka tree, whose name is interpreted as
‘sorrowless’, and which flowers, as the poets never weary in telling
us, when touched by the foot of a fair lady, especially one young:
raktas tvaṁ navapallavair aham api çlāghyaiḥ priyāyā guṇais
tvām āyānti çilīmukhāḥ smaradhanurmuktāḥ sakhe mām api
kāntapādatalāhatis tava mude tad api mamāvayoḥ
sarvaṁ tulyam açoka kevalam ahaṁ dhātrā saçokaḥ kṛtaḥ.
‘Thou are proud in thy new shoots, I in the glorious excellences of my
beloved; the bees resort to thee, to me the arrows shot from love’s
bow; like me thou dost delight in the touch of thy dear one’s foot; all
is alike for us both save only that, O tree Sorrowless, the creator
hath made me a man of sorrows.’
kāmavyādhaçarāhatir na gaṇitā saṁjīvanī tvaṁ smṛtā
no dagdho virahānalena jhaṭiti tvatsaṁgamāçāmṛtaiḥ
nīto ’yaṁ divaso vicitralikhitaiḥ saṁkalparūpair mayā
kiṁ vānyad dhṛdaye sthitāsi nanu me tatra svayaṁ sākṣiṇī. [464]
‘I have not recked of the wound given by love, the hunter, for the
memory of thee hath been my elixir; the fire of separation hath not
consumed me straightway because of the nectar of the hope of union with
thee; all this day hath been spent by me in limning thy fancied form;
nought else have I done, as thou thyself art witness, for dost thou not
live in my heart?’ We may regret the loss of a work which contained
verses as pretty as these, even on the outworn topic of Rāma and Sītā.
It might be interesting to know whether Yaçovarman was successful in
introducing any new element into the established plot. The play is
cited in the commentary on the Daçarūpa [465] to illustrate the device
called deception or humiliation (chalana) and the parallel cited is
that of the treatment of Vāsavadattā in the Ratnāvalī. The definitions
of the theory leave this idea far from clear; Viçvanātha seems to treat
it as the bearing of insult for the sake of the end to be reached, and
the allusion in the case of Sītā may be to her abandonment by Rāma as
an act of duty.
A much less favourable impression is left by the few fragments of the
Udāttarāghava which are preserved. The poet seems to have affected the
horrible, as two of his few stanzas deal with it; the better is: [466]
jīyante jayino ’pi sāndratimiravrātair viyadvyāpibhir
bhāsvantaḥ sakalā raver api rucaḥ kasmād akasmād amī
etāç cograkabandharandhrarudhirair ādhmāyamānodarā
muñcanty ānanakandarānalamucas tīvrā ravāḥ pheravāḥ.
‘The victors are vanquished; thick darkness invades the sky and
triumphs over the brilliant rays of the sun; why this inexplicable
event? Why do these jackals, whose bellies are swollen with the blood
sucked from the wounds of bleeding corpses, and whose gaping jaws belch
flame, utter these piercing cries?’
A somewhat flat passage illustrates the conflict of thought in Rāma’s
mind when appealed to by Citramāya on the score that Lakṣmaṇa is in
danger from a Rākṣasa: [467]
vatsasyābhayavāridheḥ pratibhayam manye kathaṁ rākṣasāt
trastaç caiṣa munir virauti manasaç cāsty eva me sambhramaḥ
mā hāsīr Janakātmajām iti muhuḥ snehād gurur yācate
na sthātuṁ na ca gantum ākulamater mūḍhasya me niçcayaḥ.
‘The boy is an ocean of valour; how can I fear danger for him from a
Rākṣasa? Yet the sage here is terrified and calls for aid, and my own
mind is confused; my master too in his affection ever begs me not to
leave Janaka’s daughter alone; my heart is troubled, and in my
confusion I cannot resolve either to go or to stay.’
Another Rāma drama, the Chalitarāma, is also referred to by Dhanika in
his comment on the Daçarūpa; it may belong to this period, or fall
somewhat later; we have from it a picture of the leading captive of
Lava: [468]
yenāvṛtya mukhāni sāma paṭhatām atyantam āyāsitam
bālye yena hṛtākṣasūtravalayapratyarpaṇaiḥ krīḍitam
yuṣmākaṁ hṛdayaṁ sa eṣa viçikhair āpūritāṅsasthalo
mūrchāghoratamaspraveçavivaço baddhvā Lavo nīyate.
‘He who caused such trouble to the Sāman reciters turning to look at
him in his childish play, who amused himself by stealing and giving
back strings of beads and bracelets, he, your heart’s joy, his shoulder
pierced by arrows, powerless through entry into the dread darkness of
fainting, is being led away bound, even Lava.’
Another stanza refers to Bharata; Rāma returning to Ayodhyā in the
celestial chariot declines thus to enter the town, since it is not his,
but under the rule of Bharata; scarcely has he descended when he sees
before him his brother: [469]
ko ’pi siṅhāsanasyādhaḥ sthitaḥ pādukayoḥ puraḥ
jaṭāvān akṣamālī ca cāmarī ca virājate.
‘There stands some one, below the lion throne, before a pair of
sandals, wearing his hair long, bearing a rosary, resplendent beneath
the chowrie.’
The same play [470] contains an amusing slip by Sītā where she bids her
boys go to Ayodhyā and tender their respects to the king. Lava
naturally replies by asking why they should become members of the
king’s entourage, and Sītā answers because the king is their father, a
slip which she explains away as well as she can by saying that the king
is father of the whole earth.
Yet another drama of which we know nothing else is revealed to us by
Dhanika, the Pāṇḍavānanda, from which is cited a stanza interesting in
its series of questions and answers, a literary form of which the
dramatists are fond: [471]
kā çlāghyā guṇināṁ kṣamā paribhavaḥ ko yaḥ svakulyaiḥ kṛtaḥ
kiṁ duḥkhaṁ parasaṁçrayo jagati kaḥ çlāghyo ya āçrīyate
ko mṛtyur vyasanaṁ çucaṁ jahati ke yair nirjitāḥ çatravaḥ
kair vijñātam idaṁ Virāṭanagare channasthitaiḥ Pāṇḍavaiḥ.
‘For the good what is there praiseworthy? Patience. What is disgrace?
That which is wrought by those of one’s own blood. What is misery?
Recourse to another’s protection. Who in the world is enviable? He to
whom one resorts for aid. What is death? Misfortune. Who escape sorrow?
Those who conquer their foes. Who learned this lesson? The Pāṇḍavas
when they dwelt in concealment in the city of Virāṭa.’
We learn also from Dhanika of two further dramas, of unknown authorship
and date; they are mentioned [472] as illustrating the two kinds of
Prakaraṇa as a dramatic form, the basis of distinction being whether
the heroine is the wife of the hero and therefore a lady of good family
or whether she is a courtesan. Of the latter class we have an example
in the Taran̄gadatta, and of the former in the Puṣpadūṣitaka; the latter
name occurs in the slightly altered form of Puṣpabhūṣita in the
Sāhityadarpaṇa. As an example of the Samavakāra the Daçarūpa [473]
mentions the Samudramanthana, a title doubtless as well as the
description of the drama in question.
2. MURĀRI
Murāri tells us that he was the son of Çrīvardhamānaka of the Maudgalya
Gotra and of Tantumatī; he claims to be a Mahākavi, and arrogates the
style of Bāla-Vālmīki. His date is uncertain; he is certainly later
than Bhavabhūti since he cites from the Uttararāmacarita, [474] while
we have evidence from the anthologies that he was reckoned by some as
superior to Bhavabhūti, apparently his predecessor. A further
suggestion as to date may be derived from the Kashmirian poet
Ratnākara, [475] who in his Haravijaya makes a clear reference to
Murāri as a dramatist, for the effort of Bhattanatha Svamin to disprove
the reference must be deemed completely unsuccessful. As Ratnākara
belongs to the middle of the ninth century A.D., this gives us that
period as the latest date for Murāri. Curiously enough, Professor
Konow, [476] who accepts the disproof of the reference to Murāri in
Ratnākara, admits that the reference to Murāri in Man̄kha’s
Çrīkaṇṭhacarita [477] (c. A.D. 1135) suggests that he was regarded by
that author as earlier than Rājaçekhara, a fact which accords
excellently with his priority to Ratnākara, and is far more important
than the fact that he is not cited by the authors on theory of the
eleventh century A.D. A further effort to place him late is that of Dr.
Hultzsch, [478] who infers from verse 3 of the Kaumudīmitrāṇanda of
Rāmacandra, pupil of Hemacandra, that that dramatist was a contemporary
of Murāri. But the evidence is clearly inadequate; the words used are
perfectly compatible with the fact that Murāri was dead, and there are
grave chronological difficulties in the way of the theory. It is
practically impossible that a contemporary of Rāmacandra could have
been cited by Man̄kha at the date of the Çrīkaṇṭhacarita. Moreover
Murāri seems to have been imitated by Jayadeva in the Prasannarāghava.
[479]
Of his place of activity we know nothing definite. He mentions,
however, Māhiṣmatī as the seat of the Kalacuris, and it has been
suggested that this indicates that he lived under the patronage of a
prince of that dynasty at Māhiṣmatī, now Māndhātā on the Narmadā.
3. THE ANARGHARĀGHAVA
Murāri declares in the prologue to the solitary drama, the
Anargharāghava [480] which has come down to us, though quotations show
that he wrote other works, that his aim is to please a public tired of
terror, horror, violence, and marvels, by a composition elevated,
heroic, and marvellous throughout, not merely at the close. He defends
his choice of the banal subject of Rāma; his character adds elevation
and charm to the poet’s work, and it would be folly to lay aside so
splendid a theme. The Anargharāghava, however, does little to justify
the poet’s confidence in his choice of topic. The theme, treated
already at length by Bhavabhūti, offered no chance of success save for
a great poet, and Murāri was not such a poet save in the estimate of
occasional later writers who extol his depth (gambhīratā) without any
shadow of justification.
Act I shows us Daçaratha in conversation with Vāmadeva. The arrival of
the sage Viçvāmitra is announced; he exchanges with the king hyperbolic
compliments of the most tedious type, but proceeds to business by
demanding the aid of Rāma against the Rākṣasas which are troubling his
hermitage. The king hesitates to send one so young and dear into
danger. The sage insists on his obeying the call of duty, and he hands
over Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa to the care of the ascetic. The herald announces
midday, and the king mourns the loss of his son. In Act II we have
first a long-drawn-out conversation between Çunaḥçepha and Paçumeḍhra,
two pupils of Viçvāmitra, which serves to enlighten us on the history
of Vālin, Rāvaṇa, the Rākṣasas, Jāmbavant, Hanumant, and Tāḍakā. The
entr’acte is followed by the appearance of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa who
describe the hermitage and the doings of its occupants, and then the
heat of midday. Time, however, does not trouble the dramatist; though
there is no further action and no interruption in the dialogue, we find
ourselves transported to the evening; Viçvāmitra enters and describes
in converse with the boys the sunset. A cry behind the scene announces
the approach of the demoness Tāḍakā; Rāma hesitates to slay a female,
but finally departs for the necessary duty; on his return he has to
describe the rising of the moon. Viçvāmitra then suggests a visit to
Janaka of Mithilā, affording an opportunity for a description of the
city and its ruler.
In Act II only do we reach the motif which Bhavabhūti with far greater
skill made the leading idea of the drama, thus giving it effective
unity, so far as the story permits. The chamberlain of Janaka in
conversation with Kalahaṅsikā, one of Sītā’s suite, lets us know that
the princess is now ripe for marriage, and Rāvaṇa seeks her hand. In
the scene that follows the king accompanied by Çatānanda receives Rāma,
but hesitates to put him to the severe test involved in bending Çiva’s
bow. Çauṣkala, Rāvaṇa’s envoy, arrives to demand the maiden’s hand, but
indignantly declines the request that his master should bend the bow.
He eulogizes Rāvaṇa whom Rāma depreciates. Rāma is at last allowed to
make the trial; those who remain on the stage describe his wonderful
deed in breaking the bow. He is promised Sītā’s hand, while the other
sons of Daçaratha are also awarded consorts. Çauṣkala departs, menacing
revenge. Act IV shows us Rāvaṇa’s minister Mālyavant lamenting the
failure of his scheme to win Sītā. Çūrpaṇakhā arrives from Videha and
tells of the union of Rāma and Sītā. Mālyavant recognizes that Rāvaṇa
will insist on seeking to separate the pair, and he counsels Çūrpaṇakhā
to assume the disguise of Mantharā, the maid of Kaikeyī, with the view
of securing the banishment of Rāma to the forest, where he will be more
vulnerable to attack. He is also cheered by the news given by
Çūrpaṇakhā of the approach of Paraçurāma to Mithilā, whence some gain
may accrue to his cause. The following scene shows us Rāma and
Paraçurāma in verbal contest; Rāma is even more polite than in the
Mahāvīracarita which is obviously imitated, while the friends of Rāma
carry on a vituperative dialogue behind the scene without actually
appearing. Finally they resolve to fight, for Rāma has annoyed his
rival by reminding him that the flag of his fame won by his destruction
of the Kṣatriyas is worn out and challenging him to mount a new one.
The fight itself takes place off the stage; Sītā, we learn from a voice
behind the scenes, is apprehensive lest Rāma be drawing again his bow
to win another maiden. The rivals then appear on excellent terms;
Paraçurāma exchanges farewells with his former interlocutors and
disappears. Then enter Janaka and Daçaratha. The latter is determined
to resign his kingdom to Rāma, but Lakṣmaṇa enters introducing Mantharā
who bears a fatal missive from Kaikeyī, bidding the king grant the two
boons of the banishment of Rāma and the coronation of Bharata. The
kings faint; Rāma sends Lakṣmaṇa to tell Sītā, and commends his father
to Janaka.
In Act V a conversation between Jāmbavant and an ascetic lady, Çravaṇā,
tells of the doings of Rāma until his advent in the forest. Çravaṇā
goes to Sugrīva to bespeak a kindly welcome for the wayfarers, while
Jāmbavant overhears a dialogue between Rāvaṇa, disguised as a juggler,
and Lakṣmaṇa. The vulture Jaṭāyu then appears with the grave news that
he has seen Rāvaṇa and Mārīca in the forest; Jāmbavant goes to warn
Sugrīva of the danger, while Jaṭāyu sees the rape of Sītā and pursues
the ravisher. After this entr’acte Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa enter, wandering
in grief in vain search. They are interrupted by a cry and see the
friendly forest chief, Guha, assailed by the headless Kabandha.
Lakṣmaṇa rescues him, but, in doing so, knocks off the tree, on which
it was suspended, the skeleton of Dundubhi, to the annoyance of Vālin,
who appears, and after a lengthy conversation challenges Rāma to
battle. The fight is described from the stage by Lakṣmaṇa and Guha; the
enemy is slain. Voices from behind the scenes report the coronation of
Sugrīva and his determination to aid Rāma in the recovery of Sītā, and
Lakṣmaṇa and his friend leave the stage to rejoin their party. In Act
VI Sāraṇa and Çuka, two spies of Rāvaṇa’s describe to Mālyavant the
building of the bridge over the ocean and the advent of Rāma’s army.
Voices from behind announce the departure of Kumbhakarṇa and Meghanāda
for battle; in the same way we learn of their fall and the last exit of
Rāvaṇa, whom Mālyavant decides to follow to the field. The final
struggle is described with tedious and tasteless prolixity by two
Vidyādharas, Ratnacūḍa and Hemān̄gada, and with this the Act closes.
In Act VII we have a determined effort to vie with the close of the
Mahāvīracarita. Rāma, Sītā, Lakṣmaṇa, Vibhīṣaṇa, and Sugrīva proceed in
Kubera’s celestial car to Ayodhyā. But the route is diversified from
the simplicity of the model, for the travellers are taken to the
celestial regions to view in all its aspects the mythical mountain
Sumeru and the world of the moon; only then do they commence their
journey in its terrestrial aspect by a description of Siṅhala,
distinguished as usual from Lan̄kā; the route then passes over the
Malaya mountains, the forest, the mountain Prasravaṇa, the Godāvarī,
mount Mālyavant, Kuṇḍinīpura in the Mahārāṣṭra country, Kāñcī,
Ujjayinī, Māhiṣmatī, the Yamunā, the Ganges, Vārāṇasī, Mithilā and
Campā; the car goes then west to Prayāga, and later turns east to
Ayodhyā, where the priest Vasiṣṭha waits with Rāma’s brothers to crown
him king.
The demerits of the poem are obvious; there is no attempt to improve on
the traditional narrative, though Vālin is honourably killed; the
characters are as stereotyped as ever. The author, however, delights to
overload and elaborate the theme; hyperbole marks every idea; his
mythological knowledge is adequate to enable him to abound in conceits
and plays on words, when he does not sink, as largely in Act III, to
mere commonplace. The taste which invents the visit to the world of the
moon and Sumeru is as deplorable as that which substitutes the dull
dialogue between Jāmbavant and Jaṭāyu for the vigorous conversation of
Jaṭāyu and Sampāti in the Mahāvīracarita. For dialogue in general
Murāri has no taste at all, and what merit his work has lies entirely
in the ability which he shows to handle the Sanskrit language and to
frame sentences of harmonious sound in effective metrical forms. His
knowledge of the lexica is obvious, while his love of the recondite in
grammar has won him the fame of being used to illustrate rare forms by
the author of the Siddhāntakaumudī. These linguistic merits have
secured him the preference shown for him by modern taste. Nor indeed
can his power of expression be justly denied: [481]
dṛçyante madhumattakokilavadhūnirdhūtacūtān̄kura—
prāgbhāraprasaratparāgasikatādurgās taṭībhūmayaḥ
yāḥ kṛcchrād atilan̄ghya lubdhakabhayāt tair eva reṇūtkarair
dhārāvāhibhir asti luptapadavīniḥçan̄kam eṇīkulam.
‘There are seen the towering slopes as of sand where the pollen tilts
off from the mango shoots, shaken by the female cuckoos, maddened by
the intoxication of spring; scarce can the antelopes in their fear of
the hunter leap over them, but the dust which they raise in showers
accords them security by concealing the path of their flight.’ The idea
is certainly trivial enough, but the expression, which defies
reproduction in English, is in its own way a masterpiece of effect.
A pretty erotic verse is found in Act VII: [482]
anena rambhoru bhavanmukhena: tuṣārabhānos tulayā dhṛtasya
ūnasya nūnam pratipūraṇāya: tārā sphuranti pratimānakhaṇḍāh.
‘When the moon is placed in the scales, fair-limbed one, against thy
face, assuredly it is found wanting, and to make good the deficit the
stars must shine as make-weights.’
Not a bad example of more elaborate, yet graceful, eulogy is found in
the following stanza: [483]
gotre sākṣād ajani bhagavān eṣa yat padmayoniḥ
çayyotthāyaṁ yad akhilam ahaḥ prīṇayanti dvirephān
ekāgrāṁ yad dadhati bhagavaty uṣṇabhānau ca bhaktim
tat prāpus te sutanu vadanaupamyam ambhoruhāṇi.
‘Since manifestly in their family has been born the blessed one, sprung
from the lotus; since all day long they delight the bees as they rise
from their bed; since their whole faith they devote to the blessed lord
of the sharp rays, thus, O lovely one, the flowers that spring from the
water attain the likeness of thy face.’
Happy also is another erotic stanza: [484]
abhimukhapatayālubhir lalāṭa—: çramasalilair avadhūtapattralekhaḥ
kathayati puruṣāyitaṁ vadhūnām: mṛditahimadyutidurmanāḥ kapolaḥ.
‘Its painted mark obliterated by the moisture which streams from the
wearied brow over the face, the cheek reveals the longing of women,
melancholy as the wan moon.’
udeṣyatpīyūṣadyutirucikaṇārdrāḥ çaçimaṇi—
sthalīnām panthāno ghanacaraṇalākṣālipibhṛtaḥ
cakorair uḍḍīnair jhaṭiti kṛtaçan̄kāḥ pratipadam
parācaḥ saṁcārān avinayavatīnāṁ vivṛṇate.
‘Footprints on pavements of moonstone, marked with the lac that dyes
deep the feet, wet with drops that have the radiance of rising cream,
made with anxiety at every step as the Cakoras fly up disturbed, mark
the departure of ladies who violate decorum.’ [485]
A further stanza in some manuscripts of the poem occurs in the drama,
while elsewhere it seems to be treated as a verse about Murāri: [486]
devīṁ vācam upāsate hi bahavaḥ sāraṁ tu sārasvatam
jānīte nitarām asau gurukulakliṣṭo Murāriḥ kaviḥ
abdhir lan̄ghita eva vānarabhaṭaiḥ kiṁ tv asyā gambhīratām
āpātālanimagnapīvaratanur jānāti manthācalaḥ.
‘Many serve the goddess speech, but the essence of eloquence Murāri
alone knows to the full, that poet who long toiled in the house of his
teacher; even so the monkey host leapt over the ocean, but its depth
the Mount of Churning alone knows, for its mighty mass penetrated down
even to the realms below.’
4. THE DATE OF RĀJAÇEKHARA
Rājaçekhara, with the usual prolixity of bad poets, is voluble on his
personality; he was of a Mahārāṣṭra Kṣatriya family of the Yāyāvaras,
who claimed descent from Rāma; son of the minister Durduka or Duhika,
and of Çīlavatī; grandson of Akālajalada, and descendant of Surānanda,
Tarala, and Kavirāja, all poets of name. He married Avantisundarī of
the Cāhamāna family, and was a moderate Çaiva. [487]
In the Karpūramañjarī, probably his first play since it was produced at
the request of his wife, and not a king, he refers to himself as the
teacher of Nirbhaya or Nirbhara, who was clearly the Pratihāra king,
Mahendrapāla of Mahodaya or Kanyakubja, of whom we have records in A.D.
893 and 907. The Bālarāmāyaṇa was produced at his request. But he seems
then to have visited another court, for the Viddhaçālabhañjikā was
produced for the Kalacuri king, Yuvarāja Keyūravarṣa of Tripurī. But,
as the unfinished Bālabhārata was written for Mahīpāla, successor of
Mahendrapāla, whose records begin in A.D. 914, we may assume that he
returned to the court of the Pratihāras and died there. In the
Bālarāmāyaṇa he speaks of six of his works, not apparently including
the Viddhaçālabhañjikā and the Bālabhārata, and in fact we have many
stanzas from him regarding famous authors, though of course the proof
of derivation from this Rājaçekara is not always complete.
The Bālarāmāyaṇa shows to perfection Rājaçekhara’s own estimate of
himself. He traces his poetic descent from Vālmīki, through
Bhartṛmeṇṭha and Bhavabhūti, but it is not clear that Bhartṛmeṇṭha must
be assumed to have dramatized the work, and the little we know of this
obscure person merely shows that he wrote an epic, the Hayagrīvavadha,
while his date is involved in the problems of Vikramāditya and
Mātṛgupta. [488]
5. THE DRAMAS OF RĀJAÇEKHARA
The Bālarāmāyaṇa [489] is a Mahānāṭaka, that is one in ten acts, and
the author, to add to the horror of the length, has expanded the
prologue to almost the dimensions of an act, celebrating his
non-existent merits, and has expanded each act to almost the dimensions
of a Nāṭikā. The whole has 741 stanzas, and of these no less than 203
are in the 19-syllable Çārdūlavikrīḍita and 89 in the Sragdharā, which
has two more syllables in each pada or 84 in a stanza. The play has a
certain novelty, because the author has made the love of Rāvaṇa the
dominating feature. He appears in person in the first act, but declines
to test himself by drawing Çiva’s bow, and departs, menacing evil to
any husband of Sītā. In Act II he seeks the aid of Paraçurāma, but is
insulted instead, and a battle barely prevented by intervention of
friends. In Act III the marriage of Sītā is enacted before him to
distract his amorous sorrow, but the attempt is as little a success as
it deserved to be; he interrupts, and finally the scene has to be
broken off. In Act IV the duel of Rāma and Paraçurāma is disposed of,
but in Act V we find another ludicrous effort to amuse Rāvaṇa; dolls
with parrots in their mouths are presented to him as Sītā and his
foster sister; he is deceived until he finds that his grasp is on wood;
distracted, he demands his beloved from nature, the seasons, the
streams, and the birds, as does Purūravas in the Vikramorvaçī. The
arrival of Çūrpaṇakhā, his sister, who has suffered severely from her
attack on Rāma, brings him to a condition of more manly rage. A tedious
Act then carries matters down to the death of the sorrowing Daçaratha.
In Act VII the problem of inducing the ocean to accept the burden of
the bridge is solved; Dadhittha and Kapittha, two monkeys, describe at
length its construction to Rāma. A momentary terror is caused by a
stratagem of Mālyavant; the severed head of Sītā seems to be flung on
the shore, but it speaks and reveals the fraud; it is the head of the
speaking doll. In Act VIII we have Rāvaṇa’s impressions as disaster
after disaster is announced; he sends out Kumbhakarṇa, but sees even
him helpless, despite his magic weapons, before Rāma. In Act IX Indra
himself describes the last desperate duel of Rāma and Rāvaṇa. In Act X
the party of Rāma makes the usual aerial tour of India, including the
world of the moon, and ending with the inevitable consecration.
The Bālabhārata [490] is mercifully unfinished; it covers the marriage
of Draupadī, and the gambling scene with the ill usage of Draupadī. The
other two plays are really Nāṭikās, but the first, the Karpūramañjarī
[491] is classed by the theory as a Saṭṭaka, simply because it is in
Prākrit, none of the characters speaking Sanskrit. It is the old story;
here the king is Caṇḍapāla, possibly a compliment to Mahendrapāla, and
his beloved the Kuntala princess, Karpūramañjarī, who is really a
cousin of the queen. In Act I a magician, Bhairavānanda, displays the
damsel to the king and queen; the apparition tells her tale, and the
queen decides to add her to the number of her attendants. The king and
the maiden fall at once in love. In Act II a letter from the maiden
avows her passion, and the Vidūṣaka and her friend Vicakṣaṇā arrange to
let the king see her swinging and also producing by her touch the
blossoming of the Açoka. Between the Acts we must assume that the queen
has found out the love, and has confined the maiden, while the king has
secured the making of a subterranean passage giving access to her
prison. In Act III by this means the princess and the king enjoy a
flirtation in the garden, when the queen discovers them. In Act IV we
find that the end of the passage giving on the garden has been blocked,
but another passage has been made to the sanctuary of Cāmuṇḍā, the
entrance concealed behind the statue. Thus the prisoner can play a game
of hide-and-seek with the queen, and this enables her to carry out a
clever ruse invented by the magician to secure the queen’s blessing for
the wedding. The queen is induced to demand that the king shall marry a
princess of Lāṭa who will secure him imperial rank. She is still at her
home, but the magician will fetch her to the place. The wedding goes on
merrily, but the princess is no other than Karpūramañjarī, and the
queen has unwittingly accomplished the lovers’ desires.
The same motif is repeated in the Viddhaçālabhañjikā, [492] which is a
regular Nāṭikā. Act I tells us that Candravarman of Lāṭa, vassal of
Vidyādharamalla, has sent to the court of his overlord his daughter
Mṛgān̄kāvalī in the guise of his son and heir. The king,
Vidyādharamalla, recounts a dream in the truthful hours of the morning,
in which a beautiful maid had cast a collar of pearls round his neck;
he is haunted by her, and next finds her in sculptured form
(çālabhañjikā) in the picture gallery. He has a further glimpse of her
in the flesh but no more, before the heralds announce midday. In Act II
we learn that the queen proposes to marry Kuvalayamālā of Kuntala to
the pretended boy, while the Vidūṣaka has been promised by her
foster-sister, Mekhalā, marriage with a lady of the seductive name of
Ambaramālā, Air Garland. Imagine his disgust when she turns out to be a
mere slave; the king has to calm him, and together they watch in hiding
Mṛgān̄kāvalī playing in the garden, and hear her reading a letter of
love. The heralds proclaim the evening hour. In Act III we are told
that the dream of the king was reality, devised by Bhāgurāyaṇa, his
minister, who knew that the husband of the heroine would attain
imperial rule. The Vidūṣaka punishes Mekhalā’s ruse by another; he bids
a woman hide herself and call out a warning to Mekhalā of evil to
befall her unless she crawl between a Brahmin’s limbs. The queen begs
the Vidūṣaka to permit this ceremony, and, it over, he avows the plot
to the great indignation of the queen. The Vidūṣaka and the king then
have an interview with the heroine. In Act IV we learn of a plot of the
queen to punish the king. She induces him to agree to marry the sister
of the pretended boy, meaning that he should find that he has married a
boy. The king agrees; the marriage is completed; news comes from
Candravarman that a son is born, begging the queen to dispose in
marriage of his daughter, who may resume her sex. The queen, tricked
and deceived, makes the best of her situation; with dignity and hauteur
she bestows on her husband both Mṛgān̄kāvalī and Kuvalayamālā, while
news is brought that the last rebels are subdued and the king’s
suzerainty is recognized everywhere.
There can be no doubt of the demerits of Rājaçekhara’s works; he is
devoid of the power to create a character: Vidyādharamalla is stiff and
uninteresting beside his model, the gay and gallant Vatsa; the queen is
without the love or the majesty of Vāsavadattā; Bhāgurāyaṇa is a feeble
Yaugandharāyaṇa, whose magician is borrowed in the Karpūramañjarī and
spoiled in the borrowing. The heroines are without merit; the Vidūṣaka
in the Karpūramañjarī is tedious, but Cārāyaṇa in the
Viddhaçālabhañjikā has merits; he has plenty of sound common sense,
though he is simple and capable of being taken in by others. The
intrigue in both Nāṭikās is poorly managed; the confusion of exits and
entrances in the Karpūramañjarī is difficult to follow and probably
more difficult to act, while in the Viddhaçālabhañjikā the queen is
induced to arrange a marriage out of a puerile incident affecting the
Vidūṣaka only. The taste of giving two brides to the king at once is
deplorable, as is the failure to explain why the king accepts the
suggested marriage when ignorant of its true import.
In all his dramas, however, Rājaçekhara is merely concerned with
exercises in style. The themes he frankly tells us in the prologue to
the Karpūramañjarī are the same; the question is the expression, and
the language is indifferent; therefore Prākrit being smooth, while
Sanskrit is harsh, the language of women as opposed to men, can be used
as a medium of style by one who boasts himself an expert in every kind
of language. We have, therefore, elaborate descriptions in equally
elaborate verses, of the dawn, midday, sunset, the pleasures of the
harem, the game of ball, the swing, a favourite enjoyment of the Indian
maidens, and in the Nāṭakas pictures ad nauseam of battles with magic
weapons, and appalling mythical geography and topography. His allusions
to local practices and customs may be interesting to the antiquarian,
but are not poetical. More praiseworthy is his real accomplishment in
metres, especially the Çārdūlavikrīḍita, his facility in which
Kṣemendra justly praises, the Vasantatilaka, Çloka, and Sragdharā. His
ability to handle elaborate Prākrit metres is undeniable; in 144
stanzas in the Karpūramañjarī he has 17 varieties. If poetry consisted
merely of harmonious sound, he must be ranked high as a poet. He is
fond of proverbs: varaṁ takkālovaṇadā tittirī ṇa uṇa diahantaridā morī,
which gives our ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush’; he
introduces freely words from vernaculars, including Marāthī. But,
despite his parade of learning, he cannot distinguish accurately
Çaurasenī and Māhārāṣṭrī in his drama; in the former we find such forms
as laṭṭhi for yaṣṭi, ammi in the locative and hiṁto in the ablative
singular of a-stems, and esa for the pronoun. Important as he is
lexicographically for both Sanskrit and Prākrit, it is undeniable that
both were utterly dead languages for him, which he had laboriously
learned. Forms like ḍhilla equivalent to çithila in the Karpūramañjarī
show how far the vernaculars had advanced beyond the Prākrits of the
drama.
It would, however, be quite unjust to deny to Rājaçekhara the power of
effective expression; like all the later dramatists he is capable of
producing elegant and attractive verses, which are largely spoiled in
their context by their being embedded in masses of tasteless matter.
Thus the benediction of the Viddhaçālabhañjikā is decidedly graceful:
kulagurur abalānāṁ kelidīkṣāpradāne
paramasuhṛd anan̄go rohiṇīvallabhasya
api kusumapṛṣatkair devadevasya jetā
jayati suratalīlānāṭikāsūtradhāraḥ.
‘Family preceptor of young maidens for the bestowal of the sacrament of
love, the bodyless one, dearest friend of Rohiṇī’s lover, he that with
his flower arrows overthrew the god of gods, he is victorious ever, the
director of the comedy of the play of love’s mysteries.’
The description of summer is also pretty if banal:
rajaniviramayāmeṣv ādiçantī ratecchām
kim api kaṭhinayantī nārikelīphalāmbhaḥ
api pariṇamayitrī rājarambhāphalānām
dinapariṇatiramyā vartate grīṣmalakṣmīḥ.
‘This is the glorious season of summer, delightful in the length of the
days, when the royal plantain fruits are ripened, and the milk in the
coco-nut is hardened, and the season bids us enjoy the delight of love
in the closing watches of the night.’
The signs of a maiden distracted by unfulfilled affection are quaintly
described:
candraṁ candanakardamena likhitaṁ sā mārṣṭi daṣṭādharā
bandhyaṁ nindati yac ca manmatham asau bhan̄ktvāgrahastān̄gurīḥ
kāmaḥ puṣpaçaraḥ kileti sumanovargaṁ lunīte ca yat
tat kāmyā subhaga tvayā varatanur vātūlatāṁ lambhitā.
‘Biting her lip, she wipes out the figure of the moon sketched in
sandal paste; snapping her finger-tips she mocks at love as barren; to
flout his darts, the flowers she gathers she tears in shreds; assuredly
the fair one whom thou shouldst love hath been brought by thee to
madness.’
antastāraṁ taralitatalāḥ stokam utpīḍabhājaḥ
pakṣmāgreṣu grathitapṛṣataḥ kīrṇadhārāḥ krameṇa
cittātan̄kaṁ nijagarimataḥ samyag āsūtrayanto
niryānty asyāḥ kuvalayadṛço bāṣpavārām pravāhāḥ.
‘Rippled on the surface of the pupil, slightly foaming, forming drops
on the tips of the lashes, then slowly issuing in streams, betokening
by their weight her heart’s sorrow, there pour forth from the
lotus-eyed one the floods of her tears.’
Of all the plays the Karpūramañjarī is undoubtedly that which contains
the most substantial evidence that Rājaçekhara had some real poetic
talent, despite the banality and stupidity of his conception of love in
Act III. The swing scene contains really effective lines of
word-painting, in harmonious metre: [493]
vicchaanto ṇaararamaṇīmaṇḍalassāṇaṇāiṁ
viccholanto gaaṇakuharaṁ kantijoṇhājaleṇa
pecchantīṇaṁ hiaaṇihiaṁ ṇiddalanto a dappaṁ
dolālīlāsaralataralo dīsae se muhendū.
‘Paling the face of every beauty here, making the sky’s vault to ripple
with the liquid moonlight of her loveliness, and breaking the haughty
pride in the hearts of maids that regard her, appeareth the moon-like
orb of her face as she moveth straight to and fro in her sport on the
swing.’ The effective alliteration and paronomasia of this stanza are
surpassed by the metrical perfection of the next but one, where the
Pṛthvī metre, with ‘its jingling tribrachs and bell-like, chiming
cretics’, is employed in a stanza which admirably conveys by its sound
the sense at which it aims:
raṇantamaṇiṇeuraṁ jhaṇajhaṇantahāracchaḍaṁ
kaṇakkaṇiakin̄kiṇīmuhalamehalāḍambaraṁ
vilolavalaāvalījaṇiamañjusiñjāravaṁ
ṇa kassa maṇomohaṇaṁ sasimuhīa hindolaṇaṁ.
‘With the tinkling jewelled anklets, With the sound of lovely jingles
With the flashing jewelled necklace, From the rows of rolling bangles,
With the show of girdles garrulous Pray whose heart is not bewildered
From their ringing, ringing bells While the moon-faced maiden swings?’
Excellent also is the king’s address [494] to the Açoka when made to
blossom by the touch of the foot of his young beloved, but more
characteristic in his comment, [495] inspired by the Vidūṣaka’s
ungallant comparison of the fresh beauty of the maiden with the passée
comeliness of his queen:
bālāu honti kuūhaleṇa emeya cavalacittāo
daralasiathaṇīsu puṇo ṇivasai maaraddhaarahassaṁ.
‘Though maidens in their young zest for life are fickle of faith, yet
it is with them—their breasts just budding—that the mystery of the
dolphin-bannered doth abide.’
For technique Rājaçekhara is of interest, because he uses in the
Karpūramañjarī the old form of prologue quite openly, with the Nāndī
recited doubtless by the Sūtradhāra, followed by the advent of the
Sthāpaka who recites two verses. It is noteworthy that the manuscripts
often alter the Sthāpaka to the Sūtradhāra despite the clear sense of
the text. The late Pārvatīpariṇaya likewise has a Nāndī before the
Sūtradhāra speaks a verse. It is probable that the older technique long
persisted in the south.
Rājaçekhara’s indebtedness to his predecessors is wholesale; the
influence of Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti is obvious, and it is
probably an indication of his contemporaneity with, or slight
posteriority to, Murāri that he does not seem to have known his
writings. Influence of the vernacular or of Prākrit is to be seen in
his occasional use of rhyme, such as is found in the later Gītagovinda
or the Mohamudgara.
6. BHĪMAṬA AND KṢEMĪÇVARA
A verse attributed to Rājaçekhara mentions the five dramas of Bhīmaṭa,
of which the Svapnadaçānana won him chief fame. He is described as a
Kaliñjarapati, whence the suggestion has been made that he was a
connection of the Candella king Harṣa of Jejākabhukti, who, we know,
was a contemporary of Mahīpāla of Kanyakubja, patron of Rājaçekhara,
but we have no ground for positive assertion. [496]
The case is different with Kṣemīçvara, who in his Caṇḍakauçika wrote
for Mahīpāla, doubtless the king of Kanyakubja, patron of Rājaçekhara.
Kṣemīçvara asserts his patron’s victory over the Karṇāṭas, which was
doubtless the view taken in royal circles of the contest against the
Rāṣṭrakūṭa Indra III, who for his part claims victory over Mahodaya, or
Kanyakubja.[496] A variant of the name is Kṣemendra, but he is not to
be identified with the Kashmirian poet of that name. His
great-grandfather was called Vijayakoṣṭha or Vijayaprakoṣṭha, who is
designated as both Ārya and Ācārya, and was, therefore, a learned man
of some sort.
Kṣemīçvara has left two dramas. The Naiṣadhānanda [497] in seven acts
deals with the legend of Nala, famous in the epic and later. The
Caṇḍakauçika [498] reveals the stupid story of Hariçcandra, who, seeing
as he thought the sacrifice of a damsel on the fire rebukes the Kauçika
Viçvāmitra, and in return for his gallant action is cursed by the
irascible sage, who was merely bringing the sciences under his control.
He secures pardon by the surrender of the earth and a thousand gold
pieces; to secure the latter he sells wife and child to a Brahmin, and
himself to a Caṇḍāla as a cemetery keeper. One day his wife brings the
dead body of their child, but it turns out merely to be a trial of his
character; his son is alive and is crowned king. The plot is as poor as
the execution of the piece. He shows in metre a special fondness for
the Çikhariṇī, which occurs 20 times, nearly as often as the
Çārdūlavikrīḍita (23), while the Vasantatilaka appears 27 times and the
Çloka 36. His Prākrits, Çaurasenī and a few Māhārāṣṭrī stanzas, are
artificial.
The compilers of anthologies make little of Kṣemīçvara, with sufficient
reason, for his verses do not rise above mediocrity. The second stanza
of the three-verse benediction in the Naiṣadhānanda is on a common
theme, but not unhappily expressed; it follows a verse in honour of
Puruṣottama and Çrī, with the usual impartiality of this period:
asthi hy asthi phaṇī phaṇī kim aparam bhasma bhasmaiva tac
carmaiva carma kiṁ tava jitaṁ yenaivam uttāmyasi
naitāṁ dhūrta paṇīkaroṣi satatam mūrdhni sthitāṁ Jāhnavīm
ity evaṁ Çivayā sanarmagadito dyūte Haraḥ pātu vaḥ.
‘A skull is but a skull, a serpent a serpent; what more? The ashes and
the skin also which thou dost wear are but ashes and skin. What of
thine hast thou lost that thus thou art outworn? Ah, rogue, it is that
thou wilt not stake Jahnu’s daughter that rests ever on thy crest. May
Hara guard you, Hara to whom Çivā once spake playfully when they
diced.’
This amusing play on the unwillingness of Çiva to prolong the dicing
after he has unsuccessfully staked his necklace of skulls and serpents,
and his clothing of ashes and hide, is followed by a wearisome eulogy
of the glances of the god in the Tāṇḍava dance, alluding to the great
moments in his history. Similar bad taste is shown in the curious and
unusual form of the last verse of the drama:
yenādiçya prayogaṁ ghanapulakabhṛtā nāṭakasyāsya harṣād
vastrālaṁkārahemnām pratidinam akṛçā rāçayaḥ sampradattāḥ
tasya kṣattraprasūter bhramatu jagad idaṁ Kārttikeyasya kīrtiḥ
pāre kṣīrāmbhusindho ravikaviyaçasā sārdham agresarena.
‘Through all the universe beyond the ocean of milk, heralded by the
fame of his bard, the sun, may the fame wander of that scion of
heroism, that god of war, who bade this drama be performed and who in
keen delight at the pleasure he found in it gave daily to the poet
abundant store of raiment, jewels and gold.’ Such a mode of
immortalizing himself, and his patron can hardly be regarded as
precisely dignified, and it certainly is not in harmony with the
traditions of the drama.
XI
THE DECLINE OF THE SANSKRIT DRAMA
1. THE DECADENCE OF THE DRAMA
We have seen already in Murāri and Rājaçekhara the process which was
depriving the drama of real dramatic quality. The older poets were,
indeed, under the influence of the epic; they lived in the atmosphere
of the poetry of the court and their dramatic instincts had always to
fight against the tendency to introduce epic and lyric verses into
their works, heedless of the ruin thus wrought on the drama. Had the
stage been a more popular one, this defect might have been
counteracted, but the audience for whose approval a poet looked was
essentially one of men of learning, who were intent on discerning
poetic beauties or defects, and who, as the theory proves, had
singularly little idea of what a drama really means.
Other factors doubtless helped the decline of the drama. The invasion
of the Mahomedans into northern India, which began in earnest with the
opening of the eleventh century, was a slow process, and it could not
immediately affect the progress of the dramatic art. But gradually, by
substituting Mahomedan rulers—men who disliked and feared the influence
of the national religion, which was closely bound up with the drama—for
Hindu princes, the generous and accomplished patrons of the dramatists,
it must have exercised a depressing effect on the cultivation of this
literary form. The drama doubtless took refuge in those parts of India
where Moslem power was slowest to extend, but even there Mahomedan
potentates gained authority, and drama can have been seldom worth
performing or composing, until the Hindu revival asserted the Indian
national spirit, and gave an encouragement to the renewal of an ancient
national glory.
Yet a further and most important consideration must have lain in the
ever-widening breach between the languages of the drama and those of
real life. In Bhāsa’s days and even those of Kālidāsa we may imagine
that there was not too great difficulty in following the main features
of the drama both in Sanskrit and in Prākrit, but the gulf between the
popular languages and those of learning went on widening every year,
and Rājaçekhara, as we have seen, was, despite his boasted studies, of
which we have no reason to doubt, unable to discriminate correctly his
Prākrits. It in no wise disproves this view that the
Lalitavigraharājanāṭaka of Somadeva shows a close connexion with the
language as laid down in Hemacandra’s grammar, for, as that work
preceded the play in date and was produced at the court of Aṇhilvāḍ,
which was in close connexion with that of Sambhār, where Somadeva
lived, we need not doubt that copies of Hemacandra’s work were
available for the production of artificial Prākrit.
It was clearly a very different thing to compose in Sanskrit and
Prākrit in A.D. 1000, when the vernaculars were beginning to assume
literary form, than in A.D. 400, and the difficulty of composition in
any effective manner must have rapidly increased with the years, and
the growth of the realization that it was idle to seek fame under
modern circumstances by the composition of dramas, for which there was
no popular audience and only a limited market. What is amazing is that
for centuries the Sanskrit drama continued to be produced in very
substantial numbers, as the existence of manuscripts proves, and that
so strong was the force of tradition that the first attempt to
introduce the vernacular into the drama by Bidyāpati Ṭhākur in Behar
took the form of producing works in which the characters use Sanskrit
and Prākrit and the songs only are in Maithilī. So powerful has been
the strength of the Sanskrit drama that it is only in the nineteenth
century that vernacular drama has exhibited itself in Hindi, and in
general it is only very recently that the drama has seemed proper for
vernacular expression. But the writing in artificial languages has
revenged itself on the writers; their works are reminiscent of modern
copies of Greek or Latin verses, which only too painfully reveal
through all the artifices suggested by careful study the impossibility
of the production of real poetry, not to mention drama, in dead
languages. It is significant in this regard that perhaps the most
interesting of later dramas is the Prabodhacandrodaya of Kṛṣṇamiçra, a
drama of allegory on philosophical topics, which claim as their right
Sanskrit as a mode of expression. The Sanskrit of the author thus
represents the medium of his habitual use in discussions and is
appropriate to the matters dealt with.
This is essentially the period when the dramatic rules, strong in their
hold earlier over the minds of dramatists, attain even greater sway. It
is to this that we owe the few specimens we have of the rarer types of
drama which are not represented among the scanty remains of the
classical drama. There is no reason to suppose that these types were
popular among the earlier dramatists; they had, it seems, their vogue
in the time before the Nāṭyaçāstra assumed its present form, but were
rejected as unsuitable by the classical drama. We have also specimens
of types which may have been regularly produced in classical times, but
none of which are represented in the extant literature. Finally, we
have specimens of new forms, the result of efforts to introduce into
Sanskrit dramatic forms which had sprung up in more popular circles.
2. THE NĀṬAKA
The Nāṭaka remains throughout the post-classical period of the drama
the natural exponent of the higher form of the dramatic art. No change
of importance appears in its character; it merely steadily develops
those features which we have seen in full process of production in
Murāri and Rājaçekhara, the subordination of action to description, and
the degeneration of the description into a mere exercise in style and
in the use of sounds.
The character of the decline is obvious enough in the Prasannarāghava,
[499] a Nāṭaka in seven Acts, in which the logician Jayadeva (c. A.D.
1200), son of Mahādeva and Sumitrā, of Kuṇḍina in Berar, endeavours to
tell again the story of the Rāmāyaṇa. [500] In Act I a disciple of
Yājñavalkya appears and repeats from the speech of two bees heard
behind the scene the news they are discussing; the Asura Bāṇa is to
rival Rāvaṇa for the hand of Sītā. Two heralds then appear to describe
the suitors for the maiden’s hand; they are interrupted and insulted by
a gross and rough arrival who casts a contemptuous eye on the bow which
the suitor must bend, and would forcibly seize the prize. The heralds
soothe him, but he assumes the monstrous form of Rāvaṇa with his ten
heads. Bāṇa then appears, tries in vain the bow, insults Rāvaṇa and
retires. In Act II we have a ludicrous scene in which Rāma watches Sītā
and her friend; both he and she describe the beauties of the union of
the Vāsantī creeper and the mango-tree, an allusion to their own state
to be, and confronted shyly whisper love. In Act III we have an
intolerable series of compliments exchanged by all the parties,
Viçvāmitra, Çatānanda, Janaka, Daçaratha, Rāma, and Lakṣmaṇa;
Viçvāmitra bids Rāma bend the bow of Çiva, though a message from
Paraçurāma deprecates such an insult. The bow is broken, there is great
joy, and the marriage is celebrated. In Act IV Paraçurāma himself
arrives; his great feats are set out in a dialogue of Rāma and
Lakṣmaṇa; he encounters them, exchanges harangues, is dissuaded by
Janaka, Çatānanda, and Viçvāmitra from battle, but an insult of his to
Viçvāmitra breaks down Rāma’s patience; they fight, Rāma is victor, but
falls at his rival’s feet and asks his blessing. In Act V we have a new
and picturesque conception and one wholly aloof from drama. The river
goddess Yamunā tells Gan̄gā of her grief at Vālin’s act in exiling his
brother, Sugrīva. Sarayū joins them and reports the fate of Rāma until
his departure for exile; her flamingo arrives to carry on the tale
until Rāma’s fatal departure in pursuit of a golden deer. Anxious, the
rivers hasten to the ocean, Sāgara, to learn the news; they find
Godāvarī in converse with Sāgara; she tells of the rape of Sītā, the
death of Jaṭāyu, the fall of Sītā’s jewels and their transport to
Ṛṣyamukha. The Tun̄gabhadrā arrives with her tale; Rāma has slain Vālin
and made alliance with Sugrīva and Hanumant. Suddenly a great mass
flies over the ocean. Is it the Himālaya? the Vindhya? Sāgara goes out
to see and the rivers follow. In Act VI we find that sorrow has all but
driven Rāma mad; he asks the birds, the moon, for his beloved.
Fortunately two Vidyādharas by magic art are able to show him the
events in Lan̄kā; Sītā appears, saddened lest Rāma suspect, or be
faithless to her; Rāvaṇa seeks her love; she despises him; angry, he
reaches out his hand for his sword to slay her, but receives in it the
head of his son, Akṣa, slain by Hanumant, who it is who has leaped the
ocean and attacked Lan̄kā. Sītā is desperate; she seeks to burn herself
on a funeral pyre, but the coal changes to pearl, and Hanumant consoles
her by news of Rāma’s fidelity. In Act VII Rāvaṇa is given by Prahasta
a picture sent by Mālyavant showing the details of the enemy’s attack
and the bridge; he refuses to regard it as more than a painter’s fancy;
Mandodarī, his wife, enters; she has received an oracular response
which terrifies her and also Prahasta, but Rāvaṇa scorns it. At last,
however, he realizes that the city is attacked, sends Kumbhakarṇa and
Meghanāda to their death, and at last himself issues forth to die; his
fate is described by a Vidyādhara and his mate. Then enter Rāma, Sītā,
Lakṣmaṇa, Vibhīṣaṇa, and Sugrīva, who all describe in turn the setting
of the sun and the rise of the moon; they mount the aerial car,
describe a few points of interest in the country over which they pass
in their journey north, and then in turn solemnly describe the rising
of the sun.
The play is typical of the later drama; its one merit is Act V where
the spectacle of the river goddesses grouped round the ocean affords
admirable scope for an effective tableau, but it is wholly out of
harmony with dramatic action. As usual, the author is fond of the long
metres, though the Vasantatilaka is his favourite; then comes the
Çārdūlavikrīḍita, Çloka, Çikhariṇī, and Sragdharā, while he shows
decided fondness for the Svāgatā, which occurs a few times in
Rājaçekhara and the Mahānāṭaka, but is not employed in the earlier
drama. The drama is superior in merit to the other very popular Rāma
drama, the Jānakīpariṇaya [501] by Rāmabhadra Dīkṣita, who flourished
and wrote many bad works at the end of the seventeenth century. The
number of Rāma dramas already known is enormous; any one of merit
appears still to be unearthed. The commentary on the Daçarūpa knows a
Chalitarāma which would probably date before A.D. 1000, but its
preservation is problematical. The Adbhutadarpaṇa [502] of Mahādeva,
son of Kṛṣṇa Sūri, a contemporary of Rāmabhadra Dīkṣita, shows
Jayadeva’s influence in that it presents the events at Lan̄kā as
happening by means of a magic mirror. Its ten acts cover only the
period from An̄gada’s mission to Rāvaṇa to the coronation of Rāma, and
it introduces, contrary to the rule in Rāma dramas, the figure of the
Vidūṣaka.
The Kṛṣṇa legend naturally attracted not less note; the Kerala prince
Ravivarman, born in A.D. 1266, is the author of a Pradyumnābhyudaya.
[503] The minister of Husain Shāh Rūpa Gosvāmin wrote about A.D. 1532
the Vidagdhamādhava [504] and the Lalitamādhava [505] in seven and ten
Acts respectively on the theme of the loves of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, in
pursuance of his eager support of the movement of Caitanya. For the son
of Ṭodar Mall, Akbar’s minister, Çeṣa Kṛṣṇa wrote the Kaṅsavadha [506]
which in seven Acts covers the ground of Bhāsa’s Bālacarita, as well as
other plays on the Rāma legend. The winning of Rukmiṇī by Kṛṣṇa is the
theme of the Rukmiṇīpariṇaya [507] by Rāmavarman of Travancore
(1735–87), and Kṛṣṇa’s generosity to a poor friend, though in a
surprising shape, is recounted by Sāmarāja Dīkṣita in the Çrīdāmacarita
[508] written in A.D. 1681.
The number of dramas based on the Mahābhārata is decidedly smaller. We
have not the Citrabhārata of the indefatigable Kṣemendra of Kashmir,
who wrote in the middle of the eleventh century. But from that century
probably are the Subhadrādhanaṁjaya and Tapatīsaṁvaraṇa [509] of the
Kerala king Kulaçekharavarman, and from about A.D. 1200 the
Pārthaparākrama, [510] a Vyāyoga, to be discussed hereafter, of
Prahlādanadeva, a Yuvarāja, brother of Dhārāvarṣa, lord of Candrāvatī.
Of other mythological subjects we have the Harakelināṭaka [511] of the
Cāhamāna king Vīsaladeva Vigraharāja, of whom we have an inscription of
A.D. 1163, and whose work is partially preserved on stone. The
Pārvatīpariṇaya [512] of Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa, who wrote about A.D. 1400
under the Reḍḍi prince Vema of Koṇḍavīḍu, owes its fame to its being
mistaken for a work of Bāṇa. The Haragaurīvivāha [513] of
Jagajjyotirmalla of Nepal (1617–33) is interesting, because it is
rather an opera than a play and the vernacular verses are its only
fixed element, but this is not likely to be a primitive feature.
Of dramas with lesser personages of the saga as heroes we have the
Bhairavānanda [514] of the Nepalese poet Maṇika from the end of the
fourteenth century, and at least a century later the Bhartṛharinirveda
[515] of Harihara, which is interesting, as it shows the popularity of
Bhartṛhari; he is represented as desolated by his wife’s death, through
despair on a false rumour of his own death, but, consoled by a Yogin,
he attains indifference, so that, when his wife is recalled to life,
neither she nor their child has any attraction for him.
Of historical drama we have little, and that of small value. The
Lalitavigraharājanāṭaka, [516] preserved in part in an inscription, is
a work of the latter part of the twelfth century by Somadeva in honour
of Vīsaladeva Vigraharāja, the Cāhamāna. The Pratāparudrakalyāṇa [517]
by Vidyānātha, inserted in his treatise on rhetoric as an illustration
of the drama, celebrates his patron, a king of Warangal about A.D.
1300.
More interesting is the Hammīramadamardana, [518] written between A.D.
1219 and 1229 by Jayasiṅha Sūri, the priest of the temple of
Munisuvrata at Broach. It appears that Tejaḥpāla, brother of Vastupāla,
minister of Vīradhavala of Gujarāt, visited the temple, and, with the
assent of his brother, complied with the request of Jayasiṅha for the
erection of twenty-five golden flagstaffs for Devakulikās. As a reward
Jayasiṅha not merely celebrated the brothers in a panegyric, of which a
copy has been preserved along with his drama, but wrote, to please
Jayantasiṅha, son of Vastupāla, the play for performance at the
festival of the procession of the god Bhīmeçvara at Cambay. He claims
that it includes all nine sentiments, in contrast to Prakaraṇas,
exploiting the sentiment of fear, with which the audience has been
surfeited.
In Act I, after the introductory dialogue between the Sūtradhāra and an
actor, Vīradhavala is brought in, conversing with Tejaḥpāla, the theme
being the extraordinary merits of Vastupāla as a statesman. But times
are still troublous; the realm is menaced by the Turuṣka Hammīra, by
the Yādava Siṅhana, [519] who may hope for aid from Saṁgrāmasiṅha,
nephew of Siṅha, lord of Lāṭa. Vastupāla enters, and extols the skill
of Tejaḥpāla’s son Lāvaṇyasiṅha, whose spies bring in valuable
information. He then with Tejaḥpāla compliments the king, who tells
them of his proposed attack on Hammīra. Vastupāla warns him against
excessive valour in pursuit, and counsels him to secure the aid of the
Mārvār princes. In Act II we find that the advice has been followed
with success, as related by Lāvaṇyasiṅha, who has an opportunity of
repaying the compliments showered on him by his uncle. The spy Nipuṇaka
then enters with a tale of success; he has entered Siṅhana’s camp,
passed himself off as a spy on Vīradhavala’s movements, reported that
that king was making ready an attack on Hammīra, and persuaded Siṅhana
to wait in the forest of the Tapti a favourable opportunity to attack
Vīradhavala, after his forces have been weakened by battle with
Hammīra. In the meantime Nipuṇaka’s brother Suvega, who has been
serving Devapāla of Mālava, steals the best steed of his master and
presents it to Saṁgrāmasiṅha, who is leading Siṅhana’s army. He then
presents himself in the guise of a Tāpasa to Siṅhana, but runs away
when the king goes to pay him due honour. Suspicion is thus aroused,
and Suvega is seized; from his matted locks is extracted a letter
addressed to Saṁgrāmasiṅha. It refers to the horse which it treats as a
present from Devapāla to Saṁgrāmasiṅha, and advises him to attack
Siṅhana when he has entered Gujarāt, the Mālava king engaging to assail
him at that moment. Siṅhana asks Nipuṇaka to ascertain the truth about
the horse, and he has no difficulty through Suvega in terrifying
Saṁgrāmasiṅha into flight. We then find Vastupāla on the stage; his spy
Kuçalaka reports that Saṁgrāmasiṅha menaces Cambay; Vastupāla takes
precautions for its defence, and summons Bhuvanapāla, Saṁgrāmasiṅha’s
minister, with whom he arrives at an understanding, assuring
Vīradhavala of that prince’s aid. In Act III Vīradhavala and Tejaḥpāla
hear from a spy Kamalaka the fate of Mewār’s king Jayatala; attacked by
the Mlecchas, the people in despair flung themselves into wells, burned
themselves in their houses or hanged themselves, until he had heartened
them and discouraged the foe by announcing the approach of Vīradhavala,
at whose name the Turuṣkas fled in terror. Vīradhavala extols the
cleverness of Vastupāla, who has enabled him to dispose of all his
enemies save the Mlecchas, and Tejaḥpāla assures him of success even
against these foes. What Vastupāla is doing is shown by a conversation
between two spies, Kuvalayaka and Çīghraka, which forms the entr’acte
to Act IV; he has induced the Kaliph of Baghdad by a false report to
instruct Kharpara Khāna to send Mīlacchrīkāra to him in chains, and he
has won over various Gūrjara princes by promising them the lands of the
Turuṣkas when they are defeated. We then find Mīlacchrīkāra discussing
his situation with his minister Gorī Īsapa; Kharpara Khāna, on the one
hand, and Vīradhavala press him hard; the king declines, however, even
to think of retreat, but both king and minister flee hastily before the
sound of the approach of Vīradhavala’s army and the voice of the king,
who is disappointed not to capture his foes, but obeys loyally
Vastupāla’s counsel against rash pursuit. Act V shows us the triumphant
return of the king, his reunion with his wife Jayataladevī, and
exchange of felicitations with Vastupāla and Tejaḥpāla. We learn that
Vastupāla has accomplished a further feat; he has intercepted at sea
Radī and Kadī, Mīlacchrīkāra’s preceptors, returning from Baghdad, and
the king has been forced, in order to secure their safety, to enter
into friendly relations. Finally the king enters Çiva’s temple, where
the god presents himself before him, and grants him a boon; the king,
however, has little that is not formal to ask, so fortunate is he in
his ministers.
Neither as history nor as poetry does the work claim any high merit.
Its chief aim is to provide unlimited eulogy for Vastupāla and
Tejaḥpāla, and secondarily for the king who is lucky enough to have in
his retinue these remarkable models of intelligence and skill. It must
be admitted, however, that the author does not exactly convey the
impression of the real success of his objects of admiration; the
impression is rather one of minor successes and a good deal of rather
obvious diplomacy. Style, Prākrit, and metres are decidedly
stereotyped.
A certain number of dramas of similar type has been preserved. [520]
Gan̄gādhara’s Gan̄gadāsapratāpavilāsa [521] celebrates the struggle of a
Campānīr prince against Muhammed II, Shāh of Gujarāt (A.D. 1443–52).
The stream, though scanty, flows continuously to the Ḍillīsāmrājya
[522] of Lakṣmaṇa Sūri of 1912.
The adaptation of English drama is seen in R. Kṛṣṇamachari’s adaptation
in 1892 of the Midsummer Night’s Dream in his Vāsantikasvapna. [523]
3. THE ALLEGORICAL NĀṬAKA
We cannot say whether Kṛṣṇamiçra’s Prabodhacandrodaya [524] was a
revival of a form of drama, which had been practised regularly if on a
small scale since Açvaghoṣa or whether it was a new creation, as may
easily have been the case. At any rate, his work can be dated with
precision; it was produced for one Gopāla in the presence of the
Candella king Kīrtivarman of Jejākabhukti, of whom we have an
inscription of A.D. 1098. Gopāla had restored, we learn, Kīrtivarman
after his defeat by Karṇa of Cedi, who was living in A.D. 1042, but we
can only guess that he was a general. The play in its six Acts is
devoted to the defence of the Advaita form of the Viṣṇu doctrine, a
combination of Vedānta with Viṣṇuism.
The supreme reality which is truly one, but is united with illusion,
has a son, Spirit, who again has two children, Discrimination (viveka)
and Confusion (moha); the posterity of the latter has largely gained in
strength, and the position of the former and his offspring is menaced.
This is told us at the outset of the drama by Love in converse with
Desire; the former is sure he has done much to attain the result. The
one danger is the old prophecy that there will arise Knowledge
(prabodha) and Judgement or Science (vidyā) from the union of
Discrimination and Theology, Upaniṣad, but these two are long since
parted, and their reunion seems unlikely. The two, however, flee before
the approach of the king Discrimination who is talking with Reason
(mati), one of his wives; to his joy he finds that she is all in favour
of his reunion with Theology which she is fain to bring about. In Act
II we find Confusion in fear of overthrow; he hastens by the use of
Falsity (dambha) to secure Benares as the key of the world; Egoism,
grandfather of Falsity, visits the city and discovers to his joy his
relative. Confusion enters in triumphant pomp his new capital; the
Materialist Cārvāka supports him. But there is bad news; Duty is rising
in revolt; Theology meditates reunion with Discrimination; Confusion
bids his minions cast Piety, daughter of Faith (çraddhā) in prison and
orders Heresy (mithyādṛṣṭi) to separate Theology and Faith. In Act III
Piety appears supported by her friend Pity; she has lost her mother
Faith and is in sad plight, even dreaming of suicide, from which Pity
dissuades her. In Digambara Jainism, Buddhism, and Somism she searches
in vain for Faith; each appears with a wife claiming to be Faith, but
she cannot recognize her mother in these distorted forms. Buddhism and
Jainism quarrel; Somism enters, makes them drunk with alcohol and
pleasure, and takes them off in search of Piety, the daughter of Faith.
In Act IV Faith in great distress tells of a danger; she and Duty have
escaped from a demoness who would have devoured them but for Trust in
Viṣṇu, who has saved them. She brings a message to Discrimination to
start the battle. He musters his leaders, Contemplation, Patience,
Contentment, and himself goes to Benares, which he describes. In Act V
the battle is over; Confusion and his offspring are dead. But Spirit is
disconsolate, mourning the loss of Confusion and Activity. The doctrine
of Vyāsa, the Vedānta, appears, disabuses his mind of error, and he
resolves to settle down as a hermit with the one wife worthy of him,
Inactivity. Act VI shows us the ancestor of all Being; he is still
under the influence of Confusion, who, before dying, dispatched to him
spirits to confuse him, and his companion, Illusion, favours their
efforts. But his friend Reasoning shows him his error, and he drives
them away. Peace of heart reunites Theology and Discrimination; she
tells of her mishaps with Cult and Exegesis, Nyāya and Sāṁkhya, and
reveals to Being that he is the Supreme Lord. This, however, is too
much for his intellect, but the difficulty is cleared away by
Judgement, which is the immediate supernatural child of the reunion of
the spouses. The appearance of Trust (bhakti) in Viṣṇu to applaud the
result terminates the drama.
No one can doubt the cleverness with which the strife of races of one
stock in the Mahābhārata and the plot and love interest of the usual
Nāṭikā are combined, nor the ingenuity of fitting in the Vedānta
doctrine of the Absolute and the devotion of the Vaiṣṇava creed. There
is certainly some comedy in the exchange of views of Egoism and
Falsity, who are perfect examples of hypocrisy, and the scenes between
Buddhism, Jainism, and Somism are distinctly funny. None the less it
would be idle to pretend that the play has any dramatic force. Its
chief merits are its effective and stately stanzas of moral and
philosophical content. Kṛṣṇamiçra is an able master of the
Çārdūlavikrīḍita, his favourite metre; he has also effective
Vasantatilakas, and rhymed Prākrit stanzas.
Kṛṣṇamiçra’s example has caused the production of numerous dramas of
the same type, but of much less value. The Saṁkalpasūryodaya [525] of
Ven̄kaṭanātha of the fourteenth century is excessively dreary, but it is
better than the famous Caitanyacandrodaya [526] of Kavikarṇapūra, which
is an account of Caitanya’s success, but which wholly fails to convey
any suggestion of his spiritual power. He turns out as a long-winded
discourser of a muddled theology, surrounded by obedient and
unintelligent pupils. Two Çaiva dramas are the Vidyāpariṇayana [527]
and Jīvānandana [528] written at the end of the seventeenth and
beginning of the eighteenth century. They have no merits.
An example of a Jain allegory of comparatively early date is afforded
by the Moharājaparājaya, [529] the conquest of King Confusion,
describing the conversion of the Caulukya king of Gujarāt, Kumārapāla,
to Jainism, his prohibition of the killing of animals, and his
cessation from the practice of confiscating the property of persons
dying without heirs in the realm, as a result of the efforts of the
famous sage, Hemacandra. The author, Yaçaḥpāla, was the son of a
minister Dhanadeva and Rukmiṇī, of the Moḍha Bania caste, and he served
the Cakravartin Abhayadeva or Abhayapāla, who reigned after Kumārapāla
from A.D. 1229–32. The play is in five Acts, and all the personages
save the king, Hemacandra, and the Vidūṣaka, are personifications of
qualities, good and evil. The play was performed on the occasion of the
festival of the idol of Mahāvira at the Kumāravihāra, or temple erected
by Kumārapāla, at Thārāpadra, where the author seems to have been
governor or resident.
The play begins with an invocation in three stanzas of the Tīrthakaras,
Ṛṣabha, Pārçva, and Mahāvīra, followed by the usual dialogue of the
Sūtradhāra and the actress, his wife. Then are introduced Kumārapāla
with the Vidūṣaka, to whom enter Jñānadarpaṇa, the Mirror of Knowledge,
the spy who has been sent to report on the affairs of King Confusion.
He reports the successful siege by Confusion of the city of Man’s Mind,
whose king, Vivekacandra, the Moon of Discrimination, has been forced
to flee accompanied by his bride Calm, and his daughter Kṛpāsundarī, in
whom Compassion is incorporated, and of whose escape Kumārapāla learns
with joy. The spy further reports a meeting with Kīrtimañjarī, the
Garland of Fame, daughter of Good Conduct by his wife Polity, and
herself wife of Kumārapāla. She complains that the king has turned from
her and her brother, Pratāpa, Valour, owing to the efforts of a Jain
monk. She has, therefore, sought the aid of Confusion and he is
preparing to attack Kumārapāla. The spy, however, disappoints her by
answering her inquiry as to the victory in the struggle by insisting
that it will be Confusion that must fall. The king expresses his
determination to overthrow Confusion, and the announcement of the hour
of worship by bards terminates the Act.
An entr’acte then tells us through Puṇyaketu, the Banner of Merit,
minister of the king, that Discrimination has arrived at the penance
grove of Hemacandra, and has met the king, who has looked favourably at
his daughter. The Act itself shows us in the accustomed mode the king
with the jester spying on Kṛpāsundarī and Somatā, Gentleness, [530] her
companion, and ultimately speaking to them; as usual the queen,
Rājyaçrī, the Royal Fortune, with her companion, Raudratā, Harshness,
intervenes, and the king vainly craves pardon. In Act III Puṇyaketu
overcomes the obstacle to the match by a clever device; he stations one
of his servants behind the image of the goddess to which the queen goes
to seek the boon of the disfigurement of her rival, and thus, through
apparent divine intervention, the queen is taught that by marriage with
Kṛpāsundarī alone can the king overcome Confusion, and is induced to
beg Discrimination for the hand of his daughter. Discrimination
consents, but insists that to please his daughter the seven vices must
be banished, and the practice of confiscating the property of those
dying without heirs shall be abolished, terms to which the queen
consents. The king also agrees, and the Act ends in his action in
forgoing the property of a millionaire believed dead, who, however,
opportunely turns up with a new bride in an aerial car.
In Act IV we have the fulfilment of the pledge to banish the seven
vices. It first tells of the meeting of the Fortune of the City with
that of the Country; the former persuades the latter to accept the
tenets of Jainism. Then appears Kṛpāsundarī who is annoyed by the
noises of hunting and fishing, but consoled by the appearance of the
police officer, who proceeds to the business of banishing vices.
Gambling, Flesh-eating, Drinking, Slaughter, Theft, and Adultery must
depart, despite the plea that the king’s predecessors permitted them,
and that they bring revenues to the State; Concubinage may remain if
she will. In Act V the king, armed by Hemacandra with his Yogaçāstra,
which is his armour, and the Vītarāgastuti, which serves to make him
invisible, inspects the strong places of Confusion, and finally
rendering himself visible does battle with the adversary and wins a
great victory. He restores Discrimination to his capital, and
pronounces a benediction in which praise of the Jina and of Hemacandra
blend with the desire of close union with Kṛpā and Discrimination, and
the hope that ‘my fame, allied with the moon, may prevail to dispel the
darkness of Confusion’.
The play is certainly not without merits; in the main it is written in
simple Sanskrit, free from the artifices which disfigure more
pretentious plays, and it has also the merit of bringing vividly before
us the activities of Jainism in its regulation of Kumārapāla’s kingdom,
casting an interesting light on what is known from inscriptions and
other sources of the history of Gujarāt. The marriage of the king with
Kṛpāsundarī is recorded by Jinamaṇḍana in his Kumārapālaprabandha as
taking place in A.D. 1159. Interesting details are given of the forms
of gambling, including chess, and of the sects which approve slaughter.
The Prākrits are, of course, deeply influenced by Hemacandra’s grammar,
and include Māgadhī and Jain Māhārāṣṭrī.
4. THE NĀṬIKĀ AND THE SAṬṬAKA
The Nāṭikā differs in no real essential from a Nāṭaka save in the
number of Acts, but its type continues to be rigidly restricted to that
set by Harṣa. The Karṇasundarī [531] of Bilhaṇa belongs to the period
about A.D. 1080–90. It seems to have been written out of compliment to
Karṇadeva Trailokyamalla of Aṇhilvāḍ (1064–94), and to celebrate his
wedding in advanced age with Miyāṇalladevī, daughter of the Karṇāṭa
king, Jayakeçin. The story runs that the Cālukya king is to marry
Karṇasundarī, daughter of the Vidyādhara king. The minister introduces
her into the harem, and the king first sees her in a dream, then in a
picture. He falls in love, and the queen is jealous; she breaks in on
their meeting, and once assumes Karṇasundarī’s guise to present herself
to the king. Next she tries to marry the king to a boy in
Karṇasundarī’s clothes, but the minister adroitly substitutes the real
for the feigned damsel, and the usual tidings of triumph abroad ends
the play, which is a patent jumble of reminiscences of Kālidāsa, Harṣa,
and Rājaçekhara.
Madana Bālasarasvatī, preceptor of the Paramāra Arjunavarman of Dhārā,
wrote the Vijayaçrī or Pārijātamañjarī, [532] a Nāṭikā in four Acts, of
which two are preserved on stone at Dhārā. A garland falls on the
breast of Arjunavarman after his victory over the Cālukya king,
Bhīmadeva II, and becomes a maiden, who is handed over to the charge of
the Chamberlain. She is the daughter of the Cālukya, and the usual
sequence of events leads to her wedlock with the king. There is
doubtless a historical reference; the date of the play is early in the
thirteenth century.
Rather less commonplace is Mathurādāsa’s effort in the Vṛṣabhānujā
[533] to make a Nāṭikā of the love of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā. He was a
Kāyastha of Suvarṇaçekhara on the Ganges and Yamunā, and he uses the
motive of the jealousy of Rādhā for a portrait of a lady which Kṛṣṇa
has, but which turns out to be one of herself. A philosophic play is
Narasiṅha’s Çivanārāyaṇabhañjamahodaya, in honour of a prince of
Keonjhor.
The Saṭṭaka with its demand for Prākrit was too exacting for the
average poet; we have only the Ānandasundarī [534] of the tedious
Ghanaçyāma, minister of the Marāṭha Tukkojī and the Çṛn̄gāramañjarī
[535] of the Almora poet Viçveçvara of the eighteenth century.
5. THE PRAKARAṆA
The example of the Mṛcchakaṭikā induced few imitations, doubtless
because would-be imitators had the sense to realize the appalling
difficulties of producing anything worthy of setting beside that
masterpiece. There is, however, a servile redaction of the same idea as
that of the Mālatīmādhava of Bhavabhūti in the Mallikāmāruta [536] of
Uddaṇḍin or Uddaṇḍanātha, who has had the quite undeserved honour of
being taken for Daṇḍin, but who was really no more than the court poet
of the Zemindar of Kukkuṭakroḍa or Calicut in the middle of the
seventeenth century. The plot follows that of Bhavabhūti’s play almost
slavishly. The magician Mandākinī is eager to arrange a marriage
between Mallikā, daughter of the minister of the Vidyādhara king and
Māruta, son of the minister of the king of Kuntala. She arranges an
interview between the two, who fall in love, but the match is disturbed
by the desire of the king of Ceylon for Mallikā’s hand. Māruta’s friend
Kalakaṇṭha is also in love with Ramayantikā. In Act III there is the
usual temple scene, and a couple of elephants are let loose to frighten
the two maidens and cause two rescues. Then Māruta is told by an
emissary of the king of Ceylon that Kalakaṇṭha is dead, and is only
saved from suicide by his friend’s appearance. In Act V Māruta tries
conjuring up spirits; he finds Mallikā stolen by a Rākṣasa, rescues
her, but is himself stolen, and finally overcomes the demon. But the
marriage is to proceed, so that we have the elopement of Māruta and
Mallikā, and the usual deception of the bridegroom, while the other
couple follow the example set and elope also. The inevitable second
abduction of Mallikā takes place, with the necessary search for her,
which at last is rewarded; all are united under Mandākinī’s protection,
and the king and the parents accord their sanction.
The work is metrically interesting, because the author shows a
remarkable preference for the Vasantatilaka (118), and, while he is
fond of the Çārdūlavikrīḍita and employs a great variety of metres, he,
unlike most later authors, uses freely the Āryā in its different forms
(74).
We know also of Prakaraṇas written by Jain writers. [537] Rāmacandra,
pupil of the great Hemacandra, who perished under the reign of
Ajayapāla, nephew and successor of Hemacandra’s patron, Kumārapāla,
between A.D. 1173 and 1176, wrote, besides other plays, the
Kaumudīmitrāṇanda [538] in ten Acts. The work is wholly undramatic and
is really the working up in the form of a play of a number of Kathā
incidents, presenting a result not unlike the plot of a modern
pantomime. We first learn of a merchant’s son, Mitrāṇanda, who on the
island of Varuṇa attains as wife the daughter, Kaumudī, of the head of
a monastery, after he and his friend have freed from durance the Siddha
king, cruelly nailed to a tree by Varuṇa. She reveals to him the fact
that the ascetics are frauds, and that the fate of her husbands is
normally to be flung into a pit under the nuptial chamber; in this
case, however, attracted to her husband by the love charm he had
received from Varuṇa, she agrees to flee with him and the treasure
collected from former spouses to Ceylon. There the pair would have been
in evil plight, since Mitrāṇanda is taken for a thief by the police,
had he not cured from death by snake-bite the crown prince Lakṣmīpati
with the aid of the magic spell given to him to revive the dead by the
goddess Jān̄gulī on the occasion of his marriage. The king in gratitude
entrusts the pair to the minister, who, however, is enamoured of
Kaumudī and anxious to get rid of her husband. The opportunity is given
by a human sacrifice which a vassal of the king wishes to offer;
Mitrāṇanda is sent by the minister with a letter intended to secure his
being the victim, but luckily is recognized by Maitreya, his companion,
who had won the vassal’s favour by curing him by a magic herb. Kaumudī
in the meantime is expelled from the minister’s house by his jealous
wife, and wanders until she meets Sumitrā, daughter of a merchant, and
her family; all are captured by a prince of the aborigines Vajravarman,
to whom also is brought one Makaranda, who turns out to be a friend of
Mitrāṇanda. A letter from Lakṣmīpati arrives to ask for the welfare of
Mitrāṇanda and Kaumudī, and the latter takes advantage of it to induce
Vajravarman to celebrate the marriage of Makaranda and Sumitrā. The
three then have an adventure at Ekacakrā with a Kāpālika, who induces
the women to go into a subterranean cave, while he asks Mitrāṇanda’s
aid against a Vidyādhara, described as eager after women. He breathes
life into a corpse which takes a sword in its hand, but Mitrāṇanda by a
magic formula induces it to strike the Kāpālika, who disappears. In Act
IX Makaranda has to establish before Lakṣmīpati his claim to his own
caravan, which a certain Naradatta claims; the dispute is settled by
the appearance of Vajravarman and Mitrāṇanda, while Act X disposes of
the piece by uniting husband and wife in the abode of the Siddha king.
The work is, of course, wholly without interest other than that
presented by so many marvels appealing to the sentiment of wonder in
the audience. The author refers to Murāri in such a way as to suggest
to Dr. Hultzsch [539] his contemporaneity with him, but this is in no
wise rendered necessary by the wording of the passage cited, and,
secondly, would very badly agree with the fact that Man̄kha knew and
cites Murāri about A.D. 1135, for it takes some time for an author to
reach the stage of being treated as an authority.
Another Jaina composition is the Prabuddharauhiṇeya [540] of one
Rāmabhadra Muni, pupil of Jayaprabha Sūri, of the school of Deva Sūri,
the famous writer on Nyāya, who died in A.D. 1169. It was written for
performance in a temple of Yugādideva, that is the Tīrthakara Ṛṣabha,
on the occasion of a procession festival. It is in six Acts. In Act I
Rauhiṇeya, who is a bold bandit, steals away Madanavatī, a married
woman, while his helper, a Çabara, who speaks Māgadhī, keeps her lover
at bay. In the next Act he dresses up as the mother of a youth
Manoratha, and abducts him for the sake of his ornaments, terrifying
the bystanders with a snake made out of rags. The next three Acts tell
of the complaints of these robberies made to Çreṇika of Magadha, and
the efforts of his minister Abhayakumāra to find the guilty man, ending
ultimately in the arrest of the robber, who, however, stoutly maintains
his innocence, though he fails in succeeding in winning his discharge.
In Act VI women and musicians under the control of Bharata, a teacher
of dancing, endeavour to deceive him into the belief that he is in
heaven, and thus to win a confession of his misdeeds from him. But he
sees through the play, for he remembers a verse which he had heard
spoken by Vardhamāna Svāmin before his captivity, in which the
characteristics [541] of the gods, freedom from perspiration, unfaded
garlands, and feet that do not touch the ground, were set out. The
miscreant thus is pronounced innocent, but, liberated, manifests his
penitence by taking the king and the minister to the mount Vaibhāra, in
which are the treasures he has stolen and the missing boy and woman.
The topic is one handled by Hemacandra in the matter illustrating his
Yogaçāstra.
Quite different is the character of the Mudritakumudacandra [542] of
Yaçaçcandra, son of Padmacandra, grandson of Dhanadeva of the Dharkaṭa
family, who was, it seems, the minister of a prince of Çākambharī in
Sapādalakṣa. The play describes the controversy which took place in
A.D. 1124 between the Çvetāmbara Jaina teacher Deva Sūri, mentioned
above, and the Digambara Kumudacandra, in which the latter was
silenced, whence the title of the piece.
6. THE PRAHASANA AND THE BHĀṆA
Popular as the Prahasana or farce must have been, we have in this
period no example preserved certainly older than the Laṭakamelaka,
[543] written in the earlier part of the twelfth century under
Govindacandra of Kanyakubja by Çan̄khadhara Kavirāja. The nature of the
play is characteristic; the action passes at the house of the
go-between Danturā, to which come all sorts of people anxious to buy
the affection of the fascinating Madanamañjarī. Comic relief is further
provided by the arrival of doctor Jantuketu to extract a fish-bone from
the damsel’s throat. He is perfectly incompetent and his methods
absurd, but they affect their purpose indirectly, since, through
laughing at his antics, the bone is happily dislodged. The bargaining
of the lovers is satirized, and the marriage which is actually arranged
is one between the go-between herself and a Digambara, a type doubtless
sure to raise a laugh.
Of much later date is the well-known Dhūrtasamāgama [544] of
Jyotirīçvara Kaviçekhara, son of Dhaneçvara, grandson of Rāmeçvara, of
the family of Dhīreçvara who wrote under the Vijayanagara king
Narasiṅha (A.D. 1487–1507), though a Nepalese manuscript makes his
father Dhīrasiṅha and his patron Harasiṅha, who has been identified,
implausibly, with Harisiṅha of Simraon (A.D. 1324). The first part of
the play relates the contest of the religious mendicant Viçvanagara and
his pupil Durācāra, whose names are significant, over the beautiful
Anan̄gasenā; the pupil has every reason to complain, since it was he who
saw the fair one and confided his love to his master, who meanly seeks
to secure the damsel’s favour in lieu. She insists on the matter being
referred to arbitration, and in the second part the Brahmin Asajjāti,
Impure Race, an expert at dealing with delicate matters of casuistry,
undertakes the duty, and wisely decides to impound the damsel for
himself, though, while he is deliberating, his Vidūṣaka seeks to secure
the prize for himself. The case over, the barber Mūlanāçaka, Root
Destroyer, turns up to demand payment of a debt from Anan̄gasenā. She
refers him to Asajjāti, who pays him with his pupil’s purse; he then
demands the barber’s care; the latter ties him up and leaves him to be
rescued by the Vidūṣaka.
Very popular is Jagadīçvara’s Hāsyārṇava. [545] The king, Anayasindhu,
Ocean of Misrule, is devastated because all goes ill in his realm:
Caṇḍālas make shoes, not Brahmins, wives are chaste, husbands constant,
and the good respected. He asks his minister where best he can study
the character of his people, and is advised to go to the house of the
go-between, Bandhurā, who presents to him her daughter, Mṛgān̄kalekhā.
The court chaplain enters with his pupil, and they are attracted to the
damsel. A comic doctor is called in for Bandhurā, who feels ill; his
remedies are worse than the disease, and he has to run away. A series
of other figures are introduced. Then a barber, who has cut a patient;
the latter demands damages, but is non-suited; then comes the chief of
police, Sādhuhiṅsika, Terror to the Good, the comic general
Raṇajambuka, the astrologer Mahāyātrika, who indicates as the time for
a journey the conjunction of stars presaging death. The king disappears
at the end of the first Act; the second deals with the efforts of the
chaplain and his pupil to obtain the damsel; but rivals come in the
form of another man of religion and his pupil; finally the two older
reprobates secure the damsel, while the boys content themselves with
Bandhurā, who is delighted with the turn of events. But the celebration
of these double marriages is left to another holy man, Mahānindaka, who
also desires to share the hetaera. The date of the piece is unknown, as
is that of the Kautukasarvasva [546] of Gopīnātha Cakravartin, written
for the autumn festival of the Durgāpūjā in Bengal. It is more amusing
and less vulgar than most of these pieces; the king, Kalivatsala, who
is licentious, addicted to every kind of vice, and a lover of hemp
juice, ill-treats the virtuous Brahmin Satyācāra, who finds that
everything is wrong in the state, even the people being valiant in
oppression, skilled in falsehood, and persevering only in contempt for
the pious. The general is valiant: he can cleave a roll of butter with
his blade, and trembles at the approach of a mosquito. Play is made
with the immoralities recounted in the Purāṇas; the objections of the
Ṛṣis to vice are put down to the fact that they censured in others what
they themselves were too old to enjoy. The king proclaims free love,
but becomes himself involved in a dispute over a hetaera. He is
summoned back to the queen, which so annoys the hetaera that every one
hastens to console her, and the king, obligingly to please her,
banishes all Brahmins from the realm.
The Dhūrtanartaka [547] of Sāmarāja Dīkṣita is of the seventeenth
century. It deals with one Mureçvara, who, though a Çaiva ascetic, is a
devotee of a dancing girl whom he entrusts to his pupils on having to
go away. They seek to secure the favours of the damsel and, failing in
this, denounce him to the king, but Pāpācāra, Bad Conduct, is merely
amused and allows the saint to keep the damsel. Rather earlier is the
Kautukaratnākara [548] by the chaplain of Lakṣmaṇa Māṇikyadeva of
Bhūluyā, which centres in the carrying off of the queen, though the
chief of police sleeps beside her to guard her, and the adventures of
the hetaera who is to take her place at the spring festival.
The Bhāṇa, despite its antiquity, attested by the theory, is not
represented early in the history of the drama. To Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa,
about A.D. 1500, we owe the Çṛn̄gārabhūṣaṇa, [549] which is typical of
the class. The chief Viṭa, Vilāsaçekhara, comes out to pay a visit to
the hetaera Anan̄gamañjarī on the evening of the spring festival. He
goes into the street of the hetaerae, and takes part in a series of
imaginary conversations, giving the answers himself to his own
questions, or pretending to listen to some one out of sight and then
repeating the answers. He describes the hetaerae, ram-fights,
cock-fights, boxing, a quarrel between two rivals, the different stages
of the day, and the pleasures of the festival. Much on the same lines
is the Çṛn̄gāratilaka [550] or Ayyābhāṇa of Rāmabhadra Dīkṣita, which
was written to rival the Vasantatilaka [551] or Ammābhāṇa of
Varadācārya or Ammāl Ācārya, the Vaiṣṇava. The play was written for
performance at the festival of the marriage of Mīnākṣī, the deity of
Madurā. Bhujan̄gaçekhara, the hero, is vexed at the departure of his
beloved Hemān̄gī, but is assured of meeting her again, despite her
return to her husband. He makes the usual promenade in the hetaerae’s
street, has the usual imaginary conversations and describes the
ordinary sights, including snake charmers and magic shows of gods and
their mountains and so forth. Finally he succeeds in rejoining Hemān̄gī.
We have similar lengthy descriptions in the Çāradātilaka [552] of
Çan̄kara, who places the scene in the feigned city of uproar,
Kolāhalapura, and whose satire extends to the Jan̄gamas or Çaivas and
the Vaiṣṇavas. Nallā Kavi (c. A.D. 1700) is responsible for the
Çṛn̄gārasarvasva, [553] which deals with Anan̄gaçekhara, who has to part
from his beloved Kanakalatā, but he is helped to meet her by the advent
of an elephant which terrifies all the others in the street, but is
worshipped by the lover as Gaṇeça and Çiva’s answer to his prayer for
help. A slight variant is presented by the Rasasadana [554] by a
Yuvarāja from Koṭilin̄ga in Kerala; the hero here is a chief Viṭa who
has promised his friend Mandāraka to look after his loved one for him.
He goes about with her to a temple, and then to his house; wanders out
into the street, talks and describes at large, and finally, after
accepting the invitation of a lady from a neighbouring town to pay her
a visit, goes back home to find the lovers united again.
The Prahasanas and Bhāṇas are hopelessly coarse from any modern Europe
standpoint, but they are certainly often in a sense artistic
productions. The writers have not the slightest desire to be simple; in
the Prahasana their tendency to run riot is checked, as verse is
confined to erotic stanzas and descriptions, and some action exists. In
the Bhāṇa, on the other hand, the right to describe is paramount, and
the poets give themselves full rein. They exhibit in this comic
monologue precisely the same defects as are seen in the contemporary
Nāṭaka; all is reduced to a study of stylistic effects, especially as
regards sound. They rejoice in exhibiting their large command of the
Sanskrit vocabulary, as obtained from the lexica, and the last thing
desired is simplicity or perspicuity. Nothing more clearly indicates
the close connexion of the two styles than the fact that we find a type
of mixed Bhāṇa in the Mukundānanda [555] of Kāçīpati Kavirāja, who is
certainly not earlier than the thirteenth century. The adventures
recounted by Bhujan̄gaçekhara, the hero, allude also to the sports of
Kṛṣṇa and the cowherdesses, a double allusion which explains the
difficulty of the style asserted by the author.
7. MINOR DRAMATIC TYPES
The Vyāyoga seems not to have been often written, despite the example
of Bhāsa. The Pārthaparākrama [556] of Prahlādanadeva falls in the
period between A.D. 1163 and half a century later, for its author was
the brother of Dhārāvarṣa, son of Yaçodhavala, and lord of Candrāvatī,
whose reign ranks honourably in the records of the Paramāras of Mount
Ābu. It was acted on the occasion of the festival of the investment of
Acaleçvara, the tutelary deity of Mount Ābu with the sacred thread, and
claims to exhibit the sentiment of excitement (dīptarasa). The story,
taken from the Virāṭa Parvan of the Mahābhārata, is the well-known one
of the recovery by Arjuna of the cows of Virāṭa, raided by the
Kauravas, and the defeat of the raiders. It accords, therefore, well
with the definition in the text-books, for the struggle which it
describes is not caused by a woman, the feminine interest is restricted
to the colourless figures of Draupadī and Uttarā, and the hero is
neither a divine being nor a king. The poet, whose fame as a warrior
and whose princely generosity are extolled by Someçvara, claims for his
poetry the merits of smooth composition and clearness, and these may be
admitted, though the play does not rise above mediocrity. Technically
the play is of some interest, in so far as after the Nāndī the Sthāpaka
enters, recites a couple of stanzas, and then an actor comes on the
stage who addresses him, but is answered by the Sūtradhāra; apparently
the two terms were here synonymous to the author of the play or the
later tradition. Moreover the final benediction is allotted, not to
Arjuna, the hero of the play, but to Vāsava, who appears at the close
of the play in a celestial chariot in company with the Apsarases to
bestow applause and blessing. Prahlādana wrote other works, of which
some verses are preserved in the anthologies, and must have been a man
of considerable ability and merit.
The Kirātārjunīya [557] is a Vyāyoga based on Bhāravi’s epic by
Vatsarāja, who calls himself the minister of Paramardideva of
Kālañjara, who reigned from A.D. 1163 to 1203. Vatsarāja is interesting
as a good specimen of the poet of decadence; we have from him six plays
illustrating each a different type of drama. The Karpūracaritra is a
Bhāṇa of orthodox type; the gambler Karpūraka describes in monologue
his revelry, gambling, and love. The Hāsyacūḍāmaṇi is a farce in one
act which has as its hero an Ācārya of the Bhāgavata school, styled
Jñānarāçi, who professes the possession of supernatural knowledge,
enabling him to trace lost articles and buried treasure, and who
carries out his professions by various tricks and fooleries. He has an
irresistible pupil, who is sadly lacking in respect for his teacher,
and delights in interpreting literally his remarks. The Kirātārjunīya
has no special merit, but is technically interesting; after a Nāndī
celebrating Çiva’s consort, the Sūtradhāra enters, immediately followed
by the Sthāpaka, who insists on his reciting a further Nāndī of the
trident of Çiva, on the score that the play is heroic in sentiment and
should be appropriately introduced. This play was produced later than
the other five, for it came out under Trailokyavarmadeva, successor of
Paramardi. The other three plays, an Īhāmṛga, Ḍima, and Samavakāra will
be noticed below.
We have also a Vyāyoga by Viçvanātha, the Saugandhikāharaṇa, [558] of
about A.D. 1316, which deals with Bhīma’s visit to Kubera’s lake to
fetch water-lilies for Draupadī, his struggle first with Hanumant and
then with the Yakṣas, and his final victory; the Pāṇḍavas meet at
Kubera’s home and Draupadī obtains her desired flowers. Of unknown date
is the Dhanaṁjayavijaya [559] of Kāñcana Paṇḍita, son of Nārāyaṇa,
which deals with the prowess of Arjuna in the defeat of Duryodhana and
the Kauravas when they raid the cattle of Virāṭa, evidently a special
favourite of the dramatic authors. The description of the contest in
which Arjuna uses magic weapons is given by Indra and a couple of his
celestial entourage; the play ends with the giving to Arjuna’s son
Uttarā, daughter of the king Virāṭa, in marriage. A manuscript of A.D.
1328 is extant of the Bhīmavikramavyāyoga [560] of Mokṣāditya, while
the Nirbhayabhīma [561] of Rāmacandra belongs to the second half of the
twelfth century A.D.
Of the type Īhāmṛga we have a specimen by Vatsarāja in the
Rukmiṇīharaṇa, which in four Acts deals with the success of Kṛṣṇa in
depriving Çiçupāla of Cedi of Rukmiṇī, his promised bride. The play
opens with a dialogue between the Sūtradhāra who enters, after a Nāndī
in a couple of stanzas has been pronounced, and the Sthāpaka, which
tells us that the play was performed at moonrise during the festival of
Cakrasvāmin. The action of the play is languid, and the author has had
trouble to spread it out over four Acts; the characters are
conventional; Rukmiṇī the heroine is a nonentity, and neither Çiçupāla
nor Rukmin, the objects of Kṛṣṇa’s enmity, has any distinct
characterization. Kṛṣṇa goes into a state of trance on the stage in Act
IV to produce the presence of Tārkṣya to enable him to complete his
victory. The female character, Subuddhi, uses Sanskrit in lieu of
Prākrit.
Other dramas of this type [562] are the late Vīravijaya of Kṛṣṇamiçra,
and the Sarvavinodanāṭaka of Kṛṣṇa Avadhūta Ghaṭikāçata Mahākavi.
To Vatsarāja also we owe a specimen of the Ḍima, the Tripuradāha in
four Acts, which describes the destruction of the capital of
Tripurāsura by Çiva. The idea of writing such a piece was doubtless
given by the mention of a work of this name in the Nāṭyaçāstra, and the
play is extremely insipid; the numerous figures who crowd the stage are
lifeless, and the celestial weapons which overcome the Asuras lack
reality; the convenances are duly observed; Kumāra in the full flight
of his triumph is stayed by his father’s commands, and Çukra
delightedly records this act of courtesy on the part of the god,
despite his anger with the Dānavas. The play closes with the homage
paid by the gods and the seers alike to Maheça, who is bashful, and the
benediction is pronounced by Indra, not by the hero of the drama.
Other Ḍimas are late; thus we have one by the ubiquitous Ghanaçyāma,
the Kṛṣṇavijaya of Ven̄kaṭavarada, and the Manmathonmathana [563] of
Rāma, a drama of 1820.
Vatsarāja is also responsible for a Samavakāra, the Samudramathana, in
three Acts, which again owes its existence doubtless to the naming of a
work with a kindred title in the Nāṭyaçāstra as the model of a
Samavakāra. Here again we find after a Nāndī of two stanzas the
Sūtradhāra and the Sthāpaka engaged in conversation. The former and his
eleven brothers seek simultaneously to attain wealth; how is this
possible? The Sthāpaka suggests either homage to Paramardi or to the
ocean, a statement duly caught up by a voice behind the stage, which
asserts that from the ocean comes the fulfilment of wishes, followed by
the entry of Padmaka. The play is based on the legend of the churning
of the ocean by the gods and demons with its sequel, the winning by
Viṣṇu of Lakṣmī and the gaining of other desired objects by the
participators in the enterprise. The treatment fails to rise above the
commonplace; Lakṣmī appears in Act I with Lajjā and Dhṛti, her
companions, in the normal occupation of gazing on a picture of her
beloved, who later appears also on the scene. The artificiality of the
type is proved by the absence of other dramas of this kind.
The An̄ka, or one-Act play, is represented by very few specimens. The
term is often applied to denote a play within a play, in the
Bālarāmāyaṇa the name Prekṣaṇaka is applied generally to such plays.
The same name is also given to the Unmattarāghava [564] of Bhāskara
Kavi, of unknown date, though the Vidyāraṇya mentioned in it may be
Sāyaṇa or his contemporary. The play is a stupid imitation of Act IV of
the Vikramorvaçī; while Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa pursue the golden gazelle,
Sītā, by the curse of Durvāsas, is changed into a gazelle herself; Rāma
returns and wanders miserably in search of her, but finally wins her by
the help of Agastya.
The term Prekṣaṇaka is also applied to the Kṛṣṇābhyudaya of Lokanātha
Bhaṭṭa, written for the raintime procession of the Lord of Hastigiri,
Viṣṇu, in Kāñcī. A number of modern plays, which may be styled An̄kas,
are also known, while the Çarmiṣṭhāyayāti in the Sāhityadarpaṇa may be
identical with the work of that name by Kṛṣṇa Kavi. [565]
Of the types of Uparūpaka, other than the Nāṭikā and Saṭṭaka, there are
very few represented, and these only obviously written in accord with
the text-book definitions. Thus Rūpa Gosvāmin has left a Bhāṇikā, the
Dānakelikaumudī, [566] among his varied efforts to adapt the drama to
the tenets of his faith, and the Subhadrāharaṇa [567] of Mādhava, son
of the Maṇḍaleçvara Bhaṭṭa and Indumatī, and brother of Harihara,
styles itself a Çrīgadita. As it describes itself in terms similar to
those used in the Sāhityadarpaṇa, it is quite possibly posterior to
that work, and, on the other hand, there exists a manuscript of A.D.
1610. The story of the play is the old legend of the elopement of
Kṛṣṇa’s friend Arjuna with Subhadrā, whom he meets by going to her
father’s house as a beggar. The presence of a narrative verse has
suggested comparison with a shadow-drama, but for this there is
inadequate evidence.
8. THE SHADOW PLAY
It is extremely doubtful at what date the shadow-drama appeared in
India; the first play which we can be certain was represented in this
way is the Dharmābhyudaya [568] of Meghaprabhācārya, which in the stage
direction mentions once clearly a puppet (putraka) and calls itself a
Chāyānāṭyaprabandha. Unluckily the age of this work does not seem to be
ascertainable with any certainty.
It is natural to suggest, as did Pischel, that the Dūtān̄gada of
Subhaṭa, which is styled a Chāyānāṭaka, really was a shadow play. On
the other hand, Rājendralālamitra [569] suggested that the drama was
perhaps simply intended as an entr’acte, and this may be justified on
the interpretation of the term of drama in the form of a shadow: i.e.
reduced to the minimum for representation in such a form. The play
itself unluckily contains nothing to help us to a decision as to its
real character. It was represented in A.D. 1243 in honour of the dead
king Kumārapāla at the court of Tribhuvanapāla, a Caulukya of
Aṇahilapāṭaka, and it has come down to us in various forms. A longer
and shorter recension may be distinguished, though not very definitely;
in the longer form occur epic verses, and an introduction is prefixed
in thirty-nine stanzas, partly placed in the mouths of Rāma and
Hanumant, describing the finding of Sītā’s hiding-place. The story is
the simple one of An̄gada’s mission as an ambassador to Rāvaṇa to demand
back Sītā; Rāvaṇa endeavours to persuade An̄gada that Sītā is in love
with him. An̄gada is not deceived, and leaves Rāvaṇa with threats, and
we learn shortly afterwards that Rāvaṇa has met his doom. The merits of
the work are negligible.
We have no other play of which we can say with even the slightest
plausibility that it was a real shadow-drama. There are three works by
Vyāsa Çrīrāmadeva from the fifteenth century, his patrons being
Kalacuri princes of Raypur. The first, the Subhadrāpariṇayana, produced
under Brahmadeva or Haribrahmadeva, deals with the threadworn topic of
the winning of Arjuna’s bride; the second, the Rāmābhyudaya appeared
under the Mahārāṇa Meru, and deals with the conquest of Lan̄kā, the fire
ordeal of Sītā, and the return to Ayodhyā; the third, the
Pāṇḍavābhyudaya, written under Raṇamalladeva, describes in two Acts
Draupadī’s birth and marriage. But that these were really shadow-dramas
is not indicated by anything save the title, for they resemble ordinary
dramas in all other respects. The Sāvitrīcarita of Çan̄karalāla, son of
Maheçvara, calls itself a Chāyānāṭaka, but the work, written in 1882,
is an ordinary drama, and Lüders [570] is doubtless right in
recognizing that these are not shadow dramas at all. On the other hand,
he adds to the list the Haridūta, which tells the story given in the
Dūtavākya of Bhāsa of the mission of Kṛṣṇa to the Pāṇḍavas’ enemies to
seek to attain peace. This drama, however, does not describe itself as
a Chāyānāṭaka, and the argument is, accordingly, without value. But
what is most significant, there is no allusion to this sort of drama in
the theory which suggests that its introduction was decidedly late.
9. DRAMAS OF IRREGULAR TYPE
Professor Lüders [571] adds to the almost non-existing list of shadow
dramas, the Mahānāṭaka. He does this on the strength of the fact that
it is written mainly in verse, with little of prose; that the verse is
decidedly at times of the narrative as opposed to the dramatic type;
there is no Prākrit; the number of persons appearing is large, and
there is no Vidūṣaka, and these characteristics are found in the
Dūtān̄gada, which is a Chāyānāṭaka in name. The argument is clearly
inadequate in the absence of any real evidence, and the Mahānāṭaka can
be explained in other ways.
The history of this play is curious. It is preserved in two recensions,
one in nine or ten Acts redacted by Madhusūdana and one in fourteen by
Dāmodaramiçra. The stories given by the commentator Mohanadāsa and the
Bhojaprabandha, agree in effect that the play was put together by order
of Bhoja from fragments found on rocks, which were fished out of the
sea; the tradition was that Hanumant himself wrote the work, which,
therefore, is called Hanumannāṭaka, but that to please Vālmīki, who
recognized that it would eclipse his great epic, the generous ape
permitted his rival to cast into the sea the drama which he had
inscribed on the rocks. This certainly suggests that some old matter
was embodied in the play, and this view has been strengthened by the
fact that Ānandavardhana cites three verses out of the play, but
without giving any source, as also do Rājaçekhara in the Kāvyamīmāṅsā
and Dhanika in his Daçarūpāvaloka, so that the evidence is not of much
worth, for the work, as we have it, plagiarizes shamelessly from the
dramas of Bhavabhūti, Murāri, and Rājaçekhara, and even from Jayadeva’s
Prasannarāghava, unless we are to suppose that in the latter case the
borrowing is the other way. The question which is the earlier of the
two recensions is unsolved; the one with fewer Acts has 730 as opposed
to 581 verses, and of these about 300 are in common. [572]
There is a brief benediction, but no prologue, and narrative follows
down to the arrival of Rāma at Mithilā for the winning of Sītā by
breaking the bow of Çiva; this part of the action is given in a
dialogue between Sītā, Janaka, Rāma, and others. More narrative leads
up to a scene with Paraçurāma, then narrative follow to Sītā’s
marriage. Act II is undramatic, being a highly flavoured description of
Sītā’s love passages with Rāma. Act III again is mainly descriptive,
carrying the story down to the departure of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa in chase
of Mārīca in deer shape. Act IV carries the story down to Rāma’s return
to the deserted hut; in Act V Rāma seeks Sītā and sends Hanumant to
Lan̄kā; in the next Act Hanumant consoles Sītā and returns; in Act VII
the host of apes crosses the ocean; in Act VIII, which is much more
dramatic than usual, we have An̄gada’s mission to Rāvaṇa; and the rest
of the Acts drag out the wearisome details of the conflict, often in so
imperfect a manner as to be unintelligible without knowledge of the
Rāmāyaṇa and the earlier dramas. The two versions generally correspond,
but not with any precision in detail.
The exact purpose of such a play is not obvious, but it looks rather
like a literary tour de force, possibly in preparation for some form of
performance [573] at which the dialogue was plentifully eked out by
narrative by the director and the other actors. It is incredible,
however, that, as we have it, it can ever have served any practical
end, and its chief value, such as it is, is to reflect possibly the
form of drama of a period when the drama had not yet completely emerged
from the epic condition. We should thus have the old work of the
Granthikas reinforced by putting part of the dialogue in the mouths of
real actors. But it would be dangerous in so late a production to lay
any stress on the possibility of deriving hence evidence for the growth
of the early drama. It is, however, legitimate to note that there are
similarities between the type and that of the performance of a Tamil
version of the Çakuntalā. [574] The curious number of Acts has been
suggested as indicating that the original was otherwise divided than a
normal drama, but on this it would be dangerous to lay much stress.
The metre of the play exhibits the extraordinary fact of 253
Çārdūlavikrīḍita stanzas to 109 Çloka, 83 Vasantatilaka, 77 Sragdharā,
59 Mālinī, and 55 Indravajrā type. This fact, in the version of
Madhusūdana, is sufficient to show how far we are removed from anything
primitive.
The type of the Mahānāṭaka may be compared with the Gītagovinda, [575]
which, written by Jayadeva under Lakṣmaṇasena in the twelfth century
A.D., exhibits songs sung by Kṛṣṇa, Rādhā, and her companion,
intermingled with lyric stanzas of the poet, describing their position,
or the emotions excited, and addressing prayer to Kṛṣṇa. The work is a
poem, and can be enjoyed simply as such, but it is also capable of a
quasi-dramatic presentment. It reveals a highly-developed outcome of
the simple Yātrās of the Kṛṣṇa religion.
In the Gopālakelicandrikā [576] of Rāmakṛṣṇa of Gujarāt, of unknown
date, but certainly later than the Mahānāṭaka and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,
we have an irregular drama whose form has excited a large number of
conjectures, including the inevitable but absurd solution of a shadow
play. The nearest parallel of those suggested in this case and in that
of the Mahānāṭaka [577] is the Swāng of North-West India, in that the
actors recite the narrative parts as well as take part in the dialogue.
There seems no special reason to doubt that the same thing might have
taken place in this case, though it is conceivable that it was an
imitation of the type of entertainment in which a Brahmin says the
spoken parts, while his small pupils go through the action of the
drama, possibly a far-off parallel to the Çaubhikas as far as the
action is concerned. But it is quite possibly no more than a literary
exercise, and the same judgement may apply to the Mahānāṭaka. The fact
that both talk as if there were action is no sign of real
representation. The modern written drama is full of stage directions,
though it may never succeed in obtaining a performance on the stage,
and we have not the slightest reason to deny the existence of the
literary drama in India. [578] The piece is highly stylized, and could
only be understood, if at all, by a cultivated audience.
The connexion of the play with the Hanumannāṭaka is expressly admitted
in the prologue; the actress, who enters with the usual inquiry in
Prākrit as to the business to be undertaken, is informed by the
Sūtradhāra that this is not a case for Prākrit, but for Sanskrit, alone
worthy of an audience of Viṣṇu devotees. The actress, not unnaturally,
asks how a drama is possible without Prākrit, to be comforted by the
parallel of the Hanumannāṭaka. This seems a clear enough indication
that the work is a literary exercise rather than a genuine stage play
representing a living form of dramatic representation. From an ordinary
play it is distinguished by the fact that we have stanzas and prose of
merely narrative character, and we learn from one passage that these
parts are directed by the Sūcaka to the spectator. The Sūcaka may be
equated, on the authority of Hemacandra, with the Sūtradhāra, and if we
assume that the play was actually performed, [579] all we need do is to
assume that the director thus intervened from time to time to help on
the action of the play. We are, in any case, very far from the
primitive drama, as the long compounds of the prose show, reminding us
of the worst eccentricities of Bhavabhūti.
The work begins with an act of religious devotion, the performance of
the ceremony of the waving of a lamp in honour of Kṛṣṇa, who appears in
the vesture of a herdsman, and thus receives in person the worship of
his votaries. The play is essentially religious and mystic, despite the
fact that the sports of Kṛṣṇa and his comrades, and of Rādhā and her
friends, are duly introduced. In Act III we have from the mouth of
Vṛndā, that is Lakṣmī, a series of verses setting out the mystic
doctrine of the identity of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā; Kṛṣṇa is the highest
being, descended to earth in the guise of a herdsman, and Rādhā
represents his Çakti. In Act IV we have the usual scene of the theft by
Kṛṣṇa of the clothes of the maidens when they bathe in the Yamunā, but
the restoration is made a test of their faith; Kṛṣṇa demands their
devotion as the price of their garments, and asserts that faith in him
is superior to the Vedas, to asceticism, and to sacrifice as a means of
securing knowledge of him. In the last Act we find the spirits of the
night of full moon and of autumn lamenting that the maidens are not
dancing the Rāsa with Kṛṣṇa, who appears, and whom they remind of this
duty of his. He summons his magic power (yogamāyā) and bids her proceed
to the station of the herders to summon the maidens to the dance. Then
it is narrated how he himself goes there, and with his flute draws out
the maidens to join him, while the gods come in multitudes to pay him
honour. Many verses from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa are here borrowed.
Finally the god accepts the homage of the maidens and leads them in the
dance, as is described again in narrative, until the director breaks
off the piece with the assertion that it is impossible to represent
adequately the greatness of the god. We can see at once, even if we
were not told, that the author was under the influence of Rāmānuja, and
the fact that his father bears the name of Devajī [580] suggests a
decidedly modern date.
A glimpse into a form of entertainment not represented by any Sanskrit
drama so far published is given by the changes made in the fourth Act
of the Vikramorvaçī at an unknown date. The Apabhraṅça stanzas
introduced into that Act cannot be assigned to the period of Kālidāsa,
unless we are to rewrite the history of the language; Apabhraṅça
represents not a vernacular but a definitely literary language in which
the vocabulary is based on Prākrit, and the inflexions on a vernacular
with free use of Prākrit forms as well. Guhasena of Valabhī, of whom we
have inscriptions of A.D. 559–69, was celebrated as a composer in
Apabhraṅça as well as in Sanskrit and Prākrit, and the new literary
form may have arisen in the sixth century A.D. as an effort to produce
something nearer the vernacular than Prākrit, but yet literary, much as
the modern dialects have evolved literatures largely by reliance on
Sanskrit. It can hardly be doubted that the Apabhraṅça stanzas
represent the libretto of a pantomime (nṛtya). Such pantomimes are well
known as a form of the nautch at Rājput courts; the dancers perform a
well-known scene, and sing verses to a musical accompaniment; the chief
element, however, is the gestures and postures. In the case of the
pantomime based on the Vikramorvaçī, the verses placed in the mouth of
the king may have been sung by an actor, while those regarding the
forsaken elephant and the Haṅsas may have been sung by singers, male or
female, acting under him. There is an introduction in Prākrit for the
libretto, which very possibly as inserted in the drama has not come
down to us in full, though in any case the libretto in such instances
is of only secondary importance and never adequate. It is a plausible
suggestion that the introduction of the libretto into the Vikramorvaçī
was the outcome of the difficulty felt by the ordinary audience in
picking up the sense of the fourth Act of the play, which contains in
overwhelming measure Sanskrit stanzas, and, therefore, must have been
extremely difficult for the audience to follow. The date of the change
is uncertain; on linguistic grounds it has been placed after Hemacandra
and before the date of the Prākṛta Pin̄gala. [581]
XII
THE CHARACTERISTICS AND ACHIEVEMENT OF THE SANSKRIT DRAMA
The Sanskrit drama may legitimately be regarded as the highest product
of Indian poetry, and as summing up in itself the final conception of
literary art achieved by the very self-conscious creators of Indian
literature. This art was essentially aristocratic; the drama was never
popular in the sense in which the Greek drama possessed that quality.
From an early period in Indian history we find the distinction of class
reflected in a distinction of language; culture was reserved largely
for the two higher castes, the Brahmin and the Kṣatriya or ruling
class. It was in this rarified atmosphere that the Sanskrit drama came
into being, and it was probably to litterati of high cultivation that
its creation from the hints present in religion and in the epic was
due. The Brahmin, in fact, much abused as he has been in this as in
other matters, was the source of the intellectual distinction of India.
As he produced Indian philosophy, so by another effort of his intellect
he evolved the subtle and effective form of the drama. Brahmins, it
must be remembered, had long been the inheritors of the epic tradition,
and this tradition they turned to happy use in the evolution of the
drama.
The drama bears, therefore, essential traces of its connexion with the
Brahmins. They were idealist in outlook, capable of large
generalizations, but regardless of accuracy in detail, and to create a
realistic drama was wholly incompatible with their temperament. The
accurate delineation of facts or character was to them nothing; they
aimed at the creation in the mind of the audience of sentiment, and
what was necessary for this end was all that was attempted. All poetry
was, in the later analysis, which is implicit in the practice of the
earlier poets, essentially a means of suggesting feeling, and this
function devolved most of all on the drama. Nothing, therefore, is of
value save what tends to this end, and it is the function of the true
dramatist to lay aside everything which is irrelevant for this purpose.
It follows from this principle that the plot is a secondary element
[582] in the drama in its highest form, the heroic play or Nāṭaka. To
complicate it would divert the mind from emotion to intellectual
interest, and affect injuriously the production of sentiment. The
dramatist, therefore, will normally choose a well-known theme which in
itself is apt to place the spectator in the appropriate frame of mind
to be affected by the appropriate emotion. It is then his duty by the
skill with which he handles his theme to bring out in the fullest
degree the sentiment appropriate to the piece. This is in essentials
the task set before themselves by the great dramatists; Kālidāsa makes
subtle changes in the story of Çakuntalā, not for the sake of improving
the plot as such, but because the alterations are necessary to exhibit
in perfection the sentiment of love, which must be evoked in the hearts
of the audience. The crudities of the epic tale left Çakuntalā a
business-like young woman and Duḥṣanta a selfish and calculating lover;
both blemishes had to be removed in order that the spectator might
realize within himself, in ideal form, the tenderness of a girl’s first
affection, and the honourable devotion of the king, clouded only by a
curse against which he had no power.
The emotions which thus it was desired to evoke were, however, strictly
limited by the Brahminical theory of life. The actions and status of
man in any existence depend on no accident; they are essentially the
working out of deeds done in a previous birth, and these again are
explained by yet earlier actions from time without beginning. Indian
drama is thus deprived of a motif which is invaluable to Greek tragedy,
and everywhere provides a deep and profound tragic element, the
intervention of forces beyond control or calculation in the affairs of
man, confronting his mind with obstacles upon which the greatest
intellect and the most determined will are shattered. A conception of
this kind would deprive the working of the law of the act of all
validity, and, however much in popular ideas the inexorable character
of the act might be obscured by notions of an age before the evolution
of the belief of the inevitable operation of the act, in the deliberate
form of expression in drama this principle could not be forgotten. We
lose, therefore, the spectacle of the good man striving in vain against
an inexorable doom; we lose even the wicked man whose power of
intellect and will make us admire him, even though we welcome his
defeat. The wicked man who perishes is merely, in the view of the
Sanskrit drama, a criminal undergoing punishment, for whose sufferings
we should feel no sympathy whatever; such a person is not a suitable
hero for any drama, and it is a mere reading of modern sentiment into
ancient literature to treat Duryodhana in the Ūrubhan̄ga as the hero of
the drama. [583] He justly pays the full penalty for insolence and
contempt of Viṣṇu.
It follows, therefore, that the sentiments which are to be evoked by a
Sanskrit Nāṭaka are essentially the heroic or the erotic, with that of
wonder as a valued subordinate element, appropriate in the dénouement.
The wonderful well consorts with the ideal characters of legend, which
accepts without incredulity or discomfort the intervention of the
divine in human affairs, and therefore follows with ready acceptance
the solution of the knot in the Çakuntalā or the Vikramorvaçī. Heroism
and love, of course, cannot be evoked without the aid of episodes which
menace the hero and heroine with the failure to attain their aims;
there must be danger and interference with the course of true love, but
the final result must see concord achieved. Hence it is impossible to
expect that any drama shall be a true tragedy; in the long run the hero
and the heroine must be rewarded by perfect happiness and union. The
Nāgānanda of Harṣa illustrates the rule to perfection; the sublimity of
self-sacrifice suggests real tragedy, but this would be wholly out of
harmony with the spirit of India, and the intervention of Gaurī is
invoked to secure that the self-sacrifice is crowned by a complete and
immediate reward in this life. The figure of an Antigone might have
been paralleled in Indian life; it would not be acceptable to the
spirit of Indian drama.
Idealist as it is, the spirit of the drama declines to permit of a
division of sentiment; it will not allow the enemy of the hero to rival
him in any degree; nothing is more striking than the failure to realize
the possibility of a great dramatic creation presented by the character
of Rāvaṇa as the rival of Rāma for Sītā’s love. Rāvaṇa varies in the
hands of the dramatists, but all tend to reduce him to the status of a
boastful and rather stupid villain, who is inferior at every point to
his rival. Equally effectively the drama banishes from the
possibilities the conception of a struggle of conscience in the mind of
the hero or the heroin; [584] if this were represented, it would create
a similar struggle in the mind of the audience, and destroy the unity
and purity of the sentiment, which it is the part of the drama to
generate.
The style similarly is explained and justified by the end of suggesting
sentiment. The lyric stanzas, at first sight strangely undramatic,
[585] find their full explanation when it is remembered how effective
each is in exciting the appropriate emotion in the mind of the
audience, which, deeply versed in Sanskrit poetry, is keen to
appreciate the effect of each stanza. The simplicity or even negligence
of the prose of the drama is thus also explained and excused. It is not
necessary to excite sentiment; it serves merely as the mode of
communicating facts, and of enabling the audience to follow the action,
until an opportunity is afforded to excite feeling by the melody of a
verse, all the more effective from its sudden emergence from the
flatness of its environment. The same consideration explains the
importance of those elements of which we can form so faint an
impression, the dance, music, song, and the mimetic art. The elaborate
code of gestures laid down in the theory, and unquestionably bulking
large in practice, was all intended to produce in cultivated spirits
the sentiments appropriate to the play.
The ideal character of the heroic drama extends itself even to the
Nāṭikā, where a closer approach to real life might be expected. The
dramatists, however, make no attempt at realism; they choose their
subjects from the legend, and they cast over the trivial amourettes of
their heroes the glamour derived from the assurance that the winning in
marriage of a maiden will assure them universal rule. The action of the
play is thus not suffered to degenerate into a portrayal of the
domestic difficulties of the harem system under polygamic conditions;
the dramatists do not seek realism, but are content to reproduce a
stereotyped scheme of love, jealousy, parting, and reunion, a sequence
well calculated to evoke the sentiment of love in the mind of the
audience. Even in the Prakaraṇa, in which realism might be expected,
seeing that it condescends to heroes of less than royal or divine
status, there is no actual exception: though the author of the
Mṛcchakaṭikā has had the power to infuse a semblance of life and
actuality into his characters, Bhavabhūti shows us in the Mālatīmādhava
nothing but types suggesting the erotic sentiment. Equally ideal is the
Vyāyoga with its suggestion of heroism and its deliberate selection of
its subject from the epic tradition.
Tragedy proper is denied us by these conditions of Indian thought, and
comedy in any of its higher forms is also difficult; it might
legitimately be expected to prevail in the Nāṭikā or the Prakaraṇa, but
it is unduly subordinated to the erotic sentiment and, though not
absent, is comparatively undeveloped. The Prahasana and the Bhāṇa
indeed appeal to the comic sentiment, but only in an inferior and
degraded form, a fact expressed in the failure of the classical drama
to preserve a single specimen of either form of composition.
Limited by the nature of the intellectual movement which produced it,
the Sanskrit drama could never achieve the perfection of Greek tragedy
or comedy. Kālidāsa, greatest of Indian dramatists, experiences no
uneasiness at the structure of life or the working of the world. He
accepts without question or discontent the fabric of Indian society.
When Goethe writes of him:
Willst du die Blüthe des frühen, die Früchte des späteren Jahres,
Willst du, was reizt und entzückt, willst du, was sättigt und nährt,
Willst du den Himmel, die Erde, mit einem Namen begreifen,
Nenn’ ich Çakuntalā dich, und so ist alles gesagt,
the praise is doubtless just in a measure, but it may easily be pressed
further than is justifiable. For the deeper questions of human life
Kālidāsa has no message for us; they raised, so far as we can see, no
question in his own mind; the whole Brahmanical system, as restored to
glory under the Guptas, seems to have satisfied him, and to have left
him at peace with the universe. Fascinating and exquisite as is the
Çakuntalā, it moves in a narrow world, removed far from the cruelty of
real life, and it neither seeks to answer, nor does it solve, the
riddles of life. Bhavabhūti, it is true, shows some sense of the
complexity and difficulty of existence, of the conflict between one
duty and another, and the sorrow thus resulting, but with him also
there prevailed the rule that all must end in harmony. Sītā, who in the
older story is actually finally taken away from the husband who allowed
himself to treat her as if her purity were sullied by her captivity in
Rāvaṇa’s hands, is restored to Rāma by divine favour, an ending
infinitely less dramatic than final severance after vindication. How
serious a limitation in dramatic outlook is produced by the Brahmanical
theory of life, the whole history of the Sanskrit drama shows. [586]
Moreover, acceptance of the Brahmanic tradition permits the production
of such a play as the Caṇḍakauçika, where reason and humanity are
revolted beyond measure by the insane vengeance taken by the sage
Viçvāmitra on the unfortunate king for an act of charity.
The drama suffered also from its close dependence on the epic, and the
failure of the poets to recognize that the epic subjects were often as
a whole undramatic. Hence frequently, as in the vast majority of the
Rāma dramas and those based on the Mahābhārata, we have nothing but the
recasting of the epic narrative into a semi-dramatic form, without real
dramatic structure. There was nothing in the theory to hint at the
error of such a course; on the contrary, to the poets the subject was
one admirably suitable, since in itself it suggested the appropriate
sentiments, and therefore left them merely the duty of heightening the
effects. This led on the high road to the outward signs of the
degradation of the drama, the abandoning of any interest in anything
save the production of lyric or narrative stanzas of perfection of
form, judged in accordance with a taste which progressively declined
into a rejection of simplicity and the search for what was recondite.
To the later poets the drama is an exercise in style, and that, as
contrasted with the highest products of Indian literature, a fantastic
and degraded one.
To the Brahmin ideal individuality has no appeal; the law of life has
no room for deviation from type; the caste system is rigid, and for
each rank in life there is a definite round of duties, whence departure
is undesirable and dangerous. The drama likewise has no desire for
individual figures, but only for typical characters. The defect from
the Aristotelian as from the modern point of view of the Rāma dramas is
simply that Rāma is conceived as an ideal, a man without faults, and
therefore for us lacking in the essential traits of humanity.
Similarly, in the style of the drama we are denied any differentiation
of individuals as contrasted with classes. The divergence in the use of
Sanskrit or Prākrit, and in the different kinds of Prākrit, marks the
essential distinction of men and women, and of those of high and those
of humble rank, but beyond this characterization does not go. We are
treated to an artificial court speech, which assorts with stereotyped
emotions, refined, elegant, sentimental, rich in the compliments of
court gallantly, often pathetic, marked with a distinct strain of
philosophical commonplace, and fond of suggested meanings and double
entendres, hinting at the events yet to come. But the dramatists made
no serious attempt to create individual characters, and to assign to
them a speech of their own; they vary greatly in merit as regards
characterization, but even the best dramas paint types, not
individuals.
Indifference to individuality necessarily meant indifference to action,
and therefore to plot, and this lies at the basis of the steady
progress by which the dialogue was neglected in favour of the stanzas.
The latter express the general; they draw highly condensed, but also
often extremely poetical, pictures of the beauty of nature in one of
its many aspects, or of the charms of the beloved; or they enunciate
the Brahmanical solutions of the problems of life and conduct. In them
the individual has no place; the beloved may be described, but she is
merely typical. These stanzas appealed to the audience; we have no echo
in India of the criticisms which were levelled in Greece against
Euripides, for the introduction of sentiments unfitted to his
characters and the scenes involved, and we have no hint that Indian
theory ever recognized that the drama by the tenth century A.D. was in
a state of decadence.
The peculiar and limited view of the drama was intimately connected
with its Brahmanical character. The drama of Greece was popular; it
appealed to all free Athenian citizens, [587] an infinitely wider class
than that for which the dramas of India in Sanskrit and Prākrit were
composed, and it was written in a language easily comprehended by all
those who viewed the spectacle. From the period of the earliest dramas
known to us the full comprehension of the words can have been confined
to a limited section of the audience, which, however, had sufficient
pleasure in the spectacle, in the song, the pantomimic dances, and the
music, and sufficient general comprehension of the drama to follow it
adequately enough. Such an audience, however, acted as a stimulus to
refinement and elaboration; the dramatist could neglect the prime
necessity of being understood which weighed on the Greek dramatist, and
indulge in the production of something recondite, calculated to
manifest his skill in metrical form and management of words. The fact
that Sanskrit was not a normal living language presented him with the
temptation, to which none of the later dramatists rises superior, of
the free use of the vast store of alleged synonyms presented by the
lexica, [588] freed from any inconvenient necessity, such as exists in
every living language, of using words only in that precise nuance which
every synonym possesses in a living dialect.
The same tendency to artificiality was undoubtedly stimulated by the
fact that plays for their reputation must have depended largely on
being read, not witnessed, however important it may have been for the
poet to secure the honour of public performance. The popularity and
number of the Kāvyas which have come down to us attests the existence
of an effective public which, if it did not read the works, at least
enjoyed having them read aloud, and the dramatist was thus encouraged,
while adhering to the dramatic form, to vie in this genre of literature
with the effects produced in the Kāvya. The Kāvya, however, was
undergoing throughout its history a tendency to seek mere stylistic
effects, and this influence must largely have contributed to the
elaboration of style of the drama. It is significant that the Kāvyas
and dramas of Kālidāsa show a relative simplicity which contrasts
effectively with the complexities of Bhavabhūti in drama, and Bhāravi
and Māgha in the Kāvya.
To understand the Indian drama we have aid from a work of curious
character and importance, the Kāmaçāstra or Kāmasūtra of Vātsyāyana,
[589] which was doubtless familiar to the dramatists from Kālidāsa
onwards. The world which produced the classical drama was one in which
the pessimism of Buddhism, with its condemnation of the value of
pleasure, had given way to the worship of the great sectarian
divinities Çiva and Viṣṇu, in whose service the enjoyment of pleasure
was legitimate and proper. The Buddhists themselves admittedly felt the
force of the demand for a life of ease; we have preserved verses
satirizing their love of women, wine, soft living, and luxury, and
there is abundant evidence of the decline of austerity in the order.
The eclecticism of Harṣa is sufficiently significant; the policy which
at the great festival at Prayāga reported by Hiuan-Tsang resulted in
the dedication of a statue to the Buddha on the first day, to the sun,
the favourite deity of his father, on the second, and to Çiva on the
third, excludes any possibility of belief in the depth of Harṣa’s
Buddhist beliefs. If there were any doubt as to the strange
transformation of feeling among Buddhists, it would be removed by the
benediction which opens the Nāgānanda, where the Buddha is invoked as
rallied on his hardheartedness by the ladies of Māra’s train. The
process of accommodation had evidently gone very far. The philosophy of
the age shows equally the lack of serious interest in the old tenets of
Buddhism; we have the great development of logical studies in lieu of
insistence on the truths of misery and the path to its removal, while
the chef-d’œuvre of the period outside Buddhist circles is the
complicated and fantastic system of the Sāṁkhya philosophy, which
adequately reflects the artistic spirit of the time in its comparison
of nature with a dancer who makes her début, and gracefully retires
from the stage when she has satisfied her audience. The spirit of Açoka
has entirely disappeared from the royal families of India, and the
courts demanded amusement with refinement, just as they sought for
elegance in art. The interests of this world are centred in the
pleasures of life, the festivals which amused the court and the people
by the pomp of their celebration from time to time, and in the
intervals the amusements of the palace and the harem, sports in the
water, the game of the swing, the plucking of flowers, song, dance,
pantomime, and such other diversions as were necessary to while away
the endless leisure of princes, who left the business of their realms
to ministers and soldiers, while they spared themselves any fatigue
more serious than that of love encounters. The manners of their princes
were aped by their rich subjects, and there was no dearth of courtiers
and parasites to aid them in their diversions. The man about town
(nāgaraka) as sketched by the Kāmasūtra [590] is rich and cultivated;
devoted to the niceties of attire and personal adornment, perfumed,
pomaded, and garlanded; he is a musician, and a lover of books;
cage-birds afford him pleasure of the eyes, and diversion in teaching
them speech; a lovely garden with an arbour presents facilities for
amusement and repose. In the daytime the care of the toilet, cock
fights, ram fights, excursions in the neighbouring country, fill his
time; while at night, after a concert or ballet, there are the joys of
love, in which the Kāmasūtra gives him more elaborate instruction than
the Ars Amoris ever contemplated. The luxury of polygamy did not
suffice such a man; he is allowed to enjoy the society of courtesans,
and in them, as in Athens, he finds the intellectual interests which
are denied to his legitimate wives. With them and the more refined and
cultured of the band of hangers-on, high and low, with whom he is
surrounded, he can indulge in the pleasures of the discussion of
literature, and appreciate the fine efforts of the poets and
dramatists. From such a nature, of course, anything heroic cannot be
expected, and the poets recognize this state of affairs; but it demands
refinement, beauty, luxury, and the demand is fully met. Love is
naturally a capital theme, but the dramatists suffer from one grave
difficulty from the condition of the society which they depict. The
ideal of a romantic love between two persons free and independent,
masters of their own destinies, is in great measure denied to them, and
they are reduced to the banality of the intrigue between the king and
the damsel who is destined to be his wife, but who by some accident has
been introduced into his harem in a humble position.
For the dramatists the favour of a king was the chief object to be
aimed at, and kings were evidently very willing to lend their names to
dramatic and other compositions, whatever part they actually took in
their production. The persistence of the rumour which regards Harṣa as
winning his fame in part at the expense of Bāṇa, may be unjust to the
king, but at any rate it expresses what was popular belief in the
possibility of such a happening in poetical circles, and it is indeed
incredible that a king should have been so scrupulous as to refuse any
aid in his literary toils from his court poets. Competitions in
exhibitions of poetry were in favour with monarchs, but they were not
the only patrons; their actions excited imitation, [591] and even in
Buddhist and Jain circles the desire to adopt the expedient of drama in
connexion with religion was evinced. But even when applied by Brahmins,
Buddhists, or Jains to philosophy or religion, the drama bore
throughout the unmistakable stamp of its original predominance in
circles whose chief interest was gallantry: the Nāgānanda bears
eloquent evidence of this for Buddhist ideas, the Prabodhacandrodaya
for Brahmin philosophy, and the Moharājaparājaya for Jainism.
A society of this kind was certain to encourage refinement and elegance
in poetry; it was equally certain to lead to artificiality and
unreality. But we may be certain that true poetic taste existed; it is
attested not merely by the existence and fame of such dramas as those
of Kālidāsa, but in the kindred sphere of music it has an interesting
exposition in the third Act of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, in which, following
with slight changes the precedent of Bhāsa, Cārudatta is made to
express to the unresponsive ears of Maitreya, his one faithful friend,
the effect produced on his ears by the sweet singing of Rebhila, which
has come to console him in the midst of his sorrow: [592]
The notes of love, peace, sweetness, could I trace,
The note that thrills, the note of passion too,
The note of woman’s loveliness and grace,
Ah, my poor words add nothing, nothing new.
But as the notes in sweetest cadence rang,
I thought it was my hidden love who sang.
The melody of song, the stricken strings,
In undertone that half unconscious clings,
More clearly sounding as the passions rise,
But ever sweeter as the music dies.
Words that strong passion fain would say again,
Yet checks their second utterance—in vain;
For music sweet as this lives on until
I walk as hearing sweetest music still.
To Rājaçekhara [593] we owe a full account of the studies which went to
make up the finished poet, who had the choice of Sanskrit, Prākrit,
Apabhraṅça, and Paiçācī, or the speech of the goblins (bhūtabhāṣā), as
his modes of composition. Knowledge of grammar, of the dictionary,
poetics, and metrics are demanded, as well as skill in the sixty-four
acts; purity of mind, speech, and body are requisite, as well as most
attractive surroundings. The poet’s male attendants are to speak
Apabhraṅça, the female Māgadhī, while those within the harem itself are
to use Prākrit and Sanskrit, and his friends to exercise themselves in
all forms of speech. With pardonable lack of historical truth, we are
told anecdotes of kings who forbade the use in their harems of certain
letters, and combinations of sounds, on grounds of euphony, and the
poet may imitate their usage. We also learn that Sanskrit was affected
among the people of Bengal, in Lāṭa Prākrit, in Mārwār, and by the
Ṭakkas and Bhādānakas, Apabhraṅça, while in Avantī, Pariyātra, and
Daçapura Bhūtabhāṣā prevailed. The people of Surāṣṭra and the Travaṇas
are credited elsewhere [594] with intermingling Sanskrit and
Apabhraṅça, while unkind comments are made on the mode of pronouncing
Sanskrit among the excellent poets of Kashmir, and on the nasal accent
of the north as opposed to the music of that in Pañcāla. We learn also
[595] that poets were wont to make journeys, and to utilize the
knowledge of other places thus gained in their works.
Rājaçekhara [596] is also emphatic regarding the capacity of women:
daughters of kings or ministers, courtesans, and wives of jesters, were
skilled as poets, the capacity which brings about the ability to
compose being a matter affecting the soul, and not, therefore, bound up
with sex. To Rājaçekhara the ability to write poems is largely due to
experiences in previous births, and he logically denies that sex can
affect this. But though verses are cited from the poetesses in the
anthologies, and not a few names are known, and Avantisundarī,
Rājaçekhara’s own wife, appears to have been an authority on poetics,
it is certain that no drama of importance has come down to us which is
written by a woman. The explanation for this would seem rather to lie
in social conventions, as in Greece, for there is no reason to suppose
that the clever women mentioned by Rājaçekhara, and doubtless not rare
in the courts, could not have composed plays of merit.
PART III
DRAMATIC THEORY
XIII
THE THEORY OF THE DRAMATIC ART
1. THE TREATISES ON DRAMATIC ART
Pāṇini, whose date falls doubtless before 300 B.C., alludes in his
grammar to the Naṭasūtras, books of rules for Naṭas, compiled by
Çilālin and Kṛçāçva, and Professor Hillebrandt [597] has suggested that
we should recognize in these works the earliest text-books of the
Indian drama. But we have no other suggestion that Pāṇini knew of
dramatic performances, and the only legitimate conclusion is that these
rules were laid down for the guidance of dancers or, perhaps,
pantomimes, and with this accords admirably the fact that the dramatic
tradition knows nothing of these names, and instead makes the sage
Bharata the eponymous hero of the drama. True it was Brahmā, highest of
gods, himself who, at the instance of the gods, produced as a
counterpart to the four Vedas, which contain the science of religion
and magic, the more mundane Nāṭya-Veda, consecrated to the drama, but
this Veda is not current among men. Bharata, on the other hand, whose
task it was to direct the production by the Apsarases in heaven of
plays for the delight of the gods and who thus had practical experience
of the art, has set forth for men the principles of the drama in the
Nāṭyaçāstra which, if not inspired, has at least a measure of sanctity,
and thus supplies an authoritative basis for practice.
The legend is interesting because it precisely interprets the spirit of
India towards authority; Bharata occupies in the theory of the drama a
place analogous to that of Pāṇini in grammar, but unfortunately the
Nāṭyaçāstra has fared badly in comparison with the Aṣṭādhyāyī, which
has, through the care of its commentators, come down to us in a form
but little changed from that it assumed in the hands of its author. The
work, which we have under the title Bhāratīya Nāṭyaçāstra, [598] is
extremely badly preserved in the manuscript tradition, a fact due in
part to the comparatively late date of any commentary upon it. We have
only a few references to an exposition of the Nāṭyaçāstra by Mātṛgupta,
a somewhat mysterious figure with a more or less legendary connexion
with Kālidāsa, with whom he has even been identified; [599] if we are
to place any faith in his contemporaneity with Kālidāsa, he may date
from the close of the fourth century A.D. It is significant that
tradition makes him for a time king of Kashmir, for it is to that
country we owe the commentaries of Çan̄kuka, who wrote the epic
Bhuvanābhyudaya under Ajitāpīḍa (A.D. 813–50), and of Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka,
who belongs to the period of Çan̄karavarman (A.D. 883–902). In the same
line of tradition is the great work of Abhinavagupta, the
Abhinavabhāratī, which has been lucky enough to come to light after
long oblivion, and which represents the erudition of the close of the
tenth century.
The treatise, as we have it, is elaborate, covering the whole ground
connected with the drama. It deals with the architecture of the
theatre, the scenery, and the dress and equipment of the actors; the
religious ceremonial to be observed at every representation; the music,
the dance, the movements and gestures of the actors, and their mode of
delivery; the division of rôles; the general characteristics of poetry;
the different classes of drama, and the emotions and sentiments which
form a vital element in the drama. There is confusion, complexity, and
repetition in the work, but that much of it is old cannot be doubted.
It appears clearly to be based on the examination of a dramatic
literature which has been lost, eclipsed by the more perfect dramas of
Kālidāsa and his successors. In the description of classes of drama we
seem to have hasty generalizations on insufficient material; the
Samavakāra, for instance, is described in terms which, with the precise
definition of the time to be occupied by the acts, can be interpreted
only as based on a single drama, and the Ḍima seems to have a similar
origin. The elaborate description of the preliminary scene or
Pūrvaran̄ga, which is practically non-existent in the classical drama,
suggests a period of a less cultivated taste. A more definite result
may be derived from comparison of the Nāṭyaçāstra with the works of
Açvaghoṣa and of Bhāsa. The Prākrits recognized by the Nāṭyaçāstra are
clearly later than those of Açvaghoṣa and more akin to those found in
Bhāsa; again the Nāṭyaçāstra recognizes the use of Ardha-Māgadhī, found
in these two dramatists, but not later, while, like them, he ignores
the Māhārāṣṭrī of the later dramas. Moreover Bhāsa expressly alludes to
a Nāṭyaçāstra [600] and it is most probable that both he and Kālidāsa
had knowledge of the prototype of the present text. That Bhāsa by no
means slavishly adheres to the rules of the Nāṭyaçāstra, either as
regards the formal mode of terminating his dramas or the exclusion of
scenes of death from the stage, [601] merely shows that when he wrote
the Çāstra had not attained any binding force. There is nothing to
contradict the date thus vaguely indicated, [602] for the treatment of
poetics in general is simple and early, and it is impossible to draw
any conclusion as to date from the remarks on music, apart altogether
from the constant possibility that incidental additions and alterations
have been made in the work.
It was inevitable that the complicated and confused work of Bharata
should be superseded for many purposes by something more accessible and
easy to follow, and this need was supplied by the Daçarūpa of
Dhanaṁjaya, son of Viṣṇu, and protégé of the ill-fated king Muñja of
Dhārā (974–95). The work takes its name from the ten primary forms of
drama recognized in the Nāṭyaçāstra, which is followed closely by
Dhanaṁjaya, his deviations being unimportant and trivial, such as a new
division of types of heroine or of the erotic sentiment. On the other
hand, Dhanaṁjaya omits by far the greater part of the topics of his
model; his four books of wooden verses treat first of the
subject-matter and plot; then of the hero, the heroine, and other
characters, and the language of the drama; thirdly of the prologue and
the different kinds of drama; and lastly of the emotions and
sentiments, thus concentrating attention on the essential dramatic
features. The text is naturally often unintelligible save in the light
of the Nāṭyaçāstra itself and of the commentary, Avaloka, which is
ascribed to Dhanika, son of Viṣṇu, and minister of Utpaladeva, a term
which is an alias of Muñja. The identity of the two writers is
suggested by the fact that later writers ascribe passages of the
Daçarūpa itself to Dhanika, and that without the commentary the work is
in a sense incomplete. But, on the other hand, in a few passages the
commentator more or less distinctly differs from the text, and it seems
sufficient to assume that they may have been brothers. The Avaloka must
have been completed after Muñja’s death, since it cites Padmagupta’s
Navasāhasān̄kacarita, which was written under Sindhurāja, and this
throws some doubt on the identification of Dhanika with the Dhanika
Paṇḍita to whose son, Vasantācārya, a land grant was made by Muñja in
A.D. 974. Dhanika quotes stanzas of his own in Sanskrit and Prākrit and
also a treatise, Kāvyanirṇaya, elsewhere unknown. [603]
Of the fourteenth century in all probability are three works of unequal
importance and merit. The Pratāparudrīya [604] of Vidyānātha is a
mediocre compilation from the Daçarūpa and the Kāvyaprakāça of Mammaṭa,
covering the whole field of poetics; it illustrates the formal rules of
the drama by the composition of a wretched drama in honour of
Pratāparudra of Warangal, whose inscriptions show dates from A.D. 1298
to 1314. Of much greater interest is Vidyādhara’s Ekāvalī; [605] like
Vidyānātha, the author celebrates in his illustrations of his text his
patron, in this case Narasiṅha II of Orissa, perhaps A.D. 1280–1314; as
a poet his merits are negligible, but he shows a lively interest in his
subject and intelligence in his views. Of greater popularity than
either is Viçvanātha Kavirāja, the author of the Sāhityadarpaṇa, [606]
a general treatise on poetics. His handling of the drama is based
largely on the Daçarūpa and its commentary, but he introduces a good
deal of matter from the Nāṭyaçāstra in his sixth chapter, including
details of the characteristics and ornaments of the drama, which the
Daçarūpa omits. In this Viçvanātha indicates his servile character,
which, however, renders his work the more valuable as an exposition of
the orthodox doctrine. Of his ancestry and his own works he makes free
mention, but the most definite evidence of his date is the existence in
the library at Jammu of a manuscript of his work whose date appears to
be A.D. 1383. The lack of order and the errors in his work are made the
basis of criticism by Rūpa Gosvāmin in the early part of the sixteenth
century, but his own Nāṭakacandrikā shows little improvement on the
work of his predecessor, whence it draws much of its material; its real
purpose is to eulogize the saint Caitanya, whose disciple Rūpa was and
in whose honour he composed dramas of no merit. Equally dependent on
Viçvanātha and the Daçarūpa is Sundaramiçra, whose Nāṭyapradīpa was
composed in A.D. 1613. Many other treatises on drama are known by name
or exist in manuscript, but none apparently of any great importance or
repute. Of the fourteenth century also is the Rasārṇavasudhākara [607]
of Çin̄ga Bhūpāla, lord of Rājācala and the land between the Vindhya and
Çrīçaila about A.D. 1330, who cites Vidyādhara.
The development of a theory of drama progressed in the closest relation
to the general theory of poetics, for the Indian theory of poetry does
not admit any distinction in essence between the aesthetic pleasure
produced by the drama and any other form of poetry. Thus we find in
Abhinavagupta in full application to the drama the theory of
suggestion, Dhvani, as the essence of poetry, which appeared in
strength about A.D. 800 and was rendered popular by Ānandavardhana
(A.D. 850) and by Abhinavagupta himself in his comment on the
Dhvanyāloka of the former. Attacked by Mahiman Bhaṭṭa, author of the
Vyaktiviveka (A.D. 1050), the doctrine was again developed with special
care by the Kashmirian Mammaṭa [608] at the close of the eleventh
century. In slightly varied forms it appears in Vidyānātha, Vidyādhara,
and Viçvanātha.
Apart from this important development, which, however, has no special
application to the drama, there is little progress in the course of the
literature. The later authorities are bound by the authority of the
Nāṭyaçāstra; they repeat unintelligently its descriptions of literary
forms such as the Ḍima, the Samavakāra, the Īhāmṛga, the Vīthī, and the
An̄ka, which had ceased to be in popular use, if indeed the definitions
of the Nāṭyaçāstra were not merely hasty generalizations from a single
play or so in every one of these cases. The most that they do is to
omit or to vary details, but not in independence; normally the changes
can be traced to variants in the text of the Çāstra or to maxims
current under Bharata’s name, though not included in the Çāstra as we
have it. Often the authors differ in the definition of terms in the
Çāstra which, as often in Sanskrit technical phrases, present ambiguity
and admit of various renderings. These divergences are especially
frequent in the long lists of characteristics and ornaments or the
different means of effecting dramatic results; the Indian love of
meaningless subdivision here can indulge itself to its fullest and
least profitable extent. A rich variety of such ambiguities is apparent
in the verses in which the Agni Purāṇa [609] describes the drama,
including dancing and the mimetic art, true to its aim to constitute
itself a treasure-house of all learning, popular as well as divine. The
chief value of the work is the occasional light which it throws on the
variants in the text of the Çāstra, and its comparative antiquity, for
it is cited in the Sāhityadarpaṇa and is probably some centuries older.
2. THE NATURE AND THE TYPES OF THE DRAMA
A drama is the imitation or representation of the conditions or
situations (avasthānukṛti) [610] in which the personages who form the
subject of treatment are placed from time to time, by means of gesture,
speech, costume, and expression, and, one version of the definition
adds, the situations must be such as to produce pleasure or pain, that
is, they must be tinged with emotion. It is the presence of these
ancillaries which distinguishes the drama from an ordinary poem; a poem
appeals to the ear only, a drama is also a spectacle to delight the
eyes; hence the term Rūpa or Rūpaka as applied generically to the
drama, for Rūpa primarily denotes the object of vision, though the
Indian tradition gives the artificial explanation that Rūpaka denotes a
drama because the actors are credited with different parts.
Further light is shown on the nature of drama (nāṭya) by the
discrimination of it from dance (nṛtta) and mimetic art (nṛtya), which
united with song and speech serve to make up the drama. [611] The dance
is based on time and rhythm; the mimetic art is concerned with
representing the feelings or emotions (bhāva), while the essence of the
drama is the sentiment (rasa) which it evokes in the spectator, a fact
which places it on a higher level than either of its handmaidens. But
there may be dramas in which these auxiliaries take first place, and on
this fact is based a distinction between the primary forms, Rūpakas, in
which the poetry is the dominant element and the secondary forms,
Uparūpakas. Of Rūpakas ten are distinguished, Nāṭaka, Prakaraṇa, Bhāṇa,
Prahasana, Ḍima, Vyāyoga, Samavakāra, Vīthī, An̄ka, and Īhāmṛga, which
vary in regard to subject-matter (vastu), hero or heroine, and
sentiment.
3. THE SUBJECT-MATTER AND THE PLOT
The scene of the plot must be laid in India, and the period must be one
of the three ages succeeding the Golden Age, for pleasure and pain,
essential elements as we have seen in the drama, cannot be experienced
elsewhere than in Bhāratavarṣa, and even there they do not exist in the
age of happiness unalloyed. [612] Otherwise the choice is free; the
poet may take an incident familiar from tradition (prakhyāta), or may
invent his plot (utpādya) or may combine both forms (miçra). But, if he
follows a current legend, it is necessary that he shall not ruin the
effect of it by incongruous invention; he must confine his ingenuity to
episodes, for otherwise the audience will be painfully disturbed by
departure from tradition. On the other hand, it is not merely
legitimate but also necessary that the dramatist should ennoble his
hero, if tradition assigns to him deeds incompatible with the character
which he normally exhibits. [613] The epic is not encumbered with such
considerations; it can represent Duḥṣanta as merely forgetful of his
vows to Çakuntalā, but Kālidāsa must clear the character of the king
from this seeming baseness by attributing his loss of memory to a curse
provoked by a negligence of the heroine herself. The Rāmāyaṇa admits,
and seeks to explain, if not convincingly, the death of Vālin, king of
the monkeys, at the hands of the virtuous Rāma; Māyurāja in the
Udāttarāghava passes over the episode in silence, while Bhavabhūti,
with greater boldness, in the Mahāvīracarita perverts tradition to
represent Vālin as an ally of Rāvaṇa, and as slain by Rāma in
legitimate self-defence, and exonerates Kaikeyī.
The subject-matter takes two forms, the principal (ādhikārika) and the
incidental (prāsan̄gika) actions. The first owes its name to the fact
that it is connected with the attainment (adhikāra) of the purpose of
the hero, whether that be love, or some material interest, or duty, or
two or all of these. In the incidental action the end achieved is not
that aimed at by the hero, but it serves as a means towards the
fruition of his aims. [614] The incidental action may take the
dimension of an episode (patākā), as is the case with the exploits of
Sugrīva as an ally of Rāma, or it may be a mere incident (prakarī), as
in Act VI of the Çakuntalā the scene in which the two attendants
converse. [615]
An action, when developed in full, as normally it is in the Nāṭaka, the
most perfect of forms of drama, involves of necessity five stages of
development (avasthā); [616] there must be as the beginning (ārambha)
the desire to attain some end, which leads on to the determined effort
(prayatna) to secure the object of desire; this leads to the stage in
which success is felt to be possible (prāptyāçā, prāptisambhava) having
regard to the means available and the obstacles in the way of
achievement; then arrives the certainty of success (niyatāpti), if only
some specific difficulty can be surmounted; and finally the object is
attained (phalāgama). Thus in the Çakuntalā we have the king’s first
anticipation of seeing the heroine, then his eagerness to find a device
to meet her again; in Act IV we learn that the anger of the sage,
Durvāsas, has in some measure been appeased, and the possibility of the
reunion of the king and Çakuntalā now exists; in Act VI the discovery
of the ring brings back to the king remembrance, and the way for a
reunion is paved, to be attained in the following act. The Ratnāvalī,
no less perfect an example of the minor type, the Nāṭikā, reveals to us
the aims of the minister to secure the union of the heroine and the
king; a definite step to this end is taken when the heroine decides to
depict the face of Vatsa on the canvas; in Act II the lovers are united
for the moment, but subject to the risk of discovery by the queen; then
the king recognizes that his success in love depends on winning the
queen’s favour, which is successfully accomplished in the last act.
There are also five elements of the plot (arthaprakṛti), [617] which
the theory not very accurately parallels with the five stages of the
action. The first is the germ (bīja) whence springs the action, as in
the Ratnāvalī from Yaugandharāyaṇa’s scheme to secure the princess for
the king. The second, with change of metaphor, is the drop (bindu)
which spreads out as oil on water; the course of the drama, which has
seemed to be interrupted, is again set in activity; thus in the
Ratnāvalī, when the festival of the god of love is over, the princess
gives a decisive impulse to the motion of the drama by recognizing in
him, whom she deemed the god himself, the king for whom she was
destined as a bride. The other three elements are the episode, the
incident, and the dénouement (kārya).
Based on these parallel sets is a third division of the junctures [618]
(sandhi), which carry each of the stages of the action to its natural
close. They are the opening (mukha), progression (pratimukha),
development (garbha), pause (vimarça), and conclusion (nirvahaṇa),
corresponding clearly and closely with the stages [619] set out above.
Thus in the Çakuntalā the opening extends from Act I to the point in
Act II where the general departs; the progression begins with the
king’s confession to the Vidūṣaka of his deep love, and extends to the
close of Act III. The development occupies Acts IV and V, up to the
point where Gautamī uncovers the face of Çakuntalā; at this moment the
curse darkens the mind of the king, who, instead of rejoicing in
reunion with his wife, pauses in reflection, and this pause in the
action extends to the close of Act VI, while the conclusion is achieved
in the last Act. In the Ratnāvalī the opening extends to that point in
Act II, where Ratnāvalī decides to depict the king as the only means of
gazing on him whom she loves, but from whom she is jealously kept by
the queen; the progression extends then to the close of the Act; the
development occupies Act III, while the pause, due to the intervention
of the queen, is brought to an end by the mock fire of the palace in
Act IV, and the remaining portion of that Act gives the conclusion.
So far there is obviously force and reason in the analysis, which, if
in needless elaboration, recognizes the essential need of a dramatic
conflict, of obstacles to be overcome by the hero and heroine in their
efforts to secure abiding union. The classification of elements of the
plot is perhaps superfluous beside the junctures; its parallelism to
the other two divisions is faulty, for it is admitted that the episode
is not confined to the development, as it should be, but may extend
into the pause and even into the conclusion. [620] The episode again is
credited with sub-junctures, to be fewer in number than the junctures,
and even the incident is permitted on one view to have incomplete
junctures. [621] But far more complex is the insistence on the
subdivision of the five junctures into 64 members (12, 13, 12, 13, and
14 respectively). The distribution, however, has no real value, for,
though Rudraṭa [622] asserts that the members should only be used in
the juncture to which they are assigned, other authorities decline to
admit this view, on the score of the usage of the dramatists, which is
the supreme norm. Not all of these members need be used; it is a fault
in the Veṇīsaṁhāra that the poet drags in the separation of Duryodhana
from Bhānumatī in Act II for no better reason than to comply with the
rules. [623] When used, they should be essentially subservient to the
sentiment which the piece seeks to create; [624] they should either
treat the subject chosen, expand the plot, increase interest, produce
surprise, represent the parties in action, or conceal what should be
concealed; the hero or his rival should appear in them, or at any rate
they should flow from the germ and lead up to the dénouement. Some must
be included in any drama, since one without any would be like a man
without limbs, and, adroitly used, they may give merit to a mediocre
subject-matter. But the definitions and the classifications are without
substantial interest or value.
A distinction must be made between such things as can properly be shown
on the stage, and such as must only be alluded to. [625] What is seen
should essentially serve to produce the sentiment aimed at, and it must
avoid offending the feelings of the audience. Hence it is improper to
portray on the stage such events as a national calamity, the downfall
of a king, the siege of a town, a battle, killing, or death, all of
them painful. It is equally forbidden to depict a marriage or other
[626] religious rite, or such domestic details as eating, sleeping,
bathing, or anointing the body, amorous dalliance, scratching with
nails or teeth, or such ill-omened things as curses. But these rules
are not without exception early or late; if Bhāsa does not hesitate as
in the Ūrubhan̄ga to depict death on the stage, Rājaçekhara in his
Viddhaçālabhañjikā describes the marriage ceremonial in Act III, and in
the following Act shows us the wife of Cārāyaṇa asleep, while the
author of the Pārvatīpariṇaya does not hesitate to choose as his theme
the nuptials of Çiva and Pārvatī. Nor do dramatists decline to
represent death if the dead person is restored to life, as in the
Nāgānanda. [627] A long journey, or calling from a distance, [628] is
excluded from representation for obvious reasons of practicability.
Such matters as are appropriate for presentation must be presented in
Acts, and each Act must contain only such events as can naturally, or
by skilful management, be made to occupy the duration of a single day,
[629] a requisite which is obeyed by Bhavabhūti in his Mahāvīracarita
and by Rājaçekhara in his Bālarāmāyaṇa despite the difficulties
presented by the effort thus to condense the epic. But it is essential
that the events described shall not be disconnected; they must flow
from the same cause, or issue naturally from one another. There should
be an effective development of the plot within the Act; at the time
when it comes to an end by the departure of the actors—three or four at
most, one of whom should be the hero—at the moment when they seemed to
have attained their immediate aims, a new motive should come into play,
and a fresh impetus be given to the movement of the drama. But it is
neither necessary nor usual that Act should follow Act without
interval; on the contrary, anything up to a year may intervene between
the action of one Act and that of the next; if the events as recorded
in history covered more than that time, as in the case of Rāma’s
fourteen years of banishment in the forest, the poet must reduce the
period to a year or less. To reveal to the audience the events during
such intervals the theory permits a choice of five forms of scenes of
introduction (arthopakṣepaka), which serve also to narrate things,
whose performance on the stage is forbidden by the etiquette of the
drama. [630]
Two of these are the Viṣkambha or Viṣkambhaka and the Praveçaka, which
are both explanatory scenes, but between which the theory draws fine
distinctions. The Viṣkambhaka is performed by not more than two
persons, [631] never of chief rank; it serves to explain the past or
the future, and it may be used at the beginning of a drama where it is
not desired to arouse sentiment at the outset. It is pure (çuddha) if
the performers are of middle rank and speak Sanskrit; mixed (saṁkīrṇa)
when the characters are of middle and inferior class and use also
Prākrit. The Praveçaka cannot be used at the beginning of a drama, and
is confined to inferior characters, who use Prākrit. Thus in the
Çakuntalā Act III is introduced by a Viṣkambhaka, in which a young
disciple of the sage Kaṇva tells us in Sanskrit of the king’s stay at
the hermitage, while in Act VI a Praveçaka gives the episode of the
fisherman and the police. An abbreviated mode of producing the same
result is the Cūlikā, [632] in which a voice from behind the curtain
narrates some essential event, as when in Act IV of the Mahāvīracarita
we learn thus of the defeat of Paraçurāma by Rāma. In the An̄kamukha, or
anticipatory scene, at the close of one Act a character alludes to the
subject of the following Act; thus at the end of Act II in the
Mahāvīracarita Sumantra announces the arrival of Vasiṣṭha, Viçvāmitra,
and Paraçurāma, and these three open Act III. A different view is taken
by Viçvanātha, who makes it out to be a part of an Act in which
allusion is made to the subject-matter of the following Acts and the
whole plot, as is done in the dialogue of Avalokitā and Kāmandakī in
Act I of the Mālatīmādhava. This is evidently an attempt to justify the
treatment of this form of scene as revealing matters which cannot
conveniently be depicted on the stage, as well as to distinguish it
from the An̄kāvatāra or continuation scene, in which the action is
continued by the characters in the next Act without any break, other
than the technical one of the departure of the actors and their return,
as at the close of Act I of the Mālavikāgnimitra. Such a scene
obviously in no way answers the purpose of explanation, and its
assignment to such an end is clearly erroneous.
Various devices are recognized to help the movement of the intrigue,
five of which are classed as internal junctures (antarasandhi). [633]
The first of these is the dream, as in the Veṇīsaṁhāra where Bhānumatī
is terrified by a vision in which she sees an ichneumon (nakula) slay a
hundred snakes, dread presage of the fall of the hundred Kauravas
before the attack of Nakula and his brothers. The letter serves in the
Çakuntalā, Act III, to allow the heroine to express her feelings
towards the king; she reads it aloud and he overhears it and breaks in
upon her; more often it serves the important end of conveying news,
leading to dramatic action. A message serves the same end, as when in
the Çakuntalā, Act VI, Mātali brings to the king Indra’s message
imploring aid against the demons. A voice from behind the scene
(nepathyokti) in Act I of that play warns Duḥṣanta not to kill the
gazelle of the hermitage, and a voice in the air (ākāçabhāṣita) in Act
IV makes known to Kaṇva on his return the important news of Çakuntalā’s
marriage and approaching motherhood. The Nāṭyaçāstra [634] ignores the
term internal junctures, but has the term special junctures or
divisions of junctures (sandhyantara) which includes the dream, the
letter, and the message, among many other miscellaneous elements; two
of these are akin to those already mentioned. The picture is used in
the Ratnāvalī as the mode by which the heroine satisfies her longing
for her beloved, while Vāsavadattā discovers Vatsa’s infidelity through
seeing the portrait of Sāgarikā, painted beside that of the king by the
mischievous Susaṁgatā. Intoxication (mada) may result as in the
Mālavikāgnimitra, Act III, in the letting fall of imprudent words by an
important character. Other devices might have been included in the
list, such as that of assuming a disguise on the stage, a device used
by Harṣa in the Ratnāvalī and the Priyadarçikā in order to secure the
inconstant king uninterrupted interviews with the objects of his
temporary affections. The latter play contains in Act III a good
example of the embryo Act (garbhān̄ka), [635] which is recognized by the
theory but not classed as a species of juncture; in it Vāsavadattā
causes her maids of honour to perform before her a play representing
her early adventures with Vatsa. So in the Uttararāmacarita Vālmīki has
performed by the Apsarases before Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa the adventures of
Sītā since her banishment, and the events of her marriage are described
in this form in the Bālarāmāyaṇa, Act III.
Similarly the theory recognizes as a separate element the pro-episode
(patākāsthānaka), [636] an equivocal speech or situation which
foreshadows an event whether near at hand or distant. The Nāṭyaçāstra
distinguishes four kinds of equivoke. An ambiguous situation may result
in bringing about the aim of the hero; thus in Act III of the
Ratnāvalī, when Vatsa hastens to save Vāsavadattā, as he thinks, from
hanging herself, he finds to his equal joy and surprise that he has
rescued none other than Sāgarikā herself. [637] Or the equivocation may
lie in words, whose sense the spectator alone grasps in its deeper
application; thus in Act II of the Çakuntalā a voice behind the scene
bids the female Cakravāka say farewell to her spouse, a command whose
application to the case of the king and the heroine is immediately
appreciated by the audience alone. Or the equivocation may be
deliberately conveyed in the response of the actor, whose words apply
not merely to the immediate matter in hand, but allude to the future;
in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act II, Duryodhana is told of the mishap of the
breaking of his standard by the fierce (bhīma) wind in words which
presage his own fall, his thigh broken by Bhīma’s blow. Finally we may
have a double entendre which later is destined to find a third
application; in the Ratnāvalī Vatsa playfully suggests that his earnest
gaze on the creeper, which has borne blossoms out of season, may cause
jealousy in the queen; his words apply equally to a maiden, and in the
sequel the queen is made furiously angry by his ardent gaze at
Sāgarikā. The Daçarūpa contents itself with two species, equivocation
of situation and deliberate equivocation of phrase, but there is
general agreement that pro-episodes may be used in any part of the play
and not merely in the first four junctures.
Importance attaches to the conventions which enable the author to
surmount difficulties inseparable from the dramatic form. [638]
Normally, of course, the actors speak aloud (prakāçam), to be heard by
all those on the stage as well as by the audience, but asides
(svagatam, ātmagatam) are frequent, meant to be heard by the audience
alone. If the need arises for making a remark to be heard by one actor
only, it is made in the form of a confidence (apavāritam, apavārya),
while a private conversation (janāntikam) is arranged by the actors
holding up three fingers, the thumb and ring finger being curved
inwards. Or, it is possible to avoid bringing on a person by speaking
in the air (ākāçabhāṣita), pretending to hear the reply, and repeating
it before answering it, while a similar purpose can be served by a
voice from behind the scene.
The number of Acts which a play should contain varies according to the
nature of the drama; in the Nāṭaka the number must be at least five,
and may be ten; in other cases one Act suffices. Normally the Acts are
simply numbered; in some cases, as in that of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, names
are given, doubtless not by the poet.
4. THE CHARACTERS
The hero owes his name, Nāyaka, to the fact that it is he who leads
(nī) the events to the conclusion which he has set before him, in so
far as such a result is permitted by human frailty and the force of
circumstances. His good qualities are innumerable [639]; he must be
modest as is Rāma in depreciating his own prowess in comparison with
that of Paraçurāma whom he has vanquished; handsome, generous like
Jīmūtavāhana, prompt and skilled in action, affable, beloved of his
people, of high family, ready of speech, and steadfast. He must be
young, and endowed with intelligence, energy, a good memory, skill in
the arts, and just pride; a hero, firm, glorious, skilled in the
sciences, and an observer of law. More useful is the distinction drawn
between types of hero [640]; all are noble or self-controlled (dhīra),
a characteristic not universally found in heroines, but they are
distinguished as light-hearted or gay (lalita), calm (çānta) exalted
(udātta), and haughty or vehement (uddhata).
The light-hearted hero is one free from care, a lover of the arts, and
above all a devotee of love; he is normally a king whose public burdens
are confided to others, and whose one business it is to secure union
with a new favourite by overcoming the obstacles interposed by the not
unnatural jealousy of his queen or queens; such beyond all is Vatsa in
Bhāsa and Harṣa’s dramas. The calm hero differs primarily from the
light-hearted hero by reason of his birth, for he is a Brahmin or
merchant, such as Mādhava in the Mālatīmādhava and Cārudatta in the
Daridracārudatta and the Mṛcchakaṭikā; the hero of the Prakaraṇa, or
comedy of manners, normally is of this class. The exalted hero is a
character of great strength and nobility, firm of purpose, but free
from vanity, forbearing, and without egotism. Of such a type are
generals, ministers and high officials, and Jīmūtavāhana in the
Nāgānanda. An instructive controversy rages round this description of
Jīmūtavāhana; to be exalted, it is argued, implies the desire of
superiority, but Jīmūtavāhana renounces every dream of empire and is a
model of calm, of boundless pity, and freedom from passion save,
indeed, as regards his love for Malayavatī, which is inconsistent with
the general nature of his character. He should really be ranked among
the calm heroes, with the Buddha himself, disregarding the meaningless
convention which excludes kings from that category. Dhanika [641]
effectively defends the classification of Jīmūtavāhana by insisting
that he is not without desire, namely that of saving others at the cost
of his own life; the desires he lays aside are wishes for personal
advantage which Kālidāsa rightly censures in a king; his love for
Malayavatī is wholly inconsistent with calmness, which, on the
contrary, is in fact as in drama a characteristic of Brahmins, and it
distinguishes him absolutely from the Buddha, who is exempt from
passion. The haughty hero is a victim of pride and jealousy, an adept
in magic arts and ruses, self-assertive, fickle, irascible, and
boastful; Paraçurāma illustrates this character.
The chief hero in any drama must be essentially true to one or other of
those types; any change would spoil the unity of the development of the
drama, and, if necessary, changes must be made in the plot, as in the
case of Rāma’s dealings with Vālin, to preserve the unity of character.
In the case of the secondary hero there is no need for such
consistency; he may change in different situations, and his lack of
consistency tends merely to heighten the impression caused by the
constancy of the hero. Thus Paraçurāma appears in the Mahāvīracarita
[642] as exalted in his attitude to the evil Rāvaṇa, as haughty towards
the untried Rāma, and as calm when he has experienced the superior
prowess of that hero. It is obvious that there is difficulty in
conceiving as a chief hero one of the haughty type, and the theory does
not provide us with one, for Paraçurāma is only a secondary hero.
As the Sanskrit drama deals usually with love, the theory has another
division of types of hero based on their attitude to women. [643] The
courteous (dakṣiṇa) hero is one who can find room in his heart for more
loves than one; he seeks another to the deep grief of the old, but he
does not cease to feel affection for his earlier love; such are the
heroes of the Nāṭikā, or short heroic comedy, like Vatsa. He may not be
regarded as either deceitful (çaṭha), or shameless (dhṛṣṭa), for these
two types represent heroes who have ceased to love their former flame,
and differ only in so far as they seek to deceive her, or are
indifferent to her anger and bear open traces of the new attachment.
Men like Vatsa never allow passion to dominate them; if a woman spurns
them they are ready to leave her. The fourth type is the loyal
(anukūla) lover who is faithful to one woman only, as is Rāma. As these
four types are applicable to each class of hero, there are sixteen
possible kinds of hero, and the theory adds the further complication
that each of these may be a high class, middle class, or inferior
person, giving forty-eight types.
As if the enumeration of the general characteristics of the hero were
insufficient, a set of eight special excellencies [644] is enumerated
separately as springing from his character (sāttvika). These are
brilliance (çobhā), including compassion for inferiors, emulation with
superiors, heroism, and cleverness; vivacity (vilāsa), including a firm
step and glance and a laughing voice; grace (mādhurya) manifested in
the display of but slight change of demeanour in trying circumstances;
impassivity (gāmbhīrya) or superiority to emotion; steadfastness
(sthairya) in accomplishing his object despite obstacles; the sense of
honour (tejas) which will punish insult even at the cost of life
itself; lightheartedness as grace of deportment; and nobility (audārya)
exhibited in sacrifice for the sake of the good.
The enemy of the hero (pratināyaka) [645] is self-controlled and
vehement (dhīroddhata); but he is also avaricious, stubborn, criminal,
and vicious; such are Rāvaṇa and Duryodhana as contrasted with Rāma and
Yudhiṣṭhira. On the other hand, the hero of the episode, the companion
(pīṭhamarda) [646] of the hero, is to possess, but in a less degree,
the qualities of the hero; he is to be intelligent, ever in attendance
on the hero, and devoted to his interests, as are Makaranda in the
Mālatīmādhava and Sugrīva in the dramas based on the Rāma legend. The
term, however, is unknown to these plays, while in the Mālavikāgnimitra
the nun Kauçikī is styled a Pīṭhamardikā, and serves as a trusted
go-between. The theory here seems to have stereotyped a relationship
commoner in an older type of drama.
The heroine, Nāyikā, [647] plays a part in the economy of the drama
similar to that of the hero, and not of less importance. The types of
heroine depend primarily on her relation to the hero; she may be his
wife (svā, svīyā) or belong to another (anyā, anyastrī) or be a
hetaera. The hero’s wife must be upright and of good character, but she
may be inexperienced (mugdhā), partly experienced (madhyā), or fully
experienced and bold (pragalbhā). The inexperienced wife is shy in her
love and gentle in her anger with her spouse’s infidelities. The partly
experienced is full of the love of youth, and even faints in her
passion; when angry, if self-controlled, she chides her husband with
double entendres; if but partly controlled, she allows her tears to aid
her reproaches; if uncontrolled, she adds harsh words. The bold wife is
frantically in love, fainting at the first embrace; when angry, if
self-controlled, she adopts an attitude of haughty reserve and
indifference to the pleasures of life; if lacking in self-control, she
uses threats and blows; if partly self-controlled, she employs the
weapons of raillery and equivoke. A further division is possible, for
each of these three kinds of heroine may be subdivided according as the
lady is the earlier or later of the loves of the husband.
A woman, who is in the power of another, may be the wife of another man
or a maiden. An amour with a married woman may not form the subject of
the dominant sentiment in the play, but that for a maiden may occur as
an element in the principal or the secondary action. Even when a parent
or guardian is willing to permit a maiden’s marriage, there may be
other obstacles, as in the case of the love of Mālatī and Mādhava and
in Vatsa’s numerous amours. The woman who is common to all (sādhāraṇī)
is a courtesan, skilled in the arts, bold, and cunning; she accepts as
lovers the rich, the foolish, the self-willed, the selfish, and the
impotent so long as their money lasts, then she has them turned out of
doors by her mother, who acts as go-between. If she is a heroine, she
must be represented as in love, like Vasantasenā in the Mṛcchakaṭikā,
except in a Prahasana or farce, where she can be depicted as fleecing
her lovers for comic effect; she must not figure as a heroine if the
hero is divine or royal.
The heroine may occupy eight different relations to her lover. [648]
She may be his absolute mistress (svādhīnapatikā) and he her obedient
slave; she may be awaiting him in full dress (vāsakasajjā); she may be
distressed by his involuntary absence (virahotkaṇṭhitā), enraged
(khaṇḍitā) at discovering him disfigured by the marks of her rival’s
teeth and nails, or be severed from her beloved by a quarrel
(kalahāntaritā) and suffer remorse, or be deceived (vipralabdhā) by a
lover who fails to meet her at the rendezvous which she has named. Her
lover may be absent abroad (proṣitapriyā), or she may have to seek him
out or press him to come to her (abhisārikā), giving as meeting-place a
ruined temple, a garden, the house of a go-between, a cemetery, the
bank of a stream, or in general any dark place. The first two classes
of heroine are bright and gay, the others are wearied, tearful,
changing colour, sighing, and wear no ornaments as token of their
dejection. A woman, who is subject to another, cannot stand in all
these relations to a lover; she may be distressed at his absence,
deceived, or driven to seek him out, but she cannot be enraged, for she
is not the mistress of her lover, and thus the king’s courtesy to
Mālavikā in Kālidāsa’s play is not to be treated as an effort to
appease an enraged heroine.
The heroine is accorded even a more generous allowance of excellencies
than the hero. [649] The first three are physical, the first display of
emotion in a nature previously exempt (bhāva), the movement of eyes and
brows betokening the awakening of love (hāva), and the still more open
manifestation of affection. The next seven are inherent characteristics
of the heroine; the brilliance of youth and passion; the added touch of
loveliness given by love, sweetness, radiance, courage, dignity, and
self-control. Then come ten graces; the sportive imitation of the
movements or words of the beloved one, the swift change of aspect at
his arrival, tasteful arrangement of one’s ornaments to increase
radiance of appearance, studied confusion of ornaments, hysteria
(kilakiñcita), in which anger, fear, joy, and tears mingle,
manifestations of affection (moṭṭāyita) on hearing the beloved
mentioned or seeing his portrait, pretended anger (kuṭṭamita) on the
lover touching hair or lip, affected indifference (bibboka), born of
excess of pride, a graceful pose (lalita), and the bashfulness which
forbids speech even when an opportunity presents itself. To these
twenty Viçvanātha adds eight more graces; the pride which is vain of
youth and beauty, the ennui which besets the maiden in her lover’s
absence, the naïveté which displays itself in pretended ignorance and
innocence, the distraction evinced by ornaments in disorder, wandering
glances, and truant words, curiosity, the meaningless laugh of youth
and high spirits, the tremors of fear causeless but common in the
presence of the lover, and the sportive play of young affection. The
same source gives us in great detail the modes in which the different
types of heroine display their affection, in maidenly modesty or in
shameless boldness, an analysis showing keen and deep insight into all
the outward manifestations of love at an Indian court. Less
praiseworthy is the perverse ingenuity which enumerates the different
types of heroine, and educes first 128 from the combination of the
eight forms of relationship to the lover with the sixteen kinds based
on the division of wife, another’s, and hetaera. These are then
multiplied by three on the basis of the division of all characters as
high class, middle class, and low class.
The same division of classes is applied to all the other characters
(pātra) which can appear in a play, but a much more fundamental
classification is that by sex, masculine, feminine, and neuter. Most of
the rôles are such as are incidental to the life of a palace, for the
normal drama deals with the amours of a king, and his entourage and
that of the queen account for practically all the normal characters of
the drama.
The king’s confidant and devoted friend is the Vidūṣaka, [650] a
Brahmin, ludicrous alike in dress, speech, and behaviour. He is a
misshapen dwarf, baldheaded, with projecting teeth and red eyes, who
makes himself ridiculous by his silly chatter in Prākrit, and his greed
for food and presents of every kind. It is a regular part of the play
for the other characters to make fun of him, but he is always by the
king’s side, and the latter makes him his confidant in all his affairs
of the heart, while the Vidūṣaka repays him by willing, if frequently
incompetent or unlucky, attempts at service. The theorists offer no
explanation of the anomaly of a Brahmin in such a curious position, but
Açvaghoṣa already has the figure, as has Bhāsa, though not in his epic
dramas, and later he is established as almost an essential feature in
all dramas not derived from the epic; the chief exception is the
Mālatīmādhava, where, however, his place is taken by the hero’s friend
in sport (narmasuhṛd).
A much less common, but an interesting character is that of the Viṭa,
[651] who resembles, though distantly, the parasite of the Greek drama;
he is a poet skilled in the arts, especially music, acquainted au fond
with the ways of hetaerae, in short a perfect man of the world with
literary and artistic culture to boot. He is an essential figure in the
Bhāṇa, or monologue, in which he relates his own shady adventures, but
in other forms of drama he plays but a small part; Kālidāsa and
Bhavabhūti ignore him, and, while Harṣa depicts him in the Nāgānanda,
his position there is episodic; in the Mṛcchakaṭikā alone does he
attain full development in his relation to the boastful Çakāra. Both
these figures appear also in the Cārudatta, Çūdraka’s model. The
Çakāra, [652] brother of a royal concubine, is of low caste, easily
angered and appeased, fond of fine raiment, and proud of his office, in
which, however, he shows himself corrupt and incompetent. He is found
also in an episode of the Çakuntalā, but then fades from the drama
leaving, however, a clear suggestion of its early history.
The king requires in his amours the aid of a messenger (dūta) [653] as
well as for more serious affairs. The holder of this rôle must be
possessed of loyalty, energy, courage, a good memory, and adroitness;
he may be given full powers to act as seems best in each emergency, or
have limited authority, or be a mere bearer of a message. Others
intimately associated with the royal household are the servants (ceṭa),
[654] the mercenaries, Kirātas or Mlecchas, the chaplain, priest, and
other theologians. There are also those employed in the government of
the realm, which the king is only too pleased to neglect. [655] The
minister (mantrin, amātya) is of good family, of high intelligence,
skilled in affairs human and divine, and devoted to the interests of
the country. The general (senāpati) is also of high birth, incapable of
weakness, skilled in both the theory and the practice of war, and kind
of speech; ready to note the weakness of the enemy and to direct at the
suitable moment a campaign against him. The judge (prāḍvivāka) must be
master of the laws and of judicial procedure, absolutely impartial,
devoted to his duty, free from anger or pride, master of himself. The
other officers are required to possess high qualities of intelligence,
activity, and devotion to duty, while for less important work the king
commands the services of foresters, military officers, and soldiers.
The prince royal (kumāra) and the friend are also mentioned in the
Nāṭyaçāstra, but without detail.
Of women’s rôles [656] the most important in dignity is that of the
chief queen (mahādevī), the equal in age and rank of her husband, whose
lapses in affection wound her, without robbing her of her sense of
self-respect or dignity. In good fortune or evil she is devoted to him
and seeks ever his welfare. The queen (devī) is also a daughter of a
king, but she is more proud than dignified, and, intoxicated by her
youth and beauty, her mind is set on the pleasures of love. The
favourite (svāminī) is the daughter of a general or a minister,
seductive by her beauty and intelligence, honoured by the king and
others. There are other types of concubine (sthāyinī and bhoginī) with
characteristics but little distinctive. The harem includes also the
chief attendants (āyukta), who are charged with the supreme oversight
of some department of the court, the king’s personal attendant who is
always with him (anucārikā), the maid who performs his toilet and holds
over him the umbrella of state, the women—called sometimes Yavanīs,
once Greek maidens—who act as his body-guard, and those aged women who
are skilled in political traditions and are respected on that score.
There are also the princess, ingénue and modest, and the duenna
(mahattarā), who among other things sees to the punctual performance of
auspicious rites, and the more humble adepts in the dance, in song, in
handicrafts, in acting, and in the favourite amusement of swinging the
ladies of the harem. The hetaera is painted in attractive colours; she
is thoroughly well educated, exempt from the normal defects of women,
kind of heart, adroit, active, a born coquette, and seductive in every
way. Special importance among these feminine rôles attaches to that of
the heroine’s messenger, the counterpart of the hero’s agent. She may
be a friend, a slave, a foster-sister, a neighbour, a workwoman, or an
artiste, or strangely enough, a nun, usually of Buddhist connexions, a
curious and interesting sidelight on Indian views of the devotees of
that faith. The doorkeeper (pratīhārī) has the function of announcing
to the king such political events as the declaration of war and the
conclusion of peace.
The neuter rôles [657] are filled by men who have either taken vows of
chastity, or have been deprived of virility in order to permit of their
employment in the harem. The Snātaka is a Brahmin, who has completed
his course of religious study, is familiar with religious and social
affairs; he resides within the palace. The chamberlain (kañcukin) is an
old Brahmin, worn out in the service of the king, but still mentally
alert and skilled in his business of conveying the royal orders in the
palace. The eunuchs (varṣadhara, nirmuṇḍa, upasthāyika) are effeminate
and cowardly but not lacking in savoir faire; they find employment in
the king’s amours.
The nomenclature [658] of the characters is in some measure regulated
by rule; the name of a hetaera should end in dattā, senā, or siddhā, as
does that of Vasantasenā in the Cārudatta; that of a merchant in datta
as in Cārudatta; that of the Vidūṣaka from spring or a flower, but in
the Avimāraka he is styled Saṁtuṣṭa; that of a servant, male or female,
should be derived from some object, which occurs in descriptions of the
seasons, &c., as in the names Kalahaṅsa and Mandārikā in the
Mālatīmādhava; those of Kāpālikas, a species of ascetics, should end in
ghaṇṭa as in Aghoraghaṇṭa in the same play.
There is also an elaborate etiquette [659] as to the mode of addressing
the diverse personages. A king is styled thus by ascetics, but Deva or
Svāmin by his courtiers; his charioteer and Brahmins generally hail him
as Āyuṣmant, ‘long-lived’, while inferiors style him Bhaṭṭa, ‘master’.
The crown prince is styled Svāmin, like his father; the other princes
of the blood (bhartṛdāraka), but also common people, Bhadramukha or
Saumya, preceded by he in the latter case, terms designed to conciliate
by attributing to those addressed the qualities they are desired to
show. [660] The style Bhagavant, ‘blessed’, is appropriate to the gods,
to great sages and saints; Ārya, ‘noble’, is appropriate to Brahmins,
ministers, and elder brothers, while a wife should address her husband
as Āryaputra. Sages address an ascetic as Sādhu; ministers are styled
Amātya or Saciva; the king calls his Vidūṣaka, and is called by him,
Vayasya, ‘friend’. Sugṛhītābhidha, ‘well named one’, is the address
[661] of a pupil to his master, a son to a father, or a younger to an
elder brother, while the latter in return uses Tāta or Vatsa, both
affectionate and condescending terms, suitable also for use to a son,
or any person who owes one respect. Heretics should be given the styles
they affect, thus a Buddhist should be hailed as Bhadanta; Çakas should
be styled by such terms as Bhadradatta. The interjection Haṅho may be
used between men of middle rank, Haṇḍe between common people. The
Vidūṣaka addresses the queen and her ladies as Bhavatī; otherwise the
queen is styled Bhaṭṭinī or Svāminī, a wife as Āryā, a princess
Bhartṛdārikā, a hetaera Ajjukā, a go-between or aged dame Ambā; Halā is
used between friends of equal rank, Hañjā is addressed to a servant.
5. THE SENTIMENTS
The most original and interesting part of dramatic theory is the
gradual definition of the nature of the sentiment which it is the aim
of the performance to evoke in the mind of the audience. [662] The
statement of the Nāṭyaçāstra is simple. Sentiment is produced from the
union of the determinants (vibhāva), the consequents (anubhāva), and
the transitory feelings (vyabhicārin). The determinants fall in the
later classification into two divisions, the fundamental determinants
(ālambana) and the excitant determinants (uddīpana); fundamental
determinants comprise such things as the heroine or the hero, for
without them there can be no creation of sentiment in the audience;
excitant determinants are such conditions of place and time and
circumstance as serve to foster sentiment when it has arisen, for
instance the moon, the cry of the cuckoo, the soft breeze from Malaya,
all things which foster the erotic sentiment. The consequents are the
external manifestations of feeling, by which the actors exhibit to the
audience the minds and hearts of the persons of the drama, such as
sidelong glances, a smile, a movement of the arm, and—though this is
but slightly indicated in later texts—his words. [663] A special class
is later made of those consequents, which are the involuntary product
of sympathetic realization of the feeling of the person portrayed, and
hence are called Sāttvika, as arising from a heart which is ready to
appreciate the sorrows or joys of another (sattva); these are
paralysis, fainting, horripilation, perspiration, change of colour,
trembling, weeping, and change of voice. The transitory or evanescent
feelings are given as thirty-three; they are discouragement, weakness,
apprehension, weariness, contentment, stupor, joy, depression, cruelty,
anxiety, fright, envy, indignation, arrogance, recollection, death,
intoxication, dreaming, sleeping, awakening, shame, epilepsy,
distraction, assurance, indolence, agitation, deliberation,
dissimulation, sickness, insanity, despair, impatience, and
inconstancy. But these factors are not sufficient to account for
sentiment, nor does the Nāṭyaçāstra intend this. It recognizes that an
essential element in the production of sentiment is the dominant
emotion (sthāyibhāva) which persists throughout the drama amid the
variations of the transitory feelings; it stands to the other factors
in the position of the king to his subjects or a master to his pupils,
as the Çāstra says; it is, says the Daçarūpa, the source of delight,
and brings into harmony with itself the transitory states of feeling.
It is the dominant emotions which in some fashion determine or become
sentiments even in the view of the Nāṭyaçāstra, though in it there is
clearly difficulty in conceiving the precise signification of the
process, a fact revealed in a tendency to confuse the terms emotion and
sentiment, Bhāva and Rasa. In Bhaṭṭa Lollaṭa [664] we have a determined
effort to make clear the implication of the doctrine. The dominant
emotion of love, for instance, generated by a fundamental determinant
such as a maiden, inflamed by an excitant determinant such as a
pleasant garden, made cognizable by consequents such as sidelong
glances and embraces, and strengthened by transitory feelings such as
desire, becomes the erotic sentiment first of all in the hero of the
drama, e.g. Rāma. The sentiment is subsequently attributed to the actor
who imitates the hero in form, dress, and action, and so it becomes the
source of charm to the audience. The fatal objection to this theory is
clear; it fails to recognize that the sentiment must be that of the
spectator himself; he cannot have enjoyment of a sentiment which exists
merely in the actor as a secondary outcome of its existence in Rāma.
Moreover, the actor whose chief aim is to please the audience and earn
money need not feel at all the emotions of Rāma, while, if he does so,
he is then in the same position as a spectator.
The view of Lollaṭa, which is classed as one of the production
(utpatti) of sentiment and regarded as that of the Mīmāṅsā school, is
opposed by the doctrine of Çrīçan̄kuka, regarded as the Naiyāyika view,
which interprets the manifestation of sentiment as a process of
inference. The emotions, love, &c., are inferred to exist in the actor,
though not really present in him, by means of the determinants, &c.,
cleverly exhibited in his acting; the emotion thus inferred, being
sensed by the audience, through its exquisite beauty, adds to itself a
peculiar charm and thus finally develops into the state of a sentiment
in the spectator. This view, however, is open to the fatal objection
that it is commonly admitted that it is not inference, or any other
derivative mode of knowledge, which produces charm, but perception
alone, and no adequate ground exists for disregarding this general
truth in this case.
In Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka [665] we find yet a different point of view, which
denies either the production (utpatti) of sentiment, its perception or
apprehension (pratīti) or its revelation (abhivyakti). If sentiment is
perceived as appertaining to another, then it cannot personally affect
oneself. But it cannot be perceived as present in oneself as a result
of study of a work about Rāma; there are no factors present in the self
to produce any such result; it is impossible to hold that an emotion
dormant in oneself is called to life by seeing or reading the story of
Rāma; experience shows that one’s own beloved does not come up to one’s
mind to raise love, nor could a tale of a goddess evoke the picture of
a mortal amour; again, such marvellous deeds as Rāma’s have nothing
common to mortal efforts so as to be able to awake conceptions of acts
of our own. Thus sentiment cannot be apprehended. Nor is it a case of
production; if so, no one would go twice to a play of a pathetic type,
since one would experience actual misery as the result, in lieu of a
pleasant melancholy; again the sight of lovers united does not in real
life produce sentiment. Nor is a case of the revelation of something
existing potentially (çaktirūpa). If this were so, then, when the
potential emotions were let loose, they would occupy their field of
action in diverse degrees—thus contradicting the nature of sentiment as
one; moreover there would be the same difficulties as in the case of
apprehension as to whether revelation applied to the hero or oneself.
The true solution, therefore, is to ascribe to a poem a peculiar
threefold potency of its own, the power of denotation (abhidhā), which
deals with what is expressed, the power of realization (bhāvakatva),
which relates to the sentiment, and the power of enjoyment
(bhojakatva), which has regard to the audience. If denotation were all,
there would be no difference between poetic figures and manuals, there
would be absence of the distinctions produced by divergence of literal
and metaphorical sense, and the avoidance of harsh sounds would be
needless. As it is, we have the second function of realization of
sentiment, which causes the expressed sense to serve as the basis of
the sentiment, and confers on the determinants, &c., the essential
feature of being appropriated by the audience as universal. From this
comes the appreciation by the audience of the sentiment, an
appreciation consisting in a mental condition made up entirely of the
element of goodness or truth (sattva), uninfluenced by the other
elements of passion (rajas) and dullness (tamas), that is, entirely
free from desire, comparable with meditation on the absolute. This
condition is the vital element; the enjoyment ranks above the aesthetic
equipment [666] which renders it possible. To this theory which is
sometimes ascribed to the Sāṁkhya, [667] and called the Bhuktivāda,
doctrine of the enjoyment of sentiment, the objection is made that the
two powers ascribed to poetry, realization, and enjoyment, have no
legitimate foundation.
The view finally adopted by the theorists is that defended, but not
first enunciated, by Abhinavagupta, based on the general doctrine of
suggestion (vyañjanā) as lying at the basis of all poetic pleasure. The
spectator’s state of mind must be considered; it is in him that from
experience of life there come into being emotional complexes, which lie
dormant, ready to be called into activity by the reading of poems or by
seeing plays performed. Those whose life has left them barren of
impressions of emotions are, accordingly, incapable of relishing
dramas, a fate which awaits men whose minds are intent merely on
grammar or on the complexities of the Mīmāṅsā. The sentiment thus
excited is peculiar, in that it is essentially universal in character;
it is common to all other trained spectators, and it has essentially no
personal significance. A sentiment is thus something very different
from an ordinary emotion; it is generic and disinterested, while an
emotion is individual and immediately personal. An emotion again may be
pleasant or painful, but a sentiment is marked by that impersonal joy,
characteristic of the contemplation of the supreme being by the adept,
a bliss which is absolutely without personal feeling. There is in fact
a close parallel between the man of taste (sahṛdaya) [668] and the
adept (yogin); both have in them the possibility of attaining this
bliss, and, to make it real, the one must investigate the determinants,
&c., while the other must apply himself to concentration on the
absolute. It is this peculiar nature of sentiment which forbids it
being created as the result of denotation or indication by speech, of
perception, inference, or recollection. It cannot exist without
determinants, &c., but these are not in the normal sense causes; an
effect can exist when its causes have disappeared, but sentiment exists
only while the determinants, &c., last; the terms used in this regard
are one and all distinct from the normal terminology of causation.
Sentiment is something supernatural (alaukika); its relations to the
factors may be compared with that of a beverage to the black pepper,
candied sugar, camphor, &c., which compose it, but of which as such no
trace remains in the liquor as produced. This characteristic enables us
to understand how it is that the list of sentiments includes that of
horror or odium (bībhatsa) and that of fear (bhayānaka), as well as the
pathetic sentiment. These are awakened into life by things which cause
disgust, fear, and grief in ordinary life, and these emotions in real
life are far from pleasant in any sense of that term. But, conveyed as
ideal and generic, they produce this supernatural pleasure or
happiness, which is not to be compared with normal pleasure, just as
the joy of the contemplation of the absolute is not to be described as
pleasure in the ordinary sense. Bhānudatta, in his Rasataran̄giṇī, a
work composed before A.D. 1437, distinguishes Rāsa as natural (laukika)
and supernatural or transcendental; the former is the emotion
experienced in ordinary life—which may more conveniently be
distinguished as Bhāva,—the latter includes the emotion experienced in
dream experiences, in the building of castles in the air, and in the
appreciation of poetry, and he is careful to emphasize the totally
different nature of the natural and the transcendental emotion. [669]
The doctrine set out in Abhinavagupta is also that of the Daçarūpa,
although it is rendered more obscure there by the brevity of its
exposition. The process of transformation of an emotion to a sentiment
is formally described; ‘a dominant feeling or emotion becomes a
sentiment when it is transformed into an object of enjoyment through
the co-operation of the determinants, the consequents, including the
involuntary manifestations of feeling, and the transitory feelings’.
[670] The sense is made further precise by the assertion [671] that the
dominant emotion becomes a sentiment, because it is enjoyed by the
spectator of taste, and he is actually at present in existence; the
sentiment is not located in the hero whose actions are represented, for
he belongs to the past, nor does it appertain to the poem, for that is
not the object of the poem—its function being to set out the
determinants, &c., through which the dominant emotion is brought out
and generates the sentiment,—nor is sentiment the apprehension by the
spectator of the emotions enacted by the actor, since in that case
spectators would feel not sentiment, but an emotion varying in the
different individuals, just as in real life from seeing a pair in union
those who see them feel according to their nature shame, envy, desire,
or aversion. The position of the spectator is compared to that of the
child which, when it plays with its clay elephants—the ancient
equivalent of our tin soldiers—experiences the sensation of its own
energy as pleasant; the deeds of Arjuna arouse a like feeling in the
spectator’s mind. This experiencing sentiment is a manifestation of
that joy which is innate as the true nature of the self, and this
manifestation comes into being as the result of the pervasion of the
mind of the spectator with the dominant emotion and the determinants,
&c., in combination.
An effort is made to describe the precise nature of the mental activity
involved in the enjoyment of sentiment, and to base upon it a division
of the sentiments. The four sentiments of love, heroism, horror, and
fury are taken as primary, and brought into connexion with mental
conditions described as the unfolding (vikāsa), expansion (vistara),
agitation (kṣobha), and movement to and fro (vikṣepa) of the mind.
[672] These are evidently mental conditions, believed to be reached by
introspection, and they have the merit of giving a quasi-psychological
rationale for the doctrine of four primary and four secondary
sentiments found in the Nāṭyaçāstra. [673] But there was no early
agreement on this piece of psychology; Abhinavagupta, [674] with Bhaṭṭa
Nāyaka, accepts only three aspects of mental condition as involved, the
melting (druti), expansion, and unfolding, a division which is applied
also in the theory of poetics to justify the doctrine of the existence
of three qualities only of words. [675] On Dhanaṁjaya’s view the
sentiment of calm which he denies for drama, [676] if it exists at all,
must be regarded as combining all the four mental aspects above
distinguished.
It is now possible to understand clearly the essential relation of the
spectator to the actors; we see on the stage, for instance, Rāma and
Sītā, who excites his affection, aided by suitable circumstances of
time and place; this affection is intimated by speech and gesture
alike, which indicate both the dominant emotion of love and its
transient shapes in the various stages of love requited. The spectacle
evokes in the mind of the spectator the impressions of the emotion of
love which experience has planted there, and this ideal and generic
excitation of the emotion produces in him that sense of joy which is
known as sentiment. The fullness of the enjoyment depends essentially
on the nature and experience of the spectator, to whom it falls to
identify himself with the hero or other character, and thus to
experience in ideal form his emotions and feelings. He may even succeed
in his effort to the extent that he weeps real tears, feels terror and
sorrow, but the sentiment is still one of exquisite joy. We may compare
the thrill of pleasure which the most terrifying narration excites in
us, and we are all conscious of the sweetness of sad tales.
Viçvanātha insists very strongly on the necessity of the identification
of the spectator with the personages depicted, a process which enables
him to accept without any difficulty such episodes of extraordinary
character as Hanumant’s leap over the ocean. [677] He must not treat
the emotion of love as his own, for in that case it would never become
a sentiment; it would remain a feeling, and in the case of fear, for
instance, it would cause pain, not joy. Nor must he regard it as
belonging solely to the hero, for then it would remain his feeling, and
in no wise affect the spectator or become a sentiment. Similarly, the
determinants, &c., are not to be treated as pertaining to the hero
alone; they must be felt as generic. This generic action (sādhāraṇī
kṛti) is the essential feature, replacing the generic power which
Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka attributes to poetry. We can now see clearly the position
of the actor; the Nāṭyaçāstra [678] bids him as far as possible to
assume the emotions of the person whom he represents, and to depict
them by costume, speech, movements, and gestures as his own, but
Viçvanātha [679] is more anxious to insist that the sentiment is not
necessarily to be found in the actor, who often merely performs
mechanically his part according to rote and rule; if he actually does
experience the feelings he portrays, then he becomes in so far a
spectator. [680] Further, he points out the simultaneous presence of
all the factors is by no means essential, for the existence of one will
revive the others by force of the association of ideas. He insists also
on the necessity of experience and cultivation of the power of
imagination in one who seeks to enjoy sentiment; as we are by virtue of
the doctrine of transmigration—or if we prefer to modernize, by
heredity—endowed with the germs of the capacity of appreciation, we can
normally by study of poetical works develop the capacity, but, if we
devote ourselves to the study of grammar or philosophy, we shall
certainly deaden our susceptibilities. The difficult problem, why much
study of poetry leaves some still unable to relish the sentiment, is
explained by the convenient hypothesis that demerit in a previous birth
intervenes to frustrate present effort. He refutes at length the effort
of Mahiman Bhaṭṭa [681] to destroy the whole doctrine of suggestion in
poetry by the doctrine of inference; doubtless by inference we could
arrive at a belief in the existence of an emotion in the hero’s mind
but that inference would not produce any effect in us or arouse
sentiment; a logician might make the inference and draw the correct
conclusion, but would remain cold and unmoved. Suggestiveness, he
shows, is absolutely essential as a function of words and as the
characteristic of poetry, giving it power to create sentiment. What is
expressed may be understood by every one; the man of taste alone
appreciates the suggestion and enjoys the flavour resulting.
Now sentiment is one, it is a single, ineffable, transcendental joy,
but it can be subdivided, not according to its own nature, but
according to the emotions which evoke it. Thus the Nāṭyaçāstra
recognizes the existence of eight emotions or dominant feelings; love
(rati), mirth (hāsa), anger (krodha), sorrow (çoka), energy (utsāha),
terror (bhaya), disgust (jugupsā), and astonishment (vismaya), and
corresponding to these eight emotions we have eight forms of sentiment.
The erotic sentiment (çṛn̄gārarasa) is of two kinds, the union
(sambhoga) or sundering (vipralambha) of two lovers, according to the
Çāstra and the great mass of theorists, but the Daçarūpa [682]
distinguishes three cases, privation (ayoga), sundering (viprayoga),
and union. Privation denotes the inability of two young hearts to
secure union, because of obstacles to their marriage; such love passes
through ten stages, [683] longing, anxiety, recollection, enumeration
of the loved one’s merits, distress, raving, insanity, fever, stupor,
and death. Sundering may be due to absence or resentment, and this in
its turn may be caused by a quarrel between two determined lovers, or
indignation at finding out, by sight, hearing or inference, that one’s
lover is devoted to another. The hero may counteract anger by
conciliation, by winning over her friends, by gifts, by humility, by
indifference, and by distracting her attention. Absence again may be
due to business, to accident, or a curse; if the reason is death the
love sentiment cannot, in Dhanaṁjaya’s view, be present, though others
allow of a pathetic variety of this sentiment. [684] In union the lover
should avoid vulgarity or annoyance.
The heroic (vīra) sentiment corresponds to the emotion of energy; it
may take the three forms of courage in battle as in Rāma; compassion as
in Jīmūtavāhana; and liberality as in Paraçurāma. Assurance,
contentment, arrogance, and joy are the transitory states connected
with it. The sentiment of fury (raudra) is based on anger; its
transitory states are indignation, intoxication, recollection,
inconstancy, envy, cruelty, agitation, and the like. The comic (hāsya)
sentiment depends on mirth, which is caused by one’s own or another’s
strange appearance, speech, or attire. [685] The transitory states in
connexion with it are sleeping, indolence, weariness, weakness, and
stupor. The sentiment of wonder (adbhuta) is based on astonishment; the
transitory states are usually joy, agitation, and contentment. The
sentiment of terror (bhayānaka) is based on terror; the states
associated with it are depression, agitation, distraction, fright, and
the like. The pathetic (karuṇa) sentiment is based on sorrow; its
associated states are sleeping, epilepsy, depression, sickness, death,
indolence, agitation, despair, stupor, insanity, anxiety, and so forth.
The sentiment of horror or odium (bībhatsa) is based on disgust; its
associated states are agitation, sickness, apprehension, and the like.
In each case the theorists give in full the determinants and the
consequents of each emotion, which becomes a sentiment, and a special
colour is ascribed to each; it is not surprising to find that red is
associated with fury, black with fear; whiteness may, in association
with the comic sentiment, be explained by the flashing teeth of a
laughing maiden, and the dark (çyāma) colour of the erotic sentiment is
a reflex of the favoured hue of the beloved; grey accords with pathos,
but the connexion of yellow with wonder, dark blue with horror, and
orange with heroism is not obvious. It is also artificial to find four
primary and four secondary sentiments laid down; the erotic, the
furious, the heroic, and that of horror, whence in order are supposed
to develop the comic, the pathetic, that of wonder and that of terror.
The Nāṭyaçāstra recognizes these eight only, [686] but later
authorities add the sentiment of calm (çānta) based on indifference to
worldly things (nirveda), although this is in the Çāstra merely a
transitory feeling. Those who follow the Çāstra contend that there is
no such sentiment, for it is impossible to destroy utterly love,
hatred, and other feelings, which have been operative from time without
beginning; others admit the existence of the sentiment, as does
Mammaṭa, but not in drama, on the ground that indifference to all
worldly things is incapable of being represented. But this also is
erroneous; the actor’s power of representing indifference is not in
point, as it is the spectator who is to feel the sentiment, and the
fact that the Çāstra places it first in the list of transitory states,
though that would normally be an inauspicious beginning, indicates that
it was meant to serve both as an emotion and a transitory feeling, and
it is fully recognized by Vidyādhara, Viçvanātha, and Jagannātha,
though Dhanaṁjaya barely admits it. [687] The interrelations of the
sentiments, their possible combinations, their harmonies and conflicts,
are detailed at length.
The sentiments may all be employed in drama, but there are rules
affecting their use. In each play there should be a dominant sentiment;
in the Nāṭaka it should be the erotic or the heroic; other sentiments
are merely auxiliary, but that of wonder is especially appropriate in
the dénouement; indeed something in the way of supernatural
intervention is often convenient to extricate the plot. An excess of
sentiments is as bad as a defect; if there are too many they destroy
the unity of the whole and detach it into a series of ill-connected
fragments, while the excessive use of action and of rhetorical display
is equally destructive to the merit of a piece.
The Çakuntalā illustrates excellently the sentiment of love as the
ruling motive of the play; the heroic sentiment appears in the verses
in Act II in which the hermits extol the king; the horrible in Act VI
in the scene in which Mātali menaces the Vidūṣaka; terror is evoked by
the description of the dusk at the close of Act III; the whole play
from the arrival of Kaṇva in Act IV to the departure of Çakuntalā
produces the sentiment of pathos, while that of fury is called into
being by the close of Act VI from the despairing cries of the Vidūṣaka
to the entry of Mātali; finally wonder is aroused by the strange
incident at the close when the king picks up the bracelet fallen from
the arm of the child which, unknown to him, is his own son by the wife
whom he has in ignorance repudiated. The Nāṭikās afford excellent
examples of the erotic sentiment; Harṣa, in complete accord with the
rules of the drama, helps out his plot in both the Ratnāvalī and the
Priyadarçikā by the use of incidents evoking the sentiment of wonder;
the imprisonment of Sāgarikā in the former play evokes the sentiment of
pathos, while terror is excited by the description in Act II of the
wild confusion caused by the monkey’s escape from the royal mews. The
sentiment of fury is frequently evoked in the Mahāvīracarita and the
Veṇīsaṁhāra; the Mālatīmādhava affords excellent illustrations evoking
horror, while the Mahāvīracarita is permeated by the sentiment of
heroism. The Nāgānanda reveals heroism in another aspect, that of the
perfection of compassion and nobility, for, as we have seen,
Jīmūtavāhana is not to be regarded as a hero in whom calm prevails.
There is doubtless pedantry in the theory of sentiment; the choice of
eight emotions, the subordination to them of transitory states, the
enumeration of determinants and consequents, are largely dominated by
empiricism, and not explained or justified. But in its essentials the
theory may be admitted to be a bold and by no means negligible attempt
to indicate the essential character of the emotional effect of drama.
6. THE DRAMATIC STYLES AND LANGUAGES
Plot, characters, and sentiment are not the only constituent elements
of drama; the poet must be an adept in adopting the appropriate manner
[688] or style (vṛtti), for each action of the hero; the style adds to
the play the indefinable element of perfection which is present in the
highest beauty of feature or dress. The manners allowed by the
Nāṭyaçāstra are four, the graceful (kaiçikī), the grand (sāttvatī), the
violent (ārabhaṭī), and the verbal (bhāratī), which owes its name to
the fact that, unlike the others, it depends for its effect on words,
not action.
The graceful manner is appropriate to the erotic sentiment; it employs
song, dance, and lovely raiment, admits both male and female rôles, and
depicts love, gallantry, coquetry, and jesting. It admits of four
varieties. The first is pleasantry (narman), which is based on what is
comic in speech, dress, or movement in the actors; the pleasantry may
be purely comic, or be mingled with love, or even with fear, as when
Susaṁgatā makes fun of Sāgarikā and adds that she will tell the queen
of the episode of the picture. [689] When love is mingled, it may serve
to evince affection, or to ask for a response, or to impute a fault on
the lover’s part. A comedy of costume is seen in the Nāgānanda where
the Viṭa, misled by his garments, mistakes the Vidūṣaka for a woman; a
comedy of action in the Mālavikāgnimitra where Nipunikā punished the
Vidūṣaka by dropping on him a stick which he takes, naturally enough,
for a snake. The second form is the outburst of affection
(narmasphūrja) [690] at the first meeting of lovers, which ends in a
note of fear, as in the meeting of the king and Mālavikā in Act IV of
the Mālavikāgnimitra. Thirdly, there is the manifestation of a recent
love by physical signs (narmasphoṭa), [691] and, fourth, the
development of affection (narmagarbha), illustrated by the adoption of
a disguise by the hero to attain his end, as when Vatsa in the
Priyadarçikā comes on the scene in the garb of Manoramā. [692]
The grand manner is appropriate to the sentiments of heroism, wonder,
and fury, and in a less degree to the pathetic and erotic. Virtue,
courage, self-sacrifice, compassion, and righteousness are its
subjects, not sorrow. Its divisions are the challenge (utthāpaka), as
in the Mahāvīracarita, Act V, Vālin defies Rāma; breach of alliance
(saṁghātya) among one’s foes, which may be brought about by deliberate
stratagem, as in the Mudrārākṣasa, or by fate, as in the Rāma dramas
Vibhīṣaṇa severs himself from Rāvaṇa; change of action (parivartaka) as
when in the Mahāvīracarita Paraçurāma offers to embrace Rāma, whom he
came to overthrow; and the dialogue (saṁlāpa) of warriors such as that
of Rāma and Paraçurāma in the same play.
The violent manner accords with the sentiments of fury, horror, and
terror. It employs magic, conjuration, conflicts, rage, fury, and
underhand devices. Its elements include, first, the almost immediate
construction (saṁkṣipti) of some object by artificial means, such as
the elephant of mats made to contain Udayana’s men in the lost
Udayanacarita; but others interpret this member as a sudden change of
hero, whether real, as in the substitution of Vālin for Sugrīva, or
merely a change of heart on the hero’s part, as in Paraçurāma’s
submission to Rāma; in either case only a secondary hero can change or
be changed, else the unity of the drama would disappear. The other
elements are the creation of an object by magic means (vastūtthāpana);
the angry meeting of two persons who end by fighting (sampheṭa), as do
Mādhava and Aghoraghaṇṭa in the Mālatīmādhava; and a scene of
tumultuous disturbance (avapāta), such as that when the monkey escapes
in the Ratnāvalī or of the attack on Vindhyaketu in the Priyadarçikā,
Act I.
The verbal manner is based on sound, as the other three are on sense.
The voice only is its means of expression; women may not use it, and
the men must speak Sanskrit; these actors bear the name Bharata, which
is appropriated to this manner. It is adapted to all the sentiments,
or, according to the Nāṭyaçāstra, only to those of heroism, wonder, and
fury. Its elements are, in true scholastic fashion, likewise reckoned
as four; two of them, the propitiation (prarocanā), and the
introduction (āmukha, prastāvanā), essentially belong to the prologue
of the drama, and will be considered in that connexion; the other two
are given as the garland (vīthī) and the farce, which are species of
drama. But the theorists agree that the elements (an̄ga) of the garland
[693] are applicable in any part of the drama, especially the first
juncture, and they are evidently an essential part of the verbal
manner.
The first element is the abrupt dialogue (udghātya), which takes either
the form of a series of questions and answers in explanation of
something not at once understood, or a monologue of question and reply.
The second is continuance (avalagita) of one section by another in
substitution, as where, when Sītā has decided to go to the forest for
pleasure, Rāma is persuaded to let her go indeed, but into exile, or,
according to Dhanaṁjaya alone, where there is a sudden turn in an event
in progress. [694] The third is the Prapañca, which passes for a comic
dialogue, in which two actors frankly set out each other’s demerits,
[695] or, according to Viçvanātha, such a clever ruse as that of
Nipuṇikā in the Vikramorvaçī, Act II, where she worms out from the
Vidūṣaka the king’s infatuation. The triple explanation (trigata), a
term which is used in a different sense in the rule regarding the
prologue, seems to denote guesses made at the cause of a sound, which
in its character is ambiguous and may be, e.g. the hum of the bees, the
cry of the cuckoo, or the music made by celestial maidens. [696]
Cheating (chala) denotes the use of words of seeming courtesy but
boding ill, as in the inquiry for Duryodhana, their foe, by Bhīma and
Arjuna in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act V. The repartee (vākkelī) produces comic
effect in a series of questions and answers; but the same term is
applied to the interruption of a sentence by Dhanaṁjaya, and by
Viçvanātha to a single reply to many questions. Outvying (adhibala or
atibala) applies to a dialogue in which those conversing vie with one
another in violence, as in the discussion of Arjuna, Bhīma, and
Duryodhana in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act V. The abrupt remark (gaṇḍa) is one
which intervenes vitally in the tale; thus in the Uttararāmacarita Rāma
has just declared that separation from Sītā would be unbearable, when
the porteress announces Durmukha, the spy of the king, who comes to
destroy the king’s happiness. Reinterpretation (avasyandita) is the
taking up of an expression which has escaped one in a different sense;
thus in the Chalitarāma, Sītā carelessly tells her sons to go to
Ayodhyā and greet their father, and seeks to remedy this slip by
insisting that the king is father of his people. The enigma (nālikā)
conceals the sense under joking words. Incoherent talk (asatpralāpa) is
the speech of one just awake, drunk, asleep, or childish; such are the
hero’s words in Vikramorvaçī, Act IV. In another sense, admitted by
Viçvanātha, it denotes good advice thrown away, as in the Veṇīsaṁhāra,
Act I, Gāndhārī’s admonition of Duryodhana. Humorous speech (vyāhāra)
is a remark made for the sake of some one else, which provokes a laugh,
as when the Vidūṣaka in the Mālavikāgnimitra, Act II, by his chatter
makes the damsel laugh, and permits the king longer to gaze on her
charms. Mildness (mṛdava) denotes the turning of evil into good, or
vice versa, as when in the Çakuntalā, Act II, the virtues of hunting, a
vice in the eyes of the sacred law, are extolled.
It is an essential defect of Indian theory in all its aspects that it
tends to divisions which are needless and confusing. Besides the
elements of the garland we find thirty-three dramatic ornaments
(nāṭyālaṁkāra) [697] and thirty-six characteristics or beauties
(lakṣaṇa), [698] which cannot be distinguished as two classes on any
conceivable theory, [699] for both consist largely of modes of
exposition and figures of thought and diction, while they also contain,
as recognized by Dhanaṁjaya, a number of feelings which fall within the
sphere of sentiment and its discussion. Thus we find as ornaments the
benediction, the lamentation, raillery, the use of argument to support
a view (upapatti), the prayer, the expression of resolution, the
reproach, the provocation, the adduction of a common opinion in order
to administer covertly a rebuke, the request, the narrative, reasoning,
and the telling of a story. The beauties again include the combination
of merits of style with poetic figures; the grouping of letters to make
up a name; the use of analogy and example; the citation of admitted
facts to refute incorrect views; the fitting of expression to the
sense; the explanation by reasoning of a fact which is not capable of
sense perception; the description of an object from the point of view
of place, time, or shape; the indication of a characteristic which
serves to distinguish two objects otherwise alike; the allusion to the
truth of the literal meaning of a name; the use of the names of famous
persons in a eulogy of some living being; the expression unconsciously,
under the influence of passion, of the contrary of what one means; the
statement in succession (mālā) of several means to attain a desired
object; the expression of two different views, one of which in reality
strengthens the other; the reproach; the question; the use of
commonplaces; eulogy; the employment of a comparison to convey a sense
which it is not desired directly to express; the indirect expression of
desire; the veiled compliment; and the address of gratitude.
Unfortunately no scientific attempt at orderly arrangement or
examination of the principles on which these matters are based is
attempted.
The Nāṭyaçāstra [700] adds an account of four ornaments of the drama
(nāṭakālaṁkāra), which the Daçarūpa ignores, doubtless for the adequate
reason that these matters appertain to poetics in general, and they are
treated of in vast detail by the text-books of that science. The first
is simile, defined as a comparison based on the similarity of
characteristics in two objects; there are five kinds, the simile which
extols, that which condemns, that with an imagined thing, as when the
elephant is likened to a winged mountain, that based on similarity, and
that on partial similarity, as in ‘Her face is like the full moon, her
eyes like the blue lotus’. The metaphor is an abridged comparison which
unites the two objects so as to efface their distinction, as ‘The
fisher Love casts on the ocean of this world his lure, woman’. The
illuminator (dīpaka) is the figure of speech, which uses but one verb
to express the connexion between a subject series and a string of
qualifications. Of forms of alliteration (yamaka), the repetition of
vowels and consonants forming different words and meanings, there are
enumerated ten kinds, a striking proof of the importance attached to
these verbal jingles in early poetics.
The Çāstra [701] adds some vague and valueless suggestions as to the
use of these ornaments and metrical effects in connexion with the
expression of the sentiments. The erotic sentiment demands metaphors
and Dīpakas, and prefers the Āryā metre. The heroic affects short
syllables, similes, and metaphors; in passages of lively dialogue the
metres [702] Jagatī, Atijagatī, and Saṁkṛti; in scenes of battle and
violence, the Utkṛti. The sentiment of fury adopts the same metres, and
also favours short syllables, similes, and metaphors. The Çakvarī and
Atidhṛti metres are appropriate to the pathetic sentiment; it prefers
long syllables, a liking shared by the sentiment of horror.
An effort is made by later writers on poetics to apply to the doctrine
of the sentiments the theory of excellencies (guṇa), which is laid down
generally in Daṇḍin, Vāmana, Bhoja, and other writers. In Daṇḍin [703]
we find assigned to the Vaidarbha style a miscellaneous number of
qualities, ten in all, which are defined in terms sometimes vague and
unsatisfactory; these qualities include both those of sense and sound
(artha and çabda). They include strength or majesty (ojas), elevation
(udāratva), clearness (prasāda), precision of exposition (arthavyakti),
beauty or attractiveness (kānti), sweetness or elegance (mādhurya),
metaphorical language (samādhi), and in the use and combination of
sounds homogeneity (samatā), softness (sukumāratā), and a natural flow
(çleṣa). The chief opponent of the Vaidarbha style is given as the
Gauḍa; it is vaguely credited with the possession of features the
opposite of those of its rival; more specifically, we find it credited
with the fondness for the use of long compounds both in prose and
verse, while the Vaidarbha objects to such compounds in verse at least,
and with affecting alliterations. Vāmana [704] develops the doctrine by
distinguishing ten qualities of sense and ten of sound, and he ascribes
all the qualities to the Vaidarbha style; to the Gauḍa he allots
reliance on force and beauty, to the exclusion of sweetness and
softness, while he recognizes as a third style the Pāñcāla, which is
marked with sweetness and softness, and therefore is rather feeble. In
Mammaṭa [705] and later we find a new view of the qualities; those of
sense are explained away as being rather the absence of defects (doṣa),
so that the qualities are reduced to the sphere of sound alone. In this
regard they are further reduced from ten to three, sweetness, strength,
and clearness, and these are now brought into effective connexion with
the sentiments.
Sweetness, the source of pleasure, causing as it were the melting of
the heart, is appropriate in the sentiments of love in enjoyment,
pathos, love in separation, and calm; it is normal in love in union,
and rises in degree successively in the other three forms of sentiment;
unmixed in the others, in that of calm it is combined with a small
degree of strength, because of the relation of the sentiment of calm to
the emotion of disgust. Strength causes the expansion of the heart; it
rises in vehemence in the sentiments of heroism, horror, and fury, and
it is found also in that of terror. The quality of clearness is
appropriate to all the sentiments, and is that which causes the sense
to become intelligible, pervading the mind as fire does wood or water a
cloth, as the outcome of merely hearing the words. The precise mode in
which sweetness is produced is by the use of mutes other than
cerebrals, with their appropriate nasals, r and ṇ with short vowels,
and no compounds or short compounds; strength results from the use of
compound letters, doubled letters, conjunct consonants of which r forms
part, cerebrals other than ṇ, palatal and cerebral sibilants, and long
compounds. The older names, Vaidarbha, Gauḍa, and Pāñcāla are now given
up in favour of refined (upanāgarikā), harsh (paruṣā), and soft
(komalā). But Mammaṭa reminds us that in drama very long compounds are
undesirable, a rule ignored largely by the later dramatists.
More important than these technical details, which are illustrated
often enough in the verses composed by the later dramatists, and no
doubt possess considerable antiquity, is the changed view [706] which
brings the qualities in the new sense into relation with the sentiment.
Sentiment is the very soul of poetry, and the relation of the qualities
to it may be most effectually compared with that of such virtues as
heroism to the soul of man. They serve to heighten the effect of the
sentiment, and therefore they cannot be considered save in close
relation to that sentiment. However soft and sweet the verbal form of a
work, none the less it cannot be said to possess the quality of
sweetness, unless it has a sentiment to which sweetness is appropriate.
To give it the name of sweet, if the sentiment is incompatible with
sweetness, is compared with regarding a tall man as brave on the
strength of his appearance only. The sounds, therefore, produce the
qualities only as instruments, for the real cause is the sentiment,
even as the soul is the true cause of the heroism and other qualities
of a man.
The case of figures, whether of sound or sense, is somewhat similarly
handled; the figures are compared with the ornaments which, placed on a
man’s body, and through this union with him, gratify the soul; the
figures adorn words and meanings which are parts of poetry by their
union with them, and thus serve to heighten the sentiment, provided one
exists. If there is no sentiment, through the defective ability of the
poet, then the figures serve merely to lend variety to the composition,
and even when sentiment exists the figures may fail to be appropriate
to it. Both figures and qualities thus are in a very intimate relation
with the sentiment, but that does not mean that the two are identical.
From this doctrine, which makes sentiment essentially the main element
in poetry, the view of Vāmana, [707] who laid down that style was the
soul of poetry and that the qualities give the essential beauty or
distinction (çobhā) to a poem, while the figures increase such
distinction, is necessarily regarded as inadequate. If the doctrine is
interpreted to mean that it is the possession of all the qualities
which makes a poem, then all compositions in the Gauḍa and Pāñcāla
styles would be denied the rank of poetry; if the presence of a single
quality gave the right to the style of poem, then a perfectly prosaic
verse passage containing the quality of strength would have to be
dubbed a poem, while a stanza containing elegant figures, but no
qualities, would be denied that style, which in point of fact is
regularly accorded by usage and must be recognized as valid.
As regards language we have, as often in the theory, no explanation of
a principle which is laid down as accepted, the divergent use of
Sanskrit and Prākrit in the same play. Yet it cannot be held that, when
the theory was developed in such works as the Daçarūpa, and very
possibly in the Nāṭyaçāstra itself, the usage of the plays could be put
down simply to the copying of the actual practice in real life. That
such was its origin we may believe in the general way; the Vidūṣaka in
the Mṛcchakaṭikā derides a woman using Sanskrit as resembling a young
cow with a rope through her nose; but there is evidence that already in
the time of the Kāmaçāstra [708] the use of Prākrit was artificial. We
are there told that the cultured man about town (nāgaraka) in social
meetings (goṣṭhī), should neither confine himself to Sanskrit nor to
the vernacular (deçabhāṣā) if he is to win repute for good manners. We
have here a sign that matters were already, at the time of the
Kāmaçāstra, much in the same condition as in modern India, where the
use of Sanskrit terms with the vernacular is a regular sign of
education. Now Vātsyāyana tells us clearly that those who frequent such
gatherings are hetaerae, Viṭas, Vidūṣakas, and Pīṭhamardas, in short
the wits of the court, and to them in the theory is assigned Çaurasenī
and kindred Prākrit dialects. We are justified, therefore, in assuming
that at Vātsyāyana’s epoch in actual life, as opposed to the
conventional existence of the stage, Prākrits were definitely out of
employment. The same text includes in the requisites of the knowledge
of a hetaera the knowledge of the local speech, and, as there is no
doubt of the knowledge of the Andhras as kings by Vātsyāyana, it is
interesting to note that in the famous passage in which Somadeva tells
of the reason why the Bṛhatkathā [709] was written in Paiçācī he treats
as the three forms of human speech contemporaneous with Sātavāhana,
whose name shows his connexion with the Andhras, Sanskrit, Prākrit, and
the vernacular.
The date of Vātsyāyana thus becomes of interest, but unluckily it is
still undefined with any precision. [710] It certainly seems, however,
that Kālidāsa was familiar with a text very similar to and perhaps
identical with the Kāmaçāstra, and this reasonably may be regarded as
giving A.D. 400 as the lower limit of date. That the Kauṭilīya
Arthaçāstra has been used by Vātsyāyana gives no precise result, in
view of the difficulty of dating exactly that text. But the mention by
Vātsyāyana of the Ābhīras [711] and Andhras certainly suggests, taken
into conjunction with his silence as to the Guptas, that he wrote
before the power of the latter had established itself in western India,
and we may assign his work to approximately A.D. 300. If so we must
believe that already in Kālidāsa’s age the Prākrits of his characters
were more or less artificial, and with this well accords his
introduction of Māhārāṣṭrī for the verses of those to whom Çaurasenī is
assigned in prose, an obviously literary device.
Elaborate rules for the use of language [712] by the characters are
given in the Nāṭyaçāstra and, in much less detail, by the Daçarūpa. The
use of Sanskrit is proper in the case of kings, Brahmins, generals,
ministers, and learned persons generally; the chief queen is assigned
it, and so also ministers’ daughters, but this rule is not in practice
observed. On the other hand, it is used by Buddhist nuns, hetaerae,
artistes, and others on occasion. It is a rule that in the description
of battles, peace negotiations, and omens Sanskrit shall be resorted
to, and this is done by Bṛhannalā in Bhāsa’s Pañcarātra. The use of
Sanskrit by allegorical female types is also found both early and late.
The general rule for women and persons of inferior rank [713] is the
use of Prākrit, but it may be resorted to as a means of self-aid by
persons of higher position. The types of Prākrit to be used are
described with much confusion in the Nāṭyaçāstra, and the amount of
variation contemplated is large. Thus the use of Çaurasenī is permitted
in the Çāstra in lieu of the dialect of the Barbara, Andhra, Kirāta,
and Draviḍa, though these may be used. The Çāstra gives seven different
Prākrits as in use. Çaurasenī is the speech of the land between the
Yamunā and the Gan̄gā or Doab; it is to be used by the ladies of the
play, their friends and servants, generally by ladies of good family
and many men of the middle class. Prācyā is assigned to the Vidūṣaka,
but in fact he speaks practically Çaurasenī, and therefore the term can
only denote an eastern Çaurasenī dialect. Āvantī is ascribed to
gamblers or rogues (dhūrta), but is only an aspect of Çaurasenī, as
spoken at Ujjayinī, and the Prākrit grammarian Mārkaṇḍeya calls it a
transition between Çaurasenī and Māhārāṣṭrī. Māhārāṣṭrī is unknown to
the Çāstra; it is assigned to the verses of persons who use Çaurasenī
by the Daçarūpa, while the Sāhityadarpaṇa limits it to the verses of
women; normally, but not absolutely, it is used in all verses, [714]
though Çaurasenī verses occasionally occur, and possibly were more
frequent originally. The earlier drama of Açvaghoṣa and Bhāsa has no
clear evidence of Māhārāṣṭrī at all. Ardha-Māgadhī is prescribed for
slaves (ceṭa), Rājaputras and guildsmen (çreṣṭhin) by the Çāstra, but,
save in Açvaghoṣa and possibly the Karṇabhāra of Bhāsa, it is unknown
to our dramas. Māgadhī, on the other hand, is important in theory, and
of some consequence in practice; it is ascribed to all those men who
live in the women’s apartments, diggers of underground passages,
keepers of drink shops, watchers, and is used in time of danger by the
hero, and also by the Çakāra, according to the Çāstra. The Daçarūpa
assigns it and Paiçācī to the lowest classes, which accords with facts
as regards Māgadhī, but Paiçācī is not found clearly in the dramas.
The Nāṭyaçāstra provides for the use of Dākṣiṇātyā in the case of
soldiers (yodha), police officers (nāgaraka), and gamblers (dīvyant),
and there are slight traces in the Mṛcchakaṭikā of the existence of
this dialect. Bālhīkā is assigned by the same authority to the Khasas
and the northerners, but has not yet been traced in any drama.
We learn also from the Çāstra and from Mārkaṇḍeya in special of a
number of Vibhāṣās, [715] which seem to be modified forms of the more
normal Prākrits, as stereotyped for use by certain characters in the
drama. Thus the Çāstra attributes Çākārī to the Çakas, Çabaras, and
others, while the Sāhityadarpaṇa accords Çābarī to these persons. The
Çāstra ascribes Çābarī to charcoal-burners, hunters, wood-workers, and
partly also to forest dwellers in general, and Ābhīrī is ascribed with
the option of Çābarī to herdsmen, Cāṇḍālī to Caṇḍālas, and Drāviḍī to
Draviḍas, while Oḍri, mentioned by the Çāstra, is left unascribed;
presumably it was assigned to men of Orissa. Something of this is seen
in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, where Çākārī, Cāṇḍālī, and a further speech Ḍhakkī
or Ṭākkī appear. They all have nothing very marked as to their
characteristics; the first two may be allied to Māgadhī, the last is
more dubious.
The addition of Chāyās or translations in Sanskrit to explain the
Prākrit is normal in the manuscripts of the dramas, and it is certain
that it is old, for it is alluded to by Rājaçekhara in his
Bālarāmāyaṇa. Evidently, even so early as A.D. 900, there was no public
which cared for Prākrit without a Sanskrit explanation.
On the subject of the use of stanzas, as opposed to prose, the
text-books are curiously and unexpectedly silent. [716] This indicates
how entirely empirical they are in these matters. The use of Prākrits
in the dramas obviously varied, and something had to be said regarding
this point, but the alternation of prose and verse is accepted as
something established, on which comment is unnecessary. The fact is
recognized, but its implications and purpose remain unexplored. In the
stanzas themselves, it is clear, we must distinguish between those
which were sung and those which were simply recited; recitation must
clearly have been the normal form of use, and as sung we have normally
at any rate only some of the stanzas in Māhārāṣṭrī which are placed in
the mouths of women. Çaurasenī stanzas, on the other hand, we may
assume to have been recited, but the distinction has practically
vanished from the texts preserved.
7. THE DANCE, SONG, AND MUSIC
Of the part played by the song, dance, and music in the drama the
theorists curiously enough tell us comparatively little of interest,
though it is certain that both were most important elements in the
production of sentiment. The types of dance recognized in the
Nāṭyaçāstra are two, the violent dance of men, invented by Çiva
himself, the Tāṇḍava, and the tender and voluptuous dance of Pārvatī,
the Lāsya. The latter alone, by reason of its special importance, is
carefully analysed into ten parts by the Çāstra, [717] which shows the
essential union of song and dance. The first is the song proper, which
is sung by one seated, to the accompaniment of a lute, without dancing;
the recitation standing (sthitapāṭhya) is a declamation in Prākrit by a
woman pacing rapidly under the influence of love, or it may also mean,
according to Abhinavagupta, a declamation by a woman in anger. The
recitation sitting (āsīna) is performed by a woman lying down, under
the stress of sorrow, without musical accompaniment. In the
Puṣpagaṇḍikā various metres are used; Sanskrit may be employed; men act
as women and vice versa, and there is a musical accompaniment. In the
Pracchedaka a woman sings to the lute her grief at her lover’s
infidelity. The Trigūḍha is the acting of a man in woman’s dress, as of
Makaranda in the Mālatīmādhava, Act VI. The Saindhava is a song to a
clear accompaniment of a lady whose love has failed to keep his tryst.
The Dvigūḍhaka is a harmonious song, full of sentiment, in dialogue
form. The Uttamottaka is a song filled with the bitterness of a
troubled love. The Uktapratyukta is a duet, in which one lover
addresses to the other feigned reproaches. These divisions, of course,
appear to ignore their nature as parts of a dance, but it must be
remembered that the motions of the performers are essential in the
performance.
The music of the drama is not described at length in the later
theorists; what is clear is that each sentiment has its special
appropriate music, and each action its special accompaniment. Thus the
Dvipadikās accompanied the performance of the rôles of persons
distressed, unwell, and unhappy; the Dhruvās were chosen so as to
intimate at once to the audience the quality of the new arrival on the
stage. [718]
8. THE PRELIMINARIES AND THE PROLOGUE
The Nāṭyaçāstra [719] prescribes an elaborate series of preliminaries
(pūrvaran̄ga) which must be performed before the actual drama begins;
they are intended to secure divine favour for the performance, each act
having a definite share in the result, and doubtless they present us
with a reminiscence of the early theatre in the mingling of music,
dance, and song. First there is the beat of drum (pratyāhāra)
announcing the beginning of the performance, and the carpet is spread
out for the orchestra; the singers and the musicians then enter and
take their places (avataraṇa): then the chorus try their voices
(ārambha); the musicians try their instruments (āçrāvaṇā); they tune up
their wind and string instruments, and manipulate their hands to make
them ready for the work; then an instrumental concert follows,
succeeded by the appearance and practice steps of the dancers. [720] A
song follows, to please the gods; then the Tāṇḍava is performed,
increasing in violence as it proceeds; then a song accompanies the
raising by the Sūtradhāra of the banner (jarjara) of Indra; he scatters
flowers and purifies himself with water from a pitcher borne by an
attendant, while another carries the banner; there follows a
perambulation of the stage, the praise of the world guardians, and
homage to the banner. Then comes the Nāndī or benediction; it is
followed by the recitation by the Sūtradhāra of a verse in honour of
the god whose festival it is, or the king or a Brahmin; then comes the
Ran̄gadvāra, which is said to mark the beginning of the dramatic action
(abhinaya), the Sūtradhāra reciting another verse, and bowing before
the banner of Indra. There follow steps and movements of erotic
character (cārī) in honour of Umā, and more violent movements of the
same kind in honour of the Bhūtas. A discussion (trigata) between the
Sūtradhāra, the Vidūṣaka, who talks nonsense, and an attendant follows.
Finally the Prarocanā announces the content of the drama, and the
Sūtradhāra and his two attendants leave the stage, and the
preliminaries are ended.
Immediately after, according to the Nāṭyaçāstra, another person,
similar in appearance and qualities to the Sūtradhāra, is to enter and
introduce the play, a function which gives him the style of introducer,
Sthāpaka. [721] His costume should indicate the nature of the drama, as
dealing with divine or human affairs. An appropriate song greets his
entrance, he dances a Cārī, praises the gods and Brahmins, propitiates
the audience by verses alluding to the subject of the play, mentions
the name of the author and the play, and describes some season in the
verbal manner, thereby opening the prologue (prastāvanā, āmukha,
sthāpanā) [722] of the play. The essential feature of the prologue is
an address by the director with an attendant (pāripārçvika) or an
actress or the Vidūṣaka on some personal business which indirectly
hints at the drama. The mode of connexion is given by Dhanaṁjaya as
threefold, as in the Nāṭyaçāstra; the words of the director may be
caught up (kathodghāta) by a character in the drama, entering from
behind the curtain, as in the Ratnāvalī Yaugandharāyaṇa catches up the
consolation offered to the actress which is applicable to his own
scheme, and in the Veṇīsaṁhāra Bhīma brusquely denounces the
benediction of his adversaries. Or a person may enter (pravṛttaka), who
has just been mentioned by the director in a comparison with the season
of the year, as in the Priyadarçikā. Excess of representation
(prayogātiçaya) is taken in the Daçarūpa as applying to a case where
the director actually mentions the entry of a character of the drama,
as at the beginning of the Çakuntalā, where he assures the actress that
her song has enchanted him, as the gazelle enchants Duḥṣanta, who just
then enters. Viçvanātha, on the other hand, treats this form as an
instance of continuance (avalagita), and interprets the phrase as
denoting the supersession of the director’s action; thus, in the lost
Kundamālā, about to call on the actress to dance, he hears the word,
‘Lady, descend’, and realizes that it is a reference to Sītā, who is
being led into exile. He admits also the abrupt dialogue (udghātya) as
a means of connexion; thus in the Mudrārākṣasa the director alludes to
the demon of eclipse as eager to triumph over Candra, the moon, and
Cāṇakya behind the scenes calls out, ‘Who then while I live claims to
triumph over Candragupta?’ and enters a moment later. The theorist
Nakhakuṭṭa is also credited with the view that a voice behind the
scenes or from the air may be used to introduce the chief personage.
This account of the preliminaries and the prelude presents obvious
difficulties both in itself and in connexion with the actual specimens
of the Sanskrit drama. The Daçarūpa and Viçvanātha alike give no
details of the preliminaries, and the Nāṭyaçāstra indicates that, in
addition to the complete form of Pūrvaran̄ga, there might be an
abbreviated form and also an extended form with additional ceremonials.
There is an obvious overlapping between the Pūrvaran̄ga and the rest of
the performance, for the last element of the former, the giving the
content of the drama in the Prarocanā, is essentially an element in the
latter. We are quite definitely told by Viçvanātha that in his time
there was not a complete performance of the preliminaries; when,
therefore, we find in Bhāsa’s dramas that there is no mention of the
name of the author or the drama in the prologue, we may safely assume
that it was after his time that the practice grew up of transferring
from the preliminaries, which were not a matter for the poet, the
substance of the Prarocanā, and embodying it in the poet’s own work. In
Viçvanātha’s time also we are told that the Sūtradhāra or director
performed the whole of the work assigned in the theory to him and the
Sthāpaka. But it is extremely difficult to say how far back this goes;
the extant dramas with occasional exceptions, [723] such as
Rājaçekhara’s Karpūramañjarī and Mādhava’s Subhadrāharaṇa mention only
the Sūtradhāra, and Pischel [724] suggested that it was Bhāsa who
banished the Sthāpaka, in view of the reference in Bāṇa to his dramas
as begun by the Sūtradhāra. It is uncertain, however, what precisely
the sense of this reference is. The Daçarūpa expressly provides for the
activity of the Sthāpaka, but then proceeds to style him Sūtradhāra,
and there is agreement that he is to have the attributes of the
Sūtradhāra, so that the use of the name may merely be explained by this
reason. This is certainly supported by the express reference in the
Sāhityadarpaṇa to the transfer of his functions to the Sūtradhāra and
the silence of the Daçarūpa on this head. The point would be of
importance only if it meant that Bhāsa dropped the Pūrvaran̄ga as part
of the drama; nothing, however, even hints at this; as we have seen,
his omission to name himself or his play in the prologue tells strongly
in favour of the view that the old Prarocanā was still in use.
More complex still is the question of the Nāndī or benediction. Most
Sanskrit dramas open with a verse or verses of this type, followed by
the remark, ‘At the close of the Nāndī the Sūtradhāra enters,’ but in
Bhāsa’s dramas, in old manuscripts of the Vikramorvaçī, and now and
then in South Indian manuscripts of such plays as the Nāgānanda, the
Mudrārākṣasa, and other more modern dramas, [725] we find the play
begun with these words, and a verse or verses following. We have also
the direct testimony of Viçvanātha, who tells us that some authorities
held that the introductory verse in the Vikramorvaçī which normally
passes for the Nāndī was not that at all, but was the Ran̄gadvāra, with
which, according to the Nāṭyaçāstra, the play properly begins, as in it
we first find acting in the shape of a combination of speech and
action; that verse, they argued, could not be reconciled with the
definition of the extent of the Nāndī given in the Nāṭyaçāstra; others,
however, on the authority of Abhinavagupta repelled this objection.
Viçvanātha adopts as the definition of Nāndī what is recited in praise
of a deity, Brahmin, king or the like, and is accompanied by a
benediction, consisting of twelve inflected words (with nominal or
verbal endings) or eight lines (quarter-verses); this would exclude the
beginning of the Vikramorvaçī, but Abhinavagupta permits of a greater
variety of forms. In Viçvanātha’s view the Nāndī is part of the
preliminaries, which must be preserved, however much these are
shortened. It is clear, therefore, that gradually the benediction, like
the Prarocanā with its appeal to the benevolence of the audience, [726]
came to be worked into the play by the author himself, though the
period when the custom became normal cannot be stated with any
precision, and in the south of India, at any rate, the older practice
of leaving the benediction to the Sūtradhāra seems to have been
sometimes followed. There can, indeed, be little doubt that the extent
to which the preliminaries were retained differed from time to time;
Viçvanātha evidently contemplates their almost total disappearance, but
the Amṛtodaya of Gokulanātha in the sixteenth century assumes their
presence; the authority of the Nāṭyaçāstra told heavily in their
favour, and the stock phrase, ‘Enough of this ceremony,’ which occurs
frequently at the opening of the plays, doubtless refers to the dance,
song, and music with which the drama was prefaced. [727]
These facts explain the confusion [728] of the notices of the theorists
as to the actor by whom the benediction is to be recited. We find
ascribed to Bharata the view that a special actor, the Nāndī, should
recite it, or that duty should be performed by the Sūtradhāra; another
authority permits the Sūtradhāra or any other actor to recite it. The
situation is complicated by the rule that at the end of the
preliminaries the Sūtradhāra is supposed to leave the stage and the
Sthāpaka to come on, while our dramas, as a rule, have the benediction
followed by the entry of the Sūtradhāra, or rarely, as in the
Pārthaparākrama, the Sthāpaka. The theory, therefore, suggests that the
benediction is recited by the Sūtradhāra or Sthāpaka (called Sūtradhāra
by reason of similarity of function and character) behind the curtain,
and then he enters on the stage. The matter is not cleared up by the
practice followed in the embryo dramas introduced into others: in that
included in the Bālarāmāyaṇa the Sūtradhāra recites a benediction of
twelve inflected words, and then proceeds with the prologue without a
break; in the Jānakīpariṇaya it is one of the actors who does so, as in
Ravivarman’s Pradyumnābhyudaya, the director then beginning the play;
in the Caitanyacandrodaya the benediction is recited behind the
curtain, but that is stated to be because the piece to be acted is a
Bhāṇa or Vyāyoga, implying that in other cases it normally was recited
on the stage, presumably by an actor other than the director.
The extent of the benediction was, as we have seen, disputed. [729]
Bharata’s rule of eight or twelve Padas does not stand alone, for he is
credited with mentioning four or sixteen as possible numbers, and Pada
may mean inflected word, line, or proposition. Abhinavagupta allows
three, six, or twelve Padas in a benediction of three times; four,
eight, or sixteen in one of four times; and definitely takes Pada as
proposition; illustrations of eight- and twelve-Pada benedictions of
this type are given by Abhinavagupta and Bharata. The dramas differ;
the Çakuntalā has one of eight propositions or four lines; the
Ratnāvalī four stanzas; the Mālatīmādhava and the Mudrārākṣasa eight
lines each; the Uttararāmacarita twelve words.
Harmony between the benediction and the character of the drama is
naturally demanded by the theory, and is observed largely in practice;
thus the Prabodhacandrodaya, a philosophic drama, begins with an
adoration of the sole reality, the Mudrārākṣasa, a drama of political
intrigue, with a verse as tortuous as the diplomacy of Cāṇakya. It is a
characteristic of the determination to carry matters to extremes which
distinguishes Indian theory that attempts are made to extract from the
benediction not merely a general harmony with the theme, but also a
reference both to the main characters and to the chief events. [730]
9. THE TYPES OF DRAMA
The types of drama are distinguished by the theorists according to the
use which they make of the various dramatic elements enumerated. The
highest of the ten main forms, Rūpakas, is the Nāṭaka or heroic comedy.
The term is generic; it may denote any representation whether by
pictures or dumb show, but it has also the more important specific
sense of the drama proper.
The subject of a Nāṭaka [731] should be drawn from tradition, not
invented; the hero should be a king, royal sage, or god, who may appear
in human form; the dominant sentiment must be the heroic or the erotic,
but all may be illustrated, and that of wonder is well suited for the
dénouement, which should be led up to through the whole series of
stages of the action and junctures. The end must be happy; tragedy is
forbidden, though the prohibition is unexplained. The prose should be
simple without elaborate compounds; the verses clear and sweet; the
Prākrits should be varied; the whole style noble and harmonious, with
full use of all the beauties and the adventitious attractions of the
song and the dance as well as music. The number of acts should be from
five to ten; if a play contains every kind of episode, it is styled a
Mahānāṭaka, if it has ten acts. The rule is generally obeyed, but late
dramas styling themselves Nāṭakas are known of one (Ravidāsa’s
Mithyājñānaviḍambana), two (Vedāntavāgīça’s Bhojacarita), three, or
four acts, [732] and one comparatively early work exists in one version
of fourteen acts, without any passage in Prākrit, the Mahānāṭaka; the
Adbhutārṇava of a Kavibhūṣaṇa has twelve acts. The name of a Nāṭaka
should be derived from the hero or the subject-matter, and this is
regularly the case. Four or five is the number of chief personages
permitted.
The bourgeois comedy, Prakaraṇa, [733] is a comedy of manners of a rank
below royalty, which in the main follows the laws of construction of
the Nāṭaka. The subject-matter is to be framed at his good pleasure by
the poet. The hero should be a Brahmin, minister, or merchant, who has
fallen on evil days and is seeking through difficulties to attain
property, love, and the performance of duty, in which he at last
succeeds. The heroine may be of three types, a lady of good family, as
in the lost Puṣpadūṣita (°bhūṣita); a hetaera as in the lost
Taran̄gadatta; or a lady of good family may share the honours with a
hetaera, with whom, however, she may not come in contact, as in the
Cārudatta and the Mṛcchakaṭikā. The drama offers an appropriate place
for slaves, Viṭas, merchant chiefs, and rogues of various kinds. The
erotic sentiment should dominate, though Dhanaṁjaya allows also the
heroic, and the structure should include all five junctures. The number
of acts should be as in the Nāṭaka, and the name be derived from the
hero or heroine or both, as in the Mālatīmādhava and the
Çāriputraprakaraṇa of Açvaghoṣa. It must, however, be noted that the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa has but four acts, and the Mṛcchakaṭikā, unlike
the Cārudatta, does not follow the rule as to name.
The supernatural drama, Samavakāra, [734] is described in our sources
obviously on the basis of a single play, the Amṛtamanthana, the
churning of the ocean to obtain the ambrosia, at which all participants
attained their desires. The precise duration of each of its three acts
is given, at twelve, four, and two Nāḍikās (of forty-eight minutes).
The subject must be taken from a tale of the gods and demons. The
juncture, pause, is omitted, and the expansion (bindu) as an element of
the plot. The number of heroes may reach twelve, each pursuing an
object which he attains. The heroic sentiment dominates. Each act
exhibits one type of cheating, tumultuous action, and love. The
graceful manner is excluded, or but faintly developed; the Uṣṇih,
Kuṭila, and Anuṣṭubh metres are appropriate. The description fits but
loosely Bhāsa’s Pañcarātra, the only old drama to which that name may
plausibly be applied.
The Īhāmṛga, [735] of which no old example is known, owes its name,
according to the Daçarūpāvaloka to the fact that in it a maiden as hard
to attain as a gazelle (mṛga) is sought after (īhā). The subject is one
partly derived from legend and partly the poet’s imagination; in
special, if the legend relates the death of a great man, this result
must be avoided. The essence of the drama is that some one seeks to
deprive the hero, who on one view may be divine or human, on another
divine only, of a heavenly maiden; the result is a conflict of wills,
but actual fighting is to be avoided by artifice. The hero and his
rival must both be of the noble and haughty type; the latter must do
wrong in error. Only the first two and the last junctures are allowed,
and the graceful style is excluded. There are four acts, but Viçvanātha
mentions a view which allows one act only and makes the hero a god, or
six rivals for a divine maiden’s hand.
The Ḍima [736] is also little known, though the Nāṭyaçāstra cites a
Tripuradāha as a specimen. Its subject is to be legendary; there is to
be no pause juncture. The heroes are sixteen gods, demi-gods, and
demons, all of the haughty type; magic, sorcery, combats, eclipses of
the sun and moon are in place. The erotic and comic sentiments are
excluded, that of fury is predominant. There are four acts without
introductory scenes of any kind, but the late Manmathonmathana of Rāma
has them. The graceful manner is forbidden. It is clear that the type
is described on the basis of inadequate material; it may represent a
popular form of entertainment which did not attain full recognition.
The origin of the name is unknown, for no root ḍim, to wound, is found
in the language, though Dhanika asserts its existence.
The Vyāyoga [737] is, as its name suggests, a military spectacle. Its
subject must be legendary, its hero a god or royal sage, but Dhanaṁjaya
allows a man. It is in one act, the action not extending over a day,
and it is filled with strife and battle, the intervention of women as
the cause of battle being excluded. The first two and last junctures
alone are permitted, the erotic and comic sentiments are barred, and
the graceful manner. The type is old, for it is found in Bhāsa and
revives later.
The Act or Isolated Act (An̄ka, Utsṛṣṭikān̄ka) [738] is a single-act
piece, whose longer style serves to discriminate it from an act of a
normal drama. Its subject is taken from legend, but may be developed by
the poet; the first and last junctures alone are permitted. The hero
should be human, of the common folk, according to the later theory. The
sentiment should be the pathetic, and the style the verbal. The laments
of women should accompany the description of battles and fights, but
these should not take place on the stage. Viçvanātha gives the
Çarmiṣṭhāyayāti as an example, but the type is not represented by any
early play.
The farce, Prahasana, [739] on the other hand, has every sign of
popular origin and vogue. The subject is the poet’s invention; it deals
essentially with the tricks and quarrels of low characters of every
kind. There is but one act, and only the first and last junctures; the
comic sentiment predominates. The Daçarūpa recognizes three kinds; the
pure is that in which heretics, Brahmins, men- and maid-servants and
parasites are represented in appropriate costume and language; the
modified represents eunuchs, chamberlains, and ascetics in the garb,
and with the speech, of lovers; and the mixed is styled so because it
contains the elements of the Vīthī, and is filled with rogues. Only the
first and last are recognized by the Nāṭyaçāstra, the second being
included in the third, while Viçvanātha recognizes the possibility of
there being only one hero or several, and allows the use of two acts in
such a case, as in the Laṭakamelaka. The graceful and violent manners
are excluded.
The monologue, Bhāṇa, [740] has also an obviously popular character and
origin. The subject-matter is invented by the poet; a parasite sets
forth his own or another’s adventures, appealing to both the heroic and
the erotic sentiments by descriptions of heroism and beauty in the
verbal manner. There are only the first and last junctures, and but one
act. The actor speaks in the air, repeating answers supposed to be
received. The elements of the Lāsya are specially in place, a fact
which shows that we have here a formal version of a primitive mimetic
performance. Viçvanātha gives as example the Līlāmadhukara; the
Çāradātilaka is one of the best known.
The garland, Vīthī, [741] has a certain similarity to the Bhāṇa in that
it includes frequent speeches in the air, and is in one act. But it is
played by one or two actors, or, according to Viçvanātha on one view
found in the Nāṭyaçāstra, by three, one of each station in rank. The
leading sentiment is the erotic, but others are hinted at. The graceful
manner is forbidden by the Nāṭyaçāstra, but enjoined by the other
authorities, and the elements of the garland are available. Only the
first and last junctures are employed, but all the elements of the plot
are present. The theorists are sadly at a loss to explain the name
garland; it is suggested that the several sentiments are gathered into
it as into a garland, or the meaning ‘way’ or ‘road’ is accepted in
lieu. The only example given by Viçvanātha is the Mālavikā, which is
not the Mālavikāgnimitra; the first act of the Mālatīmādhava is styled
Bakulavīthī, but is in no sense even taken by itself an example of this
type.
The later theory as seen in Viçvanātha [742] adds descriptions of
eighteen minor forms of drama, Uparūpakas, which represent refinements
on the original scheme. Needless to say, though omitted in the
Nāṭyaçāstra, quotations are found ascribing to Bharata the doctrine,
though he mentions in them but fifteen with several variations of name;
[743] the Agni Purāṇa [744] mentions eighteen with some variants of
name, while a verse cited by Dhanika [745] names seven forms of mimetic
dramas, which it classes in conjunction with the Bhāṇa. The age of
these divisions is, therefore, uncertain; the Daçarūpa condescends to
mention only the Nāṭikā, but obviously knows of the existence of
others, confining its scope to the main forms, as its title indicates.
The Nāṭyaçāstra [746] mentions, in a passage suspected of
interpolation, but without special cause, a type of dramas Nāṭī, which
later is styled Nāṭikā, or lesser heroic comedy. The subject-matter in
this view may be either legendary or invented; the later opinion
requires it to be invented as in the Prakaraṇa, which is the model for
the Nāṭikā in this regard. The hero is to be that of the Nāṭaka, a gay
king, and the intrigue consists of his efforts to attain marriage with
the heroine, who is an ingénue of royal family, whom he is destined to
marry, but who by some accident or design has been introduced into the
harem in an inferior capacity. The lovers have to strive against the
jealousy of the queen, a lady of mature character and devotion to the
king, who at last is induced to sanction the nuptials. The life of the
court gives opportunity for introducing music, song, and the dance as
elements in the entertainment. The graceful manner is appropriate, and
the erotic sentiment is prescribed; by an excess of zeal, when the
drama as usual has four acts, they are in theory to contain each one of
the four members of the graceful style. A lesser number of acts is
allowed by Dhanaṁjaya. There is certainly not much difference between
such a Nāṭaka as the Mālavikāgnimitra and the normal Nāṭikā, save the
length, as expressed in the number of the acts, but it would be unwise
to assert that the distinction is based on this alone. It is a fact
that both in the Priyadarçikā and the Ratnāvalī the poet has freely
enough invented his episodes, and this is a fact justifying the
discrimination.
The little bourgeois comedy, the Prakaraṇikā, [747] is precisely of the
same character as the Nāṭikā, save that its hero and heroine are of the
merchant class. It is clear that it is due merely to a false desire for
symmetry, as it is merely a Prakaraṇa when judged by the three
determinants of plot, character, and sentiment, and Dhanika rightly
rejects it as a species, though Viçvanātha admits it.
A variant of the Nāṭikā is the Saṭṭaka, [748] which differs from it
merely by being all in Prākrit, in having no introductory scenes of any
kind, and in having the acts called Javanikāntara. As the name denotes
a form of dance, it is quite possible that it owes its origin as a
species to the use of such dances in these plays. We have an example in
Rājaçekhara’s Karpūramañjarī.
The Troṭaka [749] or Toṭaka is merely a variant of the Nāṭaka; the
Bengālī recension of the Vikramorvaçī which contains Apabhraṅça verses
and an appropriate dance of the distracted king alone gives the name.
The term denotes both a dance and confused speech, and the origin of
the species need be sought only in this peculiarity. The other
manuscripts call it a Nāṭaka.
The other species enumerated have no representatives in the old
literature, nor is this wonderful, for they show the character rather
of pantomime with song, dance, and music than of serious drama; the
Goṣṭhī [750] has nine or ten men and five or six women as actors; the
Hallīça [751] is clearly a glorified dance; the Nāṭyarāsaka [752] a
ballet and pantomime; the Prasthāna, [753] in which hero and heroine
are slaves, is based on a mimetic dance; so also apparently are the
Bhāṇikā, [754] or little Bhāṇa, and the Kāvya, both one-act pieces; the
Rāsaka, of the same general type, includes dialect in its language. The
Ullāpya may have one or three acts, and its hero is of high rank, while
battles form part of its subject, as they do also in the Saṁlāpaka,
which may have one, three, or four acts. The Durmallikā has four acts,
a hero of low rank, and a precise time-table of duration of acts. The
Vilāsikā has one act, but is interesting in that the hero has, to
support him, not only the Vidūṣaka, but also the parasite and a friend
(pīṭhamarda); the sentiment is erotic. The Çilpaka is mysterious, for
it has four acts, allows all the manners, has a Brahmin as hero with a
man of lower rank as secondary hero, excludes the calm and comic
sentiments, and has twenty-seven most miscellaneous constituents; if a
pantomime, it was clearly not amusing. The Pren̄khaṇa, or Prekṣaṇa, is a
piece in one act, with a hero of low birth, full of combats and hard
words; it has no introductory scenes, and both the benediction and the
Prarocanā are performed behind the scenes, but none of the late works
which bear approximately this title conforms to type. The Çrīgadita is
in a single act, the story legendary, the hero and heroine of high
rank, the manner verbal; the word Çrī is often mentioned, or the
goddess is presented seated and singing some verse. The only play known
of that name is the Subhadrāharaṇa of Mādhava before A.D. 1600, which
is much like an ordinary play, but contains a narrative verse,
suggesting connexion with the shadow-drama. It is characteristic that
the theory ignores wholly this type.
10. THE INFLUENCE OF THEORY ON PRACTICE
Though we cannot say precisely at what date the Nāṭyaçāstra obtained
definite form, we can be assured that by the time of Kālidāsa it was
not merely known, but its authority was already accepted as binding on
poets. The mere fact that Kālidāsa’s dramas exhibit a marvellous
fidelity to the rules of the Çāstra might be explained by the theory
that it drew its principles from them rather than vice versa. But in
his epics Kālidāsa, in due accord with the duty of a poet to display
every form of his erudition, has emphatically shown a far-reaching
competence in the terminology of the Çāstra. In the Kumārasambhava
[755] Çiva and Pārvatī watched the performance in honour of their
nuptials of a Nāṭaka in which the different dramatic manners were
combined with the junctures, the modes of the music corresponded with
the sentiments, and the Apsarases displayed their grace of form. There
are similar references in the Raghuvaṅça. [756] The knowledge of the
Çāstra by later writers goes without saying. The author of the
Mudrārākṣasa [757] depicts Rākṣasa as comparing political combinations
with the work of a dramatist and giving a brief plan of the structure
of the drama, and Bhavabhūti [758] and Murāri [759] alike show
familiarity with the terminology of the Çāstra as well as with its
rules. The most complete proof, however, of the domination of the
theory is the absence of any original creations in dramatic form. There
must, it is certain, have been a time when the genius of Indian poetry
was active in trying and developing the new instrument of drama, but
with the appearance of the Nāṭyaçāstra this creative epoch came to all
intents and purposes to a close, and the writers of the classical drama
accept without question the forms imposed upon them by authority,
although that authority rests on no logical or psychological basis, but
represents merely generalizations, often hasty, from a limited number
of plays.
The Nāṭaka, accordingly, remains the form of drama par excellence, a
pre-eminence due to its comparative freedom from narrow restrictions as
well as to the submissive spirit of the dramatists. The form serves
very different purposes; it accommodates itself not only to the grace
and charm of Kālidāsa, but to the unmeasured and irregular genius of
Bhavabhūti; it permits of the political drama of Viçākhadatta, as well
as the philosophical disquisitions of Kṛṣṇamiçra and the devotional
fervour of Kavikarṇapūra’s Caitanyacandrodaya.
The Prakaraṇa is essentially similar to the Nāṭaka save in the social
status of the hero and heroine; the distinction between the
Mālatīmādhava and a Nāṭaka is far less important than the similarity.
The Mṛcchakaṭikā, indeed, departs from type, but that is not surprising
now that it is known that it is based on Bhāsa’s Cārudatta, which is
not merely the work of a man of unusual talent, but came into being
before the rules of the drama had attained the binding force they later
achieved. The Nāṭikā, however, which is likewise closely allied to the
Nāṭaka, became stereotyped at an early stage, leaving no room for
serious innovation; the charms of the song and dance appear to have
prevailed, and to have dissuaded efforts at originality of plot. The
Vyāyoga is hardly more than an aspect of the Nāṭaka; the spirit of such
works as those of Bhāsa in this genre is reflected in many passages of
the Mahāvīracarita and the Veṇīsaṁhāra.
The farce and the monologue, of which we have many specimens in the
later drama, are confined to representations of the lower and coarser
side of life, but curiously enough they fail entirely to achieve what
might have seemed the legitimate aim of a vivid portrayal of the lives
and manners of contemporary society; tradition has proved too strong
for the dramatists whose works deal with types, not individuals. On the
other hand, we find practically no living tradition of the construction
of dramas of the other five classes of the theory, Ḍima, Samavakāra,
Īhāmṛga, Vīthī, and Utsṛṣṭikān̄ka. We may legitimately assume that these
were types erected on little foundation of fact, and that, while the
theory could restrict enterprise, it could not induce life in forms
which had no real vitality of their own. The mere fact that later poets
occasionally patronize these forms is sufficient evidence of the
strength of the authority of the Çāstra. It is amazing, however, that
we find no serious effort to produce pure comedy; the farce and the
monologue may hover on the borders of that form; they certainly never
attain it.
To the force of the tradition is presumably to be ascribed the absence
of any effort at tragedy, though its absence undoubtedly coincides with
the mental outlook of the Indian people and their philosophy of life.
Bhāsa has indeed been claimed as a tragedian, but with complete
disregard for the facts; there is in fact in his dramas disregard of
the rule which objects to death on the stage, but the slain are always
evil men, whose death is just punishment; the Ūrubhan̄ga may to us be
tragic, but that is because we are not adorers of Viṣṇu who regard with
relish the fate of the enemy of that god, the evil Duryodhana. The
tragic sentiment is nowhere recognized, for the term (raudra), which is
unhappily often so rendered, is the sentiment which is based on anger,
and has nothing truly tragic in it. The idea is, indeed, entirely
wanting in the theory as it is in the practice.
To the developed thought of India, as it existed during the vogue of
the drama, there was little possibility of a realization of the
elements of which Greek tragedy is composed. The conception of human
activity striving with circumstance, endeavouring to assert itself in
the teeth of forces superhuman in power and uncontrollable, and meeting
with utter ruin, but yet maintaining its honour, which affords the
spring of tragedy in Greece, is alien to Indian thought. Fate is
nothing outside man; he is subject to no alien influences; he is what
he has made himself by acts in past lives; if he suffers evil he has
deserved it as just retribution, and to sympathize with him, to feel
the pathos of his plight, is really unthinkable. Death, therefore, by
violence is merely a just punishment of crime, and it is a more refined
taste than that of Bhāsa which bids us banish from the stage the
spectacle of what is no more than an execution, a scene as ill-suited
to the decorum and good taste of the serious drama [760] as to the rude
merriment of the farce or monologue.
11. ARISTOTLE AND THE INDIAN THEORY OF POETICS
It is natural that contemporaneously with the effort to prove the Greek
origin of the Indian drama efforts [761] should have been made to
establish the indebtedness of the Nāṭyaçāstra to Aristotle’s theory of
drama. [762] There is no doubt of the many parallels between the two
theories. The unity of action is fully recognized in the Çāstra, and
the rule which insists that the events described in an Act shall not
exceed in duration a day has a certain similarity to the unity of time
in Aristotle, [763] and is much more significant than such agreement as
there is as to unity of place. The doctrine that the drama is an
imitation (anukṛti) does not differ from the doctrine of Mimesis, but
there is an essential distinction in what is imitated or represented;
in the Çāstra it is a state or condition, in Aristotle it is action, a
distinction absolutely in accord with the different geniuses of the two
peoples. The importance of acting is common in both schemes, but
Aristotle makes little of the dance. Both stress the plot, which the
Çāstra recognizes as the body of the drama. The Indian division of
characters as high, middle, and low has a certain parallelism to the
Aristotelian distinctions of modes of depicting character as ideal,
real, and inferior. The Çāstra, like Aristotle, shows appreciation of
the distinction between male and female characters. To some degree we
find in the Çāstra the recognition of the necessity of conflict in
drama, and of the emotions of pity and fear in the sentiment of pathos
and in the element of the development known as Vidrava. The Çāstra also
touches on the relation of the feelings aroused in the actor and in the
audience as in the Poetics. Both recognize the use of significant
names, and deal with the linguistic aspects of style.
Other suggestions of Greek influence may also be adduced; thus we have
the mention of what seems a derivative of the Greek caryatides in the
description of the theatre; the monologue may be based on the Greek
Mime, and we have the actual mention in a passage of the Çāstra of
Yavanas, while the description of the Viṭa suggests derivation from the
Greek parasite. But it is impossible to take these pieces of evidence
as conclusive proof of borrowing; we are, in fact, faced with the usual
difficulty that, if there were borrowing, the Indian genius has known
how to recast so cleverly and to adapt what it borrowed so effectively
that the traces which would definitely establish indebtedness cannot be
found. In all the instances enumerated there is no doubt similarity,
but there is also essential difference such as renders independent
development of the Indian doctrine at least as probable as borrowing.
PART IV
DRAMATIC PRACTICE
XIV
THE INDIAN THEATRE
1. THE THEATRE
The Sanskrit drama of the theorists is, despite its complexity,
essentially intended for performance, nor is there the slightest doubt
that the early dramatists were anything but composers of plays meant
only to be read. They were connoisseurs, we may be certain, in the
merits which would accrue to their works from the accessories of the
dance, music, song, and the attractions of acting; the Vikramorvaçī
must, for instance, have had much of the attraction of an opera, and as
a mere literary work loses seriously in attraction.
On the other hand, the existence of regular theatres for the exhibition
of drama is not assumed in the theorists. A drama was, it is clear,
normally performed on an occasion of special rejoicing and solemnity,
such as a festival of a god, or a royal marriage, or the celebration of
a victory, and the place of performance thus naturally came to be the
temple of the god or the palace of the king. We learn often in the
drama and tales of the existence of dancing halls and music rooms in
the royal palace where the ladies of the harem were taught these
pleasing arts, and one of these could easily be adapted for a dramatic
performance. But we have from the second century B.C. the remains of a
cave which seems to have been used, if not for the performance of
plays, at any rate for purposes of recitation of poems or some similar
end; it is found in the Rāmgarh hill [764] in Chota Nagpur, and,
although it is quite impossible to prove that it had anything to do
with plays, it is interesting to note that the Nāṭyaçāstra states that
the play-house should have the form of a mountain cave and two stories.
According to the Çāstra, [765] the play-house as made ready for
performance may be of three types, the first for the gods, 108 hands
(18 inches) long; the second rectangular, 64 hands long and 32 broad;
the third triangular, 32 hands long, the second being praised on
acoustic grounds. The house falls into two parts, the places for the
audience and the stage. The auditorium is marked off by pillars, in
front a white pillar for the seats for the Brahmins, then a red pillar
for the Kṣatriyas, in the north-west a yellow pillar marks the seats
for the Vaiçyas, while the Çūdras have a blue-black pillar in the
north-east. The seats are of wood and bricks, and arranged in rows. In
front beside the stage is a veranda with four pillars, apparently also
for the use of spectators. In front of the spectators is the stage
(ran̄ga), adorned with pictures and reliefs; it is eight hands square in
the second form of play-house; its end is the head of the stage
(ran̄gaçīrṣa), decorated by figures, and there offerings are made. [766]
Behind [767] the stage is the painted curtain (paṭī, apaṭī,
tiraskaraṇī, pratisīrā), to which the name Yavanikā (Prākrit, Javanikā)
is given, denoting merely that the material is foreign, and forbidding
any conclusion as to the Greek origin of the curtain itself or the
theatre. When one enters hastily, the curtain is violently thrown aside
(apaṭīkṣepa). Behind the curtain are the actors’ quarters
(nepathyagṛha) or tiring rooms. Here are performed the sounds necessary
to represent uproar and confusion which cannot be represented on the
stage; here also are uttered the voices of gods and other persons whose
presence on the stage is impossible or undesirable.
The colour of the curtain is given in some authorities as necessarily
in harmony with the dominant sentiment of the play, in accordance with
the classification of sentiments already given, but others permit the
use of red in every instance. Normally the entry of any character is
effected by the drawing aside of the curtain by two maidens, whose
beauty marks them out for this employment (dhṛtir yavanikāyāḥ). The
term Nepathya has suggested an erroneous deduction as to the relative
elevation of the stage and the foyer, for it is conceivable that it
denotes a descending (ni-patha) way, and it has been concluded [768]
that it was, therefore, below the level of the stage. But the regular
phrase of the entry of an actor on the stage (ran̄gāvataraṇa) would
suggest exactly the opposite, a descent from the foyer to the stage. In
the case of stages hastily put together, often for merely very
temporary aims, it would clearly be absurd to expect any fixed
practice, nor can we say what was the normal height of the stage
platform. In the case of a play within a play, in the Bālarāmāyaṇa of
Rājaçekhara, we find that both a stage and a tiring room are erected on
the original stage, though we may assume that these were of a very
simple structure.
The number of doors leading to the tiring room from the stage is
regularly given as two, [769] and apparently the place of the orchestra
was between them.
2. THE ACTORS
The normal term for actor is Naṭa, a term which has the wider sense of
dancer or acrobat; terms like Bharata, or Bhārata, Cāraṇa, [770]
Kuçīlava, Çailūṣa, or Çaubhika have interest practically only for the
history of the drama. The chief actor, whose name Sūtradhāra doubtless
denotes him as primarily the architect of the theatre, the man who
secures the erection of the temporary stage, is occasionally styled
‘troop-head of actors (naṭagāmaṇi)’, [771] and he is essentially the
instructor of the other actors in their art (nāṭyācārya), so that his
title Sūtradhāra can be used topically as equivalent to Professor. For
this high position his qualifications were to be numerous; he was
supposed to be learned in all the arts and sciences, to be acquainted
with the habits and customs of all lands, to combine the completeness
of technical knowledge with practical skill, and to be possessed of all
the moral qualities which an Indian genius can enumerate. To him falls
not merely the very important function of introducing the play, but
also of taking one of the chief parts; thus he plays Vatsa in the
Ratnāvalī, and in the Mālatīmādhava Kāmandakī, the nun, who powerfully
affects the current of the drama. He is normally the husband of one of
the actresses (naṭī), who aids him in the opening scene, and who is
compelled, poor woman, to combine the arduous life of an actress with
the domestic duty of looking after her husband’s material wants. She is
represented as devoted to him, fasting to secure reunion in another
life, preparing his meal and seeking to remove by her good works the
dangers which threaten him, and compelled to play her parts, although
anxious, as in the Ratnāvalī, over the difficulty of securing the
marriage of her daughter to a fiancé who has gone overseas, or, as in
the Jānakīpariṇaya, over the wickedness of another actor in seeking to
take her daughter from her.
The Sthāpaka, according to the theory, is to resemble in his attributes
the Sūtradhāra; as we have seen, to what extent he really in the dramas
known to us was employed as distinct from the Sūtradhāra, it is
impossible to say; the name suggests that he aided him in the structure
of the stage, and then in his actor’s duties. But there is no ground to
assume that he really had disappeared as a living figure before the
classical drama; the occasional mention of him in actual dramas as well
as in the theory need not be artificial. We have, however, a much more
common attendant of the Sūtradhāra in the Pāripārçvika, who appears in
the prologue of many plays, and in addition acted the parts of persons
of middle rank. He receives the orders of his master and passes them on
to the other actors, and directs the operations of the chorus, as in
the Veṇīsaṁhāra. He is addressed by his master as Mārṣa, and he greets
him as Bhāva.
The other actors, of whom there must often have been many in pieces
with crowds introduced, are to have the qualities of the Sūtradhāra in
as generous a measure as may be; they are divided, however, according
to their qualifications into superior, medium, and third-rate actors.
[772] The principal parts in any drama are, however, few; the king, the
Vidūṣaka, the parasite, the heroine, and a companion are stock types.
The division of rôles is seldom shown in the prologues, whence are
derived most of the details of our knowledge of actual performances.
The Sūtradhāra in the Ratnāvalī and the Priyadarçikā plays the part of
Vatsa, his younger brother that of Yaugandharāyaṇa in the former play
and that of Dṛḍhavarman in the latter; the Sūtradhāra and the
Pāripārçvika take in the Mālatīmādhava the rôles of Kāmandakī and her
pupil Avalokitā respectively. This taking of women’s parts by men is
not by any means the normal practice; the Naṭī normally plays an
important female part; [773] in the embryo drama in the Priyadarçikā we
find that the heroine’s part is played by Āraṇyikā, and the hero’s part
was to have been performed by another girl Manoramā, but Vatsa, without
the queen’s knowledge, insinuated himself into the scene in propria
persona. In the legend of Bharata’s exhibition of the Lakṣmīsvayaṁvara
the nymph Urvaçī is represented as playing the chief rôle, and in
Dāmodaragupta’s Kuṭṭanīmata, where an actual representation of the
Ratnāvalī is described, we find a woman in the rôle of the princess.
The Nāṭyaçāstra [774] expressly admits of three modes of
representation; the rôles may be filled by persons of appropriate sex
and age; the rôles of the old may be taken by the young and vice versa;
and the rôles of men may be played by women and vice versa. The taking
of women’s parts by men has, curiously enough, a very early piece of
evidence, for the Mahābhāṣya mentions the word Bhrūkuṅsa, which was
used to denote a man who made up as a female. [775]
We are, it is clear, to conceive of the troupe of actors under the
Sūtradhāra as ready to wander hither and thither in search of a
favourable opportunity of exhibiting their powers as interpreters. The
performance of a drama became, it is clear, in later times at any rate,
a worthy adornment of a festive occasion such as a religious festival,
the consecration of a king, a marriage, the taking possession of a town
or a new estate, the return of a traveller, and the birth of a son. The
best patrons of the actors might be kings, but there was evidently no
lack of appreciation of their services among men of lesser rank but of
large means. The later prologues give us details of the rivalry between
different troupes. In the Anargharāghava the actor declares that he has
come to exhibit a superior sort of drama to that played by a rival, and
asserts that the dearest desire of a player is to satisfy the public
and to win back the favour he has lost. Rājaçekhara twice introduces
the motive of a competition between actors to win the hand of an
actress who has been offered by her father in marriage to the most
adept of her suitors. Jayadeva invents a pleasing tale of an actor who
won great success and reputation, inducing a comedian of the south to
claim his name and steal his renown. The actor in revenge went south,
and, striking up a partnership with a singer, won both repute and
profit in the courts of the Deccan.
The reputation of actors and actresses was low and unsavoury; they are
reputed to live on the price of their wives’ honour (jāyājīva,
rūpājīva), and Manu imposes only a minor penalty on illicit relations
with the wife of an actor on the score of their willingness to hand
over their wives to others and profit by their dishonour. [776] The
Mahābhāṣya gives equally clear testimony of the lack of chastity among
the actresses or their predecessors. [777] The law book of Viṣṇu [778]
treats them as Āyogavas, a mixed caste representing the fruit of
alliances, improper and undesirable, between Çūdras and the daughters
of the Vaiçya; to be an actor or a teacher of the art is ranked as a
lesser sin in Baudhāyana. [779] The Kuçīlava is described as a Çūdra,
who ought to be banished; [780] his evidence, and indeed that of any
actor, is not to be accepted in law, [781] and Brahmins may not accept
food offered by an actor, [782] a fact attested by the Sūtradhāra in
the prologue to the Mṛcchakaṭikā who can find no one in Ujjayinī to
accept his hospitality. Actors again are classed in Manu with wrestlers
and boxers. An actress was often, if not necessarily, one of the great
army of courtesans; Vasantasenā, the hetaera of the Cārudatta and
Mṛcchakaṭikā, is herself skilled in acting, and has in her household
maidens learning to act, and Daṇḍin includes lessons in this art in his
account of the education of the perfect courtesan in the
Daçakumāracarita.
On the other hand, we have traces of a higher side of the profession,
which doubtless can quite fairly be connected with the gradual
elevation of the drama from humble origins to the rank of an elaborate
and refined poetry. Bharata, the alleged founder of the Nāṭyaçāstra,
ranks as a Muni, or holy sage, and Urvaçī, a divine nymph, is treated
as an actress. What is more important is that Bāṇa definitely
enumerates in the Harṣacarita among his friends an actor and an
actress; Bhartṛhari [783] refers to their friendship with kings, which
is also attested in the legend of Vasumitra, son of Kālidāsa’s hero
Agnimitra, who was slain amidst his actors by his enemy. Kālidāsa
himself represents Agnivarṇa, king of Raghu’s line, as pleased to
compete with actors in their own speciality. Vatsa, in the
Priyadarçikā, is prepared to play a part without question, and
Bhavabhūti in two of his prefaces asserts his friendship with his
actors. In truth, men who could effectively declaim the stanzas of
Bhavabhūti must have possessed both education and culture in a high
degree, and have been very different from the acrobats and jugglers,
dancers, and others whose humble occupations account for the censures
of the law books and the Arthaçāstra.
3. THE MISE-EN-SCÈNE AND REPRESENTATION OF THE DRAMA
We have no trace in the drama of any attempt to introduce scenery into
the representation. The curtain remained as a background throughout the
entertainment, and it was in the main left to the imagination of the
spectator, aided by the descriptions of the poet, to conceive the
beauties of the situation supposed to be presented to his eyes. We have
for this conclusive proof, if any were needed beyond the silence of the
text-books, in the abundant stage directions which accompany the text
of our dramas, and are found even in the fragments of Açvaghoṣa. When
actions such as watering a plant were ascribed to an actress, no
serious effort was made to bring in plants and perform the ceremonial
of watering; on the contrary, she went through a mimicry of the
process, which was enough to satisfy the audience. The king may mount a
chariot, but no effort is made to bring one for this purpose; he merely
goes in elaborate pantomime through the action of getting up off the
ground, and the audience, trained and intelligent, realizes what has
happened. At the beginning of the Çakuntalā the gazelle which Duḥṣanta
follows is not a real animal, but the Sūtradhāra tells us that the king
is pursuing a gazelle, and the actor, who represents the monarch, by
his eager gaze and his gestures reveals himself as in the act of
seeking to shoot the deer. To pluck flowers is merely to imitate the
movements of one who really does so, and an actress with any skill has
no difficulty in persuading an audience by her marks of agitation that
she is escaping from the attacks of a bee.
There is thus no tedious attempt at realism, though the dramatists vary
in the care with which they avoid the absurd in their use of
conventions; the works of Bhāsa show doubtless an excessive tendency to
allow of strain being placed on the credulity of the audience. The
exits and entrances of the characters are often abrupt and unnatural,
but the drama was not primarily intended as a realistic copy of events,
and doubtless was not felt unsatisfactory by the audience. Nor, it may
be remembered, has perfection in detail in any form of ceremonial ever
made a strong appeal to Indian minds; in the most gorgeous celebrations
there will occur, without exciting surprise or comment, strange
deviations from western canons of good taste and elegance.
To a limited extent, however, use was made of minor properties, which
are classed under the generic style of model work (pusta). [784] The
Nāṭyaçāstra distinguishes three forms of such objects; they may be made
up (sandhima) from bamboos covered with skins or cloths; or mechanical
means might be employed (vyājima); or merely clothes (veṣṭita) used. We
hear of the making of an elephant in the Udayanacarita; the
Mṛcchakaṭikā owes its name to the toy cart which appears in it; the
Bālarāmāyaṇa has mechanical dolls, and doubtless there were represented
houses, caves, chariots, rocks, horses, and so on; monsters with animal
heads and many arms could be made of clay and bamboos, and covered with
cloths; we are expressly told that weapons must not be made of hard
material, but that stocks of grass, bamboos, and lac may be made to
serve, and naturally gestures served in lieu of hard blows.
The dress [785] of the actors is carefully regulated, especially as
regards colour, which evidently was regarded as an important item in
matters of sentiment. Ascetics wear garments of rags or bark; those in
charge in the harem red jackets, kings gay garments or, if there are
portents described, garments without colour. Ābhīra maidens wear dark
blue clothes; in other cases dirty or uncoloured garments are
prescribed. Dirty clothes indicate madness, distraction, misery, or a
journey; uncoloured garb, one engaged in worship or some solemn
religious service, an interesting survival of antique custom, while
gods, Dānavas, Gandharvas, Uragas, Yakṣas, and Rakṣases, as well as
lovers and kings, normally wear gay clothing.
Colour, [786] however, is by no means confined to garments; the actors
are expected to adorn themselves with paint of hues appropriate to the
rôles they play. There are, on one theory, four fundamental colours,
white, blue-black, red, and yellow, from which others are developed,
for instance pigeon colour by mixing the first two; a reddish yellow
(gaura) from mixing the last two is also recorded. It or dark (çyāma)
is given as suited for kings, while happiness is indicated by it.
Kirātas, Barbaras, Andhras, Draviḍas, the people of Kāçi and Kosala,
Pulindas, and the people of the Deccan are to be black (asita); the
Çakas, Yavanas, Pahlavas, and Bālhikas [787] are to be reddish yellow;
Pāñcālas, Çūrasenas, Māhiṣas, Uḍras, Māgadhas, An̄gas, Van̄gas, and
Kalin̄gas are to be dark (çyāma), as also Vaiçyas and Çūdras in general,
while Brahmins and Kṣatriyas are to be reddish-yellow.
Naturally the hair [788] attracts attention; Piçācas, madmen, and
Bhūtas wear it loose; the Vidūṣaka is bald; boys have three tufts of
hair, and so also servants if it is not cut short; the maidens of
Avantī, and usually those of Bengal, wear ringlets, in the case of
women of the north it is worn high on the head, and otherwise plaits
are usual. The beard may be bright in hue, dark, or bushy. There is
also the same tendency to stereotype the ornaments, made out of copper,
mica, or wax, and the garlands carried by the various personages;
Vidyādharīs, Yakṣīs, Apsarases and Nāgīs carry pearls and jewels, while
the latter are at once recognizable by the snake’s hood rising over
their heads, as are Yakṣas by a large tuft of hair.
The dress and appearance of the actor thus serve in some measure to
carry out his duty of representation (abhinaya), of presenting before
our eyes the states or conditions of the personage for whom he stands.
This is the Āhāryābhinaya, the first of the four agencies enumerated by
the Nāṭyaçāstra. He has also to perform the duty of representation by
speech (vācika), using his voice to convey the dramatist’s words, and
by exhibiting in propria persona the appropriate physical counterparts
of the feelings and emotions of the characters (sāttvikābhinaya).
Finally, he has specially to concentrate on the expression by gesture
(ān̄gikābhinaya) of the feelings which he is supposed to experience. In
this regard most detailed rules are given, doubtless from the technique
of a period when more importance attached to gestures than later seems
natural. Each member of the body is singled out for description; deep
significance lies in the mode in which the head is shaken, the eyes
glance, the brows move; cheek, nose, lip, chin, and neck can all be
used to convey subtle senses. The hands are invaluable for this
purpose; the different manœuvres with the fingers can convey almost any
possible combination of meanings to the person sufficiently acquainted
with the Nāṭyaçāstra to understand them. But other parts of the body
down to the feet are valuable; great care is bestowed on their
postures, and the gait is invaluable in distinguishing classes of
persons and their deeds. Darkness need not artificially be induced;
movements of hands and feet to indicate groping are enough; one set of
movements shows the mounting of a chariot, another the climbing up to
the top of a palace; if the garments are pulled up, the crossing of a
river is plainly shown; if the motions of swimming are mimicked,
clearly the river is too deep to wade; a dexterous movement of the
hands shows that one is driving, and similarly one can mount an
elephant or a horse. [789]
It is characteristic of the nature of the Indian theory that, while it
descends into enormous detail, it leaves alone to all intents and
purposes the obvious duty of defining precisely the relation of the
varieties of representation described as Sāttvika and Ān̄gika. The true
relation is that under the head of Sāttvika are described the physical
states, which are deemed appropriate to feelings and emotions, while
the Ān̄gika prescribes the precise physical movements which express most
effectively both psychic states and physical movements, which cannot be
conveniently presented on the stage. The division accordingly is
unscientific, and, acute as is the investigation of the Nāṭyaçāstra in
detail, it is far from satisfying as a whole.
The importance of such accessories to the representation as garlands,
ornaments, and appropriate garments, is emphasized by Mātṛgupta, who
admits a specific form of sentiment styled Nepathyarasa, a fact which
illustrates the effect produced in the mind of the spectator by the
details of the mise-en-scène. The same impression may be derived from
the elaboration of the stage directions in the dramas, comparable only
to such as are given, for instance, in Mr. Bernard Shaw’s productions.
It is clear that they were intended not only for the direction of the
actors in actually performing one of the pieces, but as instruments to
aid the reader of the drama in realizing mentally the form of the
representation and in appreciating, therefore, the dramatic quality of
what he studied. Moreover, we have independent evidence which aids us
in seeing how complete these directions are. A fortunate chance has
preserved in Dāmodaragupta’s Kuṭṭanīmata, [790] written in the reign of
Jayāpīḍa of Kashmir in the eighth century A.D., an account of the
performance of the Ratnāvalī of Harṣa. The description is incomplete,
but it is perfectly clear that it was played exactly in accordance with
the stage directions which have come down to us, embedded in the text
of the drama as we have it.
The actual performance of the play was preceded, as we have seen in
describing the theory of the drama, by preliminaries, the essential aim
of which was the securing of the favour of the gods for the play to be
represented. Of the varied elements of the preliminaries special
importance seems to have attached to the praise of the world guardians
(dikpālastuti), and the reverence paid to Indra’s banner. A reed with
five knots is selected which is called Jarjara; the five sections are
painted white, blue-black, yellow, red, and a mixture of hues; banners
of every colour are tied to it, and the supplication is made to Gaṇeça,
the god who removes obstacles and favours literature, and to the
guardians of the quarters of the world.
A religious aspect is given also to the mingling of the pigments, the
materials employed being yellow arsenic, lamp black, and red among
others. The arsenic is formally addressed as being created by Svayambhū
for the purpose of serving as a pigment; then it is placed on a board
with fragments of brick, the whole reduced to fine powder, and mingled,
and then used as pigment. [791]
The time of the performance is not in many cases stated, but in a
number of plays, including the Mālatīmādhava, Karṇasundarī, and the
embryo drama in the Priyadarçikā, we find it assumed to be the moment
when the sun is just appearing. [792] The beat of drum announces the
beginning of the drama, the preliminaries, often reduced to little more
than a vocal and instrumental concert of brief duration, are completed,
and the benediction pronounced, to be followed by the prologue proper
and the drama.
4. THE AUDIENCE
A drama like the Sanskrit demanded the full attention of a cultivated
audience, and it is assumed or expressly asserted, as in the dramas of
Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti, that the spectators are critical and
experienced. The Nāṭyaçāstra [793] requires from the ideal spectator
(prekṣaka) keen susceptibility and excellent judgement, with ability to
make his own the feelings and emotions of the characters depicted by
the actors. But it is admitted that there are the usual degrees among
the spectators, good, medium, and indifferent; the question of the
success of a drama depends on the judgement of the critic (prāçnika),
who is to possess every possible good quality to fit him for the
delicate task. The audience, as it is to share the feelings of the
characters, is expected to show them by the usual outward signs;
laughter, tears, cries, hair standing on end, jumping up from their
seats, clapping with the hands and other manifestations of pleasure,
horror, fear, and other sentiments are both proper and natural.
The rules for placing the patron at whose bidding the drama is
performed, Sabhāpati, and his guests, are elaborate. [794] He sits
himself on the Lion Throne, the equivalent of the royal box, with the
ladies of his harem on the left, and on the right the personages of
highest importance, such as the vassal princes of a great king like
Harṣa. Behind the latter are the treasurer and other officers, and near
them the learned men of the court, civil and religious, including the
poets, and in their midst the astrologers and physicians. On the left
again are the ministers and other courtiers; all around are maidens of
the court. In front again of the king are Brahmins, behind the bearers
of fans, radiant in youthful beauty. On the left in front are the
reciters and panegyrists, eloquent and wise. Guards are present to
protect the sacred person of the sovereign.
How far the dramas were viewed by the public in general we cannot say;
the rules regarding the play-house contemplate the presence of Çūdras,
but that is a vague term, and may apply to a very restricted class of
royal hangers on. We have the general rule [795] that barbarians,
ignorant people, heretics, and those of low class should not be
admitted, but such prescriptions mean very little. There must, it is
clear, have been the utmost variation in the character of the audience
according to the place and circumstances of representation. At great
festivals, when plays were given in the temples, there must have been
admission for as many as could be crowded in; in private exhibitions
the audience may well have been more select. The fact that the dramas
must have been largely unintelligible to all save a select few of the
audience would not matter much; a drama was essentially a spectacle; in
many cases its subject was perfectly familiar to the audience, and the
elaborate use of conventional signs must have been enough to aid many
of the audience in following roughly the nature of the proceedings.
When such dramatic exhibitions became rare we do not know; it is
certain that in the eleventh century in Kashmir they were not uncommon;
Kṣemendra advised aspirants to poetic fame to improve their taste by
the study of such representations. [796] Doubtless the Mahomedan
conquest seriously affected the vogue of the classical drama, which was
obnoxious to Mahomedan fanaticism as being closely identified both with
the national religion and the national spirit of India. The kings, who
had been the main support of the actors and poets alike, disappeared
from their thrones or suffered grave reverses in fortune. The tradition
of dramatic performances gradually vanished. Other causes contributed
to this end; the divorce between the language of the stage and that of
the people steadily increasing with the passage of time made the
Sanskrit drama more and more remote to the public, and the Mahomedans
made it lose its position as the expression of the official and court
life of the highest circles. [797]
NOTES
[1] i. 2 ff.
[2] Hopkins, Great Epic of India, pp. 7, 10, 53.
[3] Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.
[4] Sieg, Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, p. 27.
[5] SBE. xxxii. 182 f.
[6] TI. i. 307 f.
[7] i. 92. 4.
[8] xii. 1. 41.
[9] Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda (1908); VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.; xxiii. 1
ff., 270 f.
[10] VOJ. xviii. 59 ff., 137 ff.; xxiii. 273 ff.; xxiv. 117 ff. Cf.
Charpentier, VOJ. xxiii. 33 ff.; Die Suparṇasage (1922) is somewhat
confused and uncritical.
[11] See ch. xi., § 9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 130 f.
[12] See also Jarl Charpentier, Die Suparṇasage (Uppsala, 1922).
[13] This is quite consistent with the ritual use in a Soma ‘wish’
offering suggested by Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, pp. 79 ff. Cf. his remarks
on vii. 103 in Ṛgveda-Noten, ii. 67.
[14] Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4.
[15] Keith, JRAS. 1911, p. 1006.
[16] Cf. Sansk. Phil. pp. 404 ff.
[17] ZDMG. xxxvii. 54 ff.; xxxix. 52 ff.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 ff.; GN.
1911, pp. 441 ff.; Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa (1917), pp. 53
ff.; Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.
[18] VS. ii. 42 ff. GGA. 1891, pp. 351 ff.
[19] Compare Oldenberg, Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241.
[20] See Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.; 1912, pp. 429 ff.; Rigveda
Brāhmaṇas, pp. 68 ff.
[21] Die indische Balladendichtung (1913). Cf. G. M. Miller, The
Popular Ballad (1905).
[22] The existence of this type in the Epic is certainly most
improbable, and in the Jātakas it is not frequent; cf. Charpentier, Die
Suparṇasage, and Winternitz’s admissions, GIL. ii. 368 with Oldenberg,
GN. 1918, pp. 429 ff.; 1919, pp. 61 ff.
[23] Hillebrandt, Ved. Myth., i. 69 ff.
[24] Keith, Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, pp. 72 ff.
[25] Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv.
[26] VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2.
[27] AID. pp. 22 f.
[28] ID. pp. 42 ff.
[29] xxix. 5.
[30] ii. 7. 3.
[31] The Prākritic form of the term as opposed to Vedic nṛtu and nṛtta
is legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in
circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that
such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious
dancing gave a factor to drama.
[32] Çān̄khāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, i. 11. 5.
[33] Caland, Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, pp. 138
ff.
[34] Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 237; Macdonell, Sanskrit
Literature, p. 347.
[35] Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241. In Mexico we have the
material of a ritual drama (K. Th. Preuss, Archiv für Anthropologie,
1904, pp. 158 ff.), but not the epic element.
[36] Hopkins, The Great Epic of India, pp. 55 ff. Nāṭaka in ii. 11. 36
is very late; JRAS. 1903, pp. 571 f.
[37] xii. 140. 21.
[38] xiii. 33. 12.
[39] ii. 88 ff. See § 3 below.
[40] ii. 67. 15.
[41] ii. 69. 3.
[42] ii. 1. 27; Hillebrandt, ZDMG. lxxii. 229, n. 1; contra, SBAW.
1916, p. 730.
[43] Barth, Inscr. Sansc. du Cambodge, p. 30. At the close of the
Mahābhārata the existence of such recitations is clearly recognized;
Oldenberg, Das Mahabharata, p. 20.
[44] Max Müller, India, p. 81. Cf. Winternitz, GIL. iii. 162, n. 1.
[45] E. Schlagintweit, India in Wort und Bild, i. 176.
[46] vii. 93.
[47] Lévi, TI. i. 311 f.
[48] Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, ii. 94 ff.
[49] Konow, ID. p. 9; Lévi, TI. ii. 51. On these rhapsodes, cf. Jacobi,
Das Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 62 ff.; GGA. 1899, pp. 877 f.; Hopkins, The Great
Epic of India, pp. 364 ff.
[50] iv. 3. 110 f.
[51] iii. 2. 111.
[52] ye tāvad ete çobhanikā nāmaite pratyakṣaṁ Kaṅsaṁ ghātayanti
pratyakṣam Balim bandhayantīti. citreṣu katham? citreṣv apy udgūrṇā
nipātitāç ca prahārā dṛçyante Kaṅsakarṣaṇyaç ca. granthikeṣu kathaṁ
yatra çabdagaḍumātraṁ lakṣyate te ’pi hi teṣām utpattiprabhṛty ā
vināçād ṛddhīr vyācakṣāṇāḥ sato buddhiviṣayān prakāçayanti. ātaç ca
sato vyāmiçrā hi dṛçyante: kecit Kaṅsabhaktā bhavanti, kecid
Vāsudevabhaktāḥ. varṇānyatvaṁ khalv api puṣyanti: kecit kālamukhā
bhavanti, kecid raktamukhāḥ. See iii. I. 26. The text, uncertain in
detail, must be corrected by replacing buddhīr for the absurd ṛddhīr of
some manuscripts only, defended by Lüders. See Weber, IS. xiii. 487 ff.
Çaubhika is a variant.
[53] SBAW. 1916, pp. 698 ff. Cf. Hillebrandt, ZDMG. lxxii. 227 f.;
Keith, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, I. iv. 27 ff.
Winternitz (ZDMG. lxxiv. 118 ff.) ineffectively supports Lüders, though
he recognizes the extraordinary difficulties of this view. The error is
due to the idea that one can only describe (ācaṣṭe) in words, ignoring
art and action.
[54] TI. i. 315. The words are: Kaṅsādyanukāriṇāṁ naṭanāṁ
vyākhyānopādhyāyāḥ.
[55] Weber might be interpreted as believing in an actual killing, but,
if so, he was clearly in error, and in point of fact he merely gives
this as possible (IS. xiii. 490). That Çaubhikas did manual acts and
were not talkers primarily, if at all, is suggested by the use
elsewhere of the term; thus in the Kāvyamīmāṅsā, p. 55, they are
classed with rope-dancers and wrestlers.
[56] ye ’pi citraṁ vyācakṣate ’yam Mathurāprāsādo ’yaṁ Kaṅso ’yam
bhagavān Vāsudevaḥ praviṣṭa etāḥ Kaṅsakarṣiṇyo rajjava etā udgūrṇā
nipātitāç ca prahārā ayaṁ hataḥ Kaṅso ’yam ākṛṣṭa iti te ’pi citragataṁ
Kaṅsaṁ tādṛçenaiva Vāsudevena ghātayanti. citre ’pi hi tadbuddhir eva
paçyatām. etena citralekhakā vyākhyātāḥ. On Lüders’ view the second
sentence is useless.
[57] Genesis des Mahābhārata, pp. 163 ff. Granthika occurs in MBh. xiv.
70. 7; cf. granthin, Manu, xii. 103.
[58] SBAW. 1916, p. 736. Hillebrandt (ZDMG. lxxii. 228) criticises
effectively Lüders’s interpretation. Cf. granthagaḍutva in R. i. 243.
[59] It is a confirmation of the incorrectness of Lüders’s view that he
is driven to render vṛddhīr, which he reads for buddhīr, as
‘Schicksale’. Now vṛddhi cannot possibly be used in this sense; it
means ‘prosperity’, and, applied to Kaṅsa or Bali, it is ludicrous.
What is meant is that, by forming parties, the Granthikas make real to
the audience the feelings of the characters, a doctrine entirely in
keeping with the duty of an actor according to N. Hillebrandt’s view of
the Çaubhikas as explaining the subject of the play to the audience,
like the Sthāpaka later (N. v. 154 ff.; DR. iii. 3; SD. 283),
contradicts the word pratyakṣam.
[60] Winternitz (ZDMG. lxxiv. 122) desires inversion, even on Lüders’s
theory, although Lüders attaches importance to the text.
[61] i. 4. 29 (naṭasya çṛṇoti, granthikasya çṛṇoti); ii. 4. 77 (agāsīn
naṭaḥ); ii. 3. 67 (naṭasya bhuktam); iii. 2. 127 (naṭam āghnānāḥ); iv.
1. 3.
[62] vi. 3. 43.
[63] Keith, ZDMG. lxiv. 534 f.; JRAS. 1911, pp. 979 ff.; 1912, pp. 411
ff.
[64] The Cults of the Greek States, v. 233 ff. The variant theory of
Miss Harrison, Prof. Gilbert Murray, and Dr. Cornford in Themis, and of
Dieterich, Archiv f. Religionswissenschaft, xi. 163 ff., is much less
plausible.
[65] Dawkins, Journ. Hell. Stud., 1906, pp. 191 ff.
[66] Lüders (SBAW. 1916, p. 718, n. 3) is responsible for the view that
Duryodhana is the hero. Lindenau (BS. p. 30) accepts this, but gives
the true facts (pp. 32, 33), without apparently realizing that the
views are contradictory. The Ūrubhan̄ga’s conclusion is happy, not
tragic, for the worshipper of Kṛṣṇa.
[67] Poetics, 1449 a 10 ff.
[68] Cf. the connexion of Greek Comedy with ritual cathartic cursing;
Keith, JRAS. 1912, p. 425, n. For less plausible theories see F. M.
Cornford, The Origin of Attic Comedy (1914); Ridgeway, Dramas and
Dramatic Dances, pp. 401 ff.
[69] AID. p. 27. Cf. below, p. 51, n. 1.
[70] Weber, Ueber die Kṛṣṇajanmāṣṭamī (1868).
[71] The influence of the Kṛṣṇa legend is suggested on the
Vikramorvaçī; Gawroński, Les sources de quelques drames indiens, pp. 33
ff. Cf. below, p. 130.
[72] Lévi, TI. i. 331 f. Cf. Bloch, Langue Marathe, pp. ix. 12 f.
[73] Mathurā, pp. 91 f., 101 f.
[74] JPASB. v. 351 ff.
[75] Megasthenes ascribed the Kordax to the Indian Dionysos (Çiva);
Arrian, Ind. 7. Bloch (ZDMG. lxii. 655) exaggerates his importance.
[76] Cf. Ridgeway, Dramas and Dramatic Dances, p. 190, and pp. 192 ff.
on modern Indian drama in general.
[77] Lévi, TI. i. 319 ff. That any of the early Buddhist texts (e.g.
Padhānasutta, Pabbajjāsutta; Mārasaṁyutta, Bhikkhunīsaṁyutta;
Chaddanta-, Ummadantī-, Mahājanaka-, or Candakinnara-jātaka;
Theragāthā, 866 ff.; Therīgāthā, 912 ff.) is really dramatic is out of
the question; cf. Winternitz, VOJ. xxvii. 38 f.
[78] xii. p. 178. Drama is alluded to in Divyāvadāna, pp. 357, 360,
361.
[79] Schiefner, IS. iii. 483, Indian Tales, pp. 236 ff.
[80] ii. 24 (75).
[81] E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, p. 233; JASB. 1865, p. 71.
Ridgeway’s Dramas, &c., ignores Tibet. For similar Chinese
performances, see Annales Guimet, xii. 416 f.
[82] Āyāraṁga Sutta, ii. 11. 14; Rājapraçnīya, IS. xvi. 385. The love
of the Indians for song and dance is recorded by Greek tradition;
Arrian, Anabasis, vi. 2.
[83] Unfortunately the date of this change of view is uncertain. No
early Jain drama is certainly recorded. A number of mediaeval works
have recently been printed; see E. Hultzsch, ZDMG. lxxv. 59 ff.
[84] JA. sér. 9, xix. 95 ff. If this had been the case, one would have
found references freely to the literature in Hāla, where only v. 344
alludes to the Pūrvaran̄ga of the Nāṭaka (raiṇāḍaapuvvaraṁgassa).
[85] The Origin of Tragedy (1910); Dramas and Dramatic Dances of
non-European Races (1915); JRAS. 1916, pp. 821 ff.; Keith, JRAS. 1916,
pp. 335 ff.; 1917, pp. 140 ff. G. Norwood (Greek Tragedy, pp. 2 f.)
rejects Ridgeway’s view for Greece, and see Keith, JRAS. 1912, pp. 411
ff.
[86] Drama, &c., p. 129 asserts this as the view of ‘the best
authorities’; very wisely he does not refer to these amazing
authorities. Cf. E. Arbman, Rudra (Uppsala, 1922); Keith, Indian
Mythology, pp. 81 ff.
[87] ii. 88.
[88] ii. 91. 26 ff.; 93. 1 ff. Cf. Hertel, VOJ. xxiv. 117 ff.;
Ravivarman, Pradyumnābhyudaya, Act III, p. 23.
[89] Cf. von Schroeder, Mysterium und Mimus, pp. 292 ff. That this was
originally a ritual drama is most improbable.
[90] AID. pp. 22 ff.
[91] ID. pp. 42 ff.
[92] Hardy, Album Kern, pp. 61 f.; Thomas, JRAS. 1914, pp. 392 f.
[93] ERE. iv. 868.
[94] AID. p. 25. Lindenau (BS. p. 45) sees in Vṛṣākapi of Ṛgveda, x.
86, the prototype of the Vidūṣaka, as a maker of mischief and as the
god’s companion, but this is far-fetched. Hertel (Literarisches
Zentralbl. 1917, pp. 1198 ff.) lays stress on the fact that at the
royal courts the king had normally a jester to amuse him. This may
easily have served to affect the figure of this character, if of
religious origin. For older views, cf. J. Huizinga, De Vidûṣaka en het
indisch tooneel (Groningen, 1897); F. Cimmino, Atti della reale
Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti (Naples, 1893), xv. 97
ff.; M. Schuyler, JAOS. xx. 338 ff.; P. E. Pavolini, Studi italiani di
filologia indo-iranica, ii. 88 f.
[95] TD. pp. 43 f. Cf. Niṣikânta Chattopâdhyâya, The Yâtrâs (1882).
[96] Die Heimat des Puppenspiels (1902). Obvious objections are given
by Ridgeway, Dramas, &c., pp. 164 ff.
[97] iii. 30. 23; v. 39. 1.
[98] Vikramorvaçīya, pp. 4 f.
[99] AID. p. 8; ZDMG. lxxii. 231.
[100] SBAW. 1906, pp. 481 ff.
[101] SBAW. 1916, pp. 698 ff. Contra, Hillebrandt, ZDMG. lxxii. 230 f.
Winternitz (ZDMG. lxxiv. 120) reduces the Çaubhikas to people who tell
tales of what is depicted on pictures, a clearly impossible version,
but valid against Lüders.
[102] Based on Kaiyaṭa’s version of Çaubhika: Kaṁsādyanukāriṇāṁ naṭānāṁ
vyākhyānopādhyāyāḥ. This is clearly incompatible with Lüders’s view, as
he admits (pp. 720 f.). Kaiyaṭa is far too late for useful evidence.
[103] See Vincent Smith, Asoka, (ed. 3), pp. 166 f.
[104] Bloch, Arch. Survey of India Report, 1903–4, pp. 123 ff.
[105] p. 344.
[106] xii. 295. 5.
[107] Bṛhatsaṁhitā, v. 74; see Hillebrandt, ZDMG. lxxii. 227.
[108] ZDMG. lxxv. 69 f.
[109] See ch. xi, § 8 below.
[110] See ch. xiv, § 2 below.
[111] AID. p. 8, n. 2. On Javan drama, cf. Ridgeway, Dramas, &c., pp.
216 ff.
[112] IS. ii. 148; Ind. Lit.2 n. 210; SBAW. 1890, p. 920; cf. IS. xiii.
492.
[113] Die Recensionen der Çakuntalā (1875), p. 19; SBAW. 1906, p. 502.
[114] Der griechische Einfluss im indischen Drama (1882); Sansk. Phil.
pp. 398 ff. Cf. E. Brandes, Lervognen (1870), pp. iii ff.; Vincent
Smith, JASB. lviii. 1. 184 ff.
[115] Mahāyānasūtrālaṁkāra, ii. 16 f. Cf. Keith, Buddhist Philosophy,
p. 217.
[116] TI. i. 345.
[117] Or Kuṣāṇa; CHI. i. 580 ff.
[118] Plutarch, Alex. 72; Fort. Alex. 128 D; Crassus, 33. Marshall
(JRAS. 1909, pp. 1060 f.) suggests a reproduction of a motif of the
Antigone in a vase at Peshawar, but dubiously.
[119] ii. 32.
[120] TI. ii. 60.
[121] Periplus, 48.
[122] Cf. Hultzsch, JRAS. 1904, pp. 399 ff. on the Kanarese words found
in a fragment of a Greek comedy preserved in a papyrus of the second
century A.D.
[123] This does not appear in the dramas of Menander so far as
recovered, and is of uncertain date. Cf. Donatus on Terence, Andria,
Prol.
[124] Konow, ID. p. 5, n. 5; Lévi, TI. i. 348; for the generic sense,
cf. Amara, ii. 6. 3. 22; Halāyudha, ii. 154.
[125] Already in Bhāsa: cf. Lindenau, BS. p. 41, n. 2; Lévi, Quid
de Graecis, &c. (1890), pp. 41 f.; on Greek influence, cf. Kennedy,
JRAS. 1912, pp. 993 ff., 1012 ff.; 1913, pp. 121 ff.; W. E. Clark,
Classical Philology, xiv. 311 ff.; xv. 10 f., 18 f.; Weber, SBAW. 1890,
pp. 900 ff.
[126] Kauṭilīya Arthaçāstra, i. 21; Megasthenes, frag. 26; Strabo, xv.
1. 55.
[127] For this motif cf. Gawroński, Les Sources de quelques drames
indiens, pp. 39 ff. On recognition in the Greek tragic drama see
Aristotle, Poetics, 1452 a 29 ff.; Verrall, Choephorae, pp. xxxiii–lxx.
Its alleged essential character as an element of primitive tragedy,
the recognition of the god, is disposed of by Ridgeway, Dramas, &c.,
pp. 40 f.
[128] Cf. Bhāsa’s Svapnavāsavadattā, vi. pp. 51 ff.
[129] Poetics, 1449 b 12 ff.
[130] TI. i. 358.
[131] ID. p. 15.
[132] Arch. Survey of India Report, 1903–4, pp. 123 ff., rashly
followed by Lüders, ZDMG. lviii. 868. See Hillebrandt, AID. pp. 23 f.;
GIL. iii. 175, n. 1.
[133] Der Mimus, i. 694 ff.; DLZ. 1915, pp. 589 ff.; E. Müller-Hess,
Die Entstehung des indischen Dramas (1916), pp. 17 ff.; Lindenau,
Festschrift Windisch, p. 41.
[134] Cf. Oldenberg, Die Literatur des alten Indien, pp. 241 ff.
[135] JA. sér. 9, xix. 95 ff.; IA. xxxiii. 163 ff. Cf. Bloch, Mélanges
Lévi, pp. 15 f.; Franke, Pāli und Sanskrit, pp. 87 ff.; Keith, Sansk.
Lit. ch. 1.
[136] ID. p. 49.
[137] ID. p. 50. Contrast CHI. i. 583.
[138] xvii. 75; cf. Sāhityadarpaṇa, 431; R. iii. 314.
[139] Cf. IS. xiii. 483 ff.; Kielhorn, IA. xiv. 326 f.
[140] Bruchstücke buddhistischer Dramen, pp. 11, 64. Contrast his views
in SBAW. 1912, pp. 808 ff., when he accepts the much later date,
advocated by Oldenberg, GN. 1911, pp. 427 ff.
[141] Jacobi, Ausgew. Erzählungen in Mâhârâshṭrî, pp. xiv ff., suggests
the fifth century A.D. for Sātavāhana. V. Smith’s date (first cent.
A.D.) is certainly wrong. The poetry may probably be as early as the
third century; Weber’s ed., p. xxiii; Lévi, TI. i. 326; GIL. iii. 102
f.
[142] Lüders, Bruchstücke buddhistischer Dramen, pp. 40 f.; SBAW. 1913,
pp. 1003 ff.
[143] See Keith in CHI. i. 123 f.
[144] TI. i. 331.
[145] IA. xxx. 556.
[146] A transitional stage of Prākrit may, perhaps, be seen in the
Nāṭyaçāstra, but the text is very corrupt; cf. Jacobi, Bhavisattakaha,
pp. 84 ff.
[147] Cf. Aischylos in Athen., p. 347.
[148] 559. See Daṇḍin, Kāvyādarça, i. 14 ff., and cf. the analyses of
Man̄kha’s Çrīkaṇṭhacarita (twelfth cent.) and Haricandra’s
Dharmaçarmābhyudaya in Lévi, TI. i. 337 ff.; Keith, Sansk. Lit., pp. 38
ff.
[149] See Jacobi, Das Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 119 ff.; Walter, Indica, III.
[150] Such a drama as the Haragaurīvivāha of Jagajjyotirmalla of Nepal
(A.D. 1617–33), which is really a sort of opera with the verses,
written in dialect, as the only fixed element (Lévi, Le Népal, i. 242)
is of no cogency for the early drama. The Maithilī beginnings of drama,
based on the classical, give song in dialect, dialogue in Sanskrit and
Prākrit (Lévi, TI. i. 393).
[151] Kielhorn, IA. xiv. 326 f.; Lüders, Bruchstücke buddhistischer
Dramen, p. 63.
[152] Cf. Weber, IS. viii. 181 ff.; Jacobi, ZDMG. xxxviii. 615 f.
[153] ID. p. 50. For the fragments see Lüders, Bruchstücke
buddhistischer Dramen (1911); SBAW. 1911, pp. 388 ff. For his
philosophy, cf. Keith, Buddhist Philosophy, Part III, ch. iii. The
Saundarananda is earlier than the Buddhacarita and it than the
Sūtrālaṁkāra.
[154] N. xix. 102.
[155] Similarly in the Pārthaparākrama of Prahlādanadeva (twelfth
cent.) Vāsava pronounces the benediction.
[156] Açvaghoṣa’s dramatic powers are also exhibited in the Māra legend
of the Sūtrālaṁkāra, which is preserved in the Divyāvadāna (pp. 356
ff.; Windisch, Māra und Buddha, pp. 161 ff.); cf. Huber, BEFEO. iv. 414
f.
[157] In the Jain Moharājaparājaya (below, ch. xi, § 3) the real and
the ideal characters converse.
[158] Cf. Lüders, SBAW. 1913, pp. 999 ff.
[159] That any date is given in the inscription is wholly uncertain;
see discussions in IA. xlvii. 223 f.; xlviii. 124, 206 f.; xlix. 30, 43
ff.; JRAS. 1910, pp. 324 ff.
[160] Harṣacarita, intr. v. 16.
[161] Gaüḍavaha, 800.
[162] Cf. Chandradhar Guleri, IA. xlii. 52 ff.
[163] ID., p. 51, who also misses the point of Bhāsanāṭakacakra by
taking it to refer to one play only.
[164] Cf. Lindenau, BS., p. 48, n. 1.
[165] Barnett, JRAS. 1919, pp. 233 ff.; 1921, pp. 587 ff. Contrast G.
Morgenstierne, Über das Verhältnis zwischen Cārudatta und Mṛcchakaṭikā,
p. 16, n. 1; Keith, IA. lii. 59 f.; Thomas, JRAS. 1922, pp. 79 ff.;
Winternitz, GIL. iii. 186, 645.
[166] KF. pp. 109 ff.
[167] ID. p. 25; cf. Pischel, GGA. 1891, p. 361; below, p. 126.
[168] All the dramas are ed. in TSS. 1912–15 by T. Gaṇapati Çāstrin;
this play is trs. E. P. Janvier, Mysore, 1921; P. E. Pavolini, GSAI.
xxix. 1 f. who points out that the Bakavadha of the Mahābhārata is
used.
[169] One in the Mahābhārata, but Bhīma slays there 105 Sūtas also, the
original Kīcaka being of that class.
[170] KF. pp. 301 f.
[171] Winternitz, ZDMG. lxxiv. 125 ff.; Lindenau, BS. pp. 22 ff.
[172] Trs. E. Beccarini-Crescenzi, GSAI. xxvii. 1 ff.
[173] Cf. KSS. cxii. and Kāmasūtravyākhyā in ed. of Pratimānāṭaka,
Upodghāta, p. 29, n.; trs. GSAI. xxviii.
[174] The story is referred to in the Mālatīmādhava, ii. 92; for the
Kathā, see Lacôte, La Bṛhatkathā, pp. 70 ff.; for the ‘Trojan horse’
motif, GIL. ii. 155; iii. 175, n. 3.
[175] The work is styled a Nāṭikā in the colophon in one manuscript.
[176] iv. 40 ff.
[177] v. 2. 28.
[178] p. 366.
[179] Trs. A. Baston, Paris, 1914 (corr. in GSAI. xxvii. 159 f.); A. G.
Shirreff and Panna Lall, Allahabad, 1918. Cf. Lacôte, JA. sér. II,
xiii. 493 ff.
[180] iv. 3. 25, citing iv. 7.
[181] Dhvanyālokalocana, p. 152 cites probably a lost verse; comm. on
N. in TSS. ed. p. xxii. The play is cited also by Vandyaghaṭīya
Sarvānanda (A.D. 1159).
[182] i. 2 in Vāmana, v. i. 3.
[183] i. 19.
[184] i. 15.
[185] i. 34.
[186] ii. 233.
[187] G. Morgenstierne, Über das Verhältnis zwischen Cārudatta und
Mṛcchakaṭikā (1921). Cf. Mehendale, Bhandarkar Comm. Vol. pp. 369 ff.
[188] Arthadyotanikā, 2.
[189] In the Pratimānāṭaka the poet invents the episode of Bharata’s
learning of Sītā’s abduction, of Rāma’s taking over the reins of
government from Bharata, and his coronation in the hermitage. In the
Pañcarātra the gift by Duryodhana of half the realm is new.
[190] Recognized by Duryodhana, v. 35.
[191] v. 43.
[192] p. 69 and v. 21.
[193] iii. p. 53.
[194] Svapnavāsavadattā, iv. p. 43.
[195] v. p. 83.
[196] Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, p. 57.
[197] pp. 59 ff.
[198] Madhyamavyāyoga, p. 22.
[199] Abhiṣekanāṭaka, i. p. 13.
[200] vi. p. 102.
[201] Subhāṣitāvali, 1994.
[202] i. 25.
[203] pp. 43 ff.
[204] pp. 99 ff.
[205] Cf. Duryodhana’s description of Kṛṣṇa’s manifestation in the
Dūtavākya.
[206] Abhiṣekanāṭaka, vi, where three Vidyādharas describe Rāma and
Rāvaṇa’s fight; Pañcarātra, i, where three Brahmins describe
Duryodhana’s sacrifice.
[207] In the Madhyamavyāyoga there are three sons of the Brahmin;
Ūrubhan̄ga, where three servants describe the battle. Cf. the Trigata of
the preliminaries to the drama.
[208] Prastāvanā is given in the Karṇabhāra.
[209] v. p. 56; cf. Avimāraka, iii. p. 41. Compare the use of an abrupt
interruption in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, p. 30, where the query of
the king as to a husband is answered by the mention of Vatsarāja’s
capture.
[210] p. 22. Apparently a dance on the occasion of an eclipse may be
meant; Lindenau, BS. p. 43. Cf. L. von Schroeder, Arische Religion, ii.
114 ff.
[211] The idea that prathamakalpa is a technical term of dramaturgy
(DR. i. 60, comm.) appears to be due to the frequent use of the term,
apparently as a remark of eulogy, in the manuscripts of Bhāsa’s works.
[212] The use of a transverse curtain would explain the scene, but
there is no real evidence of this. Cf. chap. xiv. § 1.
[213] Karṇabhāra, 22.
[214] Abhiṣekanāṭaka, vi. 21.
[215] Pratimānāṭaka, i. 6.
[216] Bālacarita, i. 13.
[217] Abhiṣekanāṭaka, iii. 20.
[218] i. 20.
[219] v. 1619.
[220] Pratimānāṭaka, iii. 17.
[221] Ibid., i. 18.
[222] Ibid., iii. 24.
[223] Pañcarātra, ii. 28.
[224] Dūtaghaṭotkaca, 17.
[225] i. 18.
[226] Pratimānāṭaka, p. xi.
[227] iv. 9.
[228] i. 12.
[229] Avimāraka, i. 5.
[230] ii. 7.
[231] i. 18.
[232] iii. p. 25.
[233] Abhiṣekanāṭaka, v. p. 56.
[234] Ibid., i. p. 10.
[235] Ūrubhan̄ga, 29.
[236] See Pratimānāṭaka, App. i; V. S. Sukhtankar, JAOS. xli. 118 ff.
[237] W. Printz, Bhāsa’s Prākrit (1921). The evidence of retention of
older forms later in South Indian manuscripts (Barnett, JRAS. 1921, p.
589) is interesting but does not alter the importance of these forms.
[238] āni in Pāli, āṇi in the Ardha-Māgadhī of the Jain Canon; Lüders,
SBAW. 1913, pp. 999 ff.
[239] Verses in which the last four syllables are not ⏑ - - ⏓; viz. (1)
⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏓; (2) - ⏑ ⏑ ⏓; (3) -, - - ⏓; (4) - ⏑ - ⏓.
[240] Cf. Jacobi, IS. xvii. 443 f.; V. S. Sukhtankar, JAOS. xli. 107
ff.
[241] - - - - -, - ⏑ - - ⏑ - -. Later only in the Mṛcchakaṭikā of
classical dramas.
[242] ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ -.
[243] ⏑ - ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ -, ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ - - ⏑ -.
[244] ⏑ - - ⏑ - - ⏑ - - ⏑ - -. Later first in the Caitanyacandrodaya.
[245] T. Gaṇapati Çāstrin, Pratimānāṭaka, pp. 1 ff.
[246] i. 17.
[247] p. 7.
[248] v. 3.
[249] i. 16.
[250] v. 11.
[251] iv. 8, 11, 13.
[252] p. 107.
[253] v.
[254] vi. 1, 2.
[255] vi. 11, 13.
[256] Kālidāsa, p. 103.
[257] cxxxiii. 40.
[258] v. 2227.
[259] Lévi, TI. i. 198; Vāmana, iii. 2. 4.
[260] Rudraṭa, pp. 16 f. But see Hari Chand, Kālidāsa, pp. 78 f.
[261] iii. 343.
[262] Wilson, Works, ix. 194.
[263] IS. xiv. 147; JBRAS. viii. 240.
[264] He is later the hero of a Parikathā, the Çūdrakavadha
(Rāyamukuṭa, ZDMG. xxviii. 117), and of a drama, Vikrāntaçūdraka
(Sarasvatīkaṇṭhābharaṇa, p. 378).
[265] KF. pp. 107 ff. Cf. Bhandarkar, Anc. Hist. of India, pp. 64 f.;
CHI. i. 311.
[266] Berichte der Sächs. Gesellsch. d. Wissenschaften, 1885, pp. 439
f.
[267] Jacobi (Bhavisattakaha, p. 83) believes in Çūdraka as a king, but
thinks Kālidāsa older.
[268] See G. Morgenstierne, Über das Verhältnis zwischen Cārudatta und
Mṛcchakaṭikā (1921).
[269] Jolly (Tagore Law Lectures, 1883, pp. 68 f.) compares the
procedure of the Smṛtis.
[270] KSS. lviii. 2–54.
[271] Daçakumāracarita, ii.
[272] xii. 92; xviii. 121.
[273] Cf. Çlokasaṁgraha, x. 60–163.
[274] His errors in the field of mythology are appalling, e.g. Kuntī
for Sītā, i. 21.
[275] Stenzler’s ed. pp. 325 ff.; Wilson, i. 177.
[276] i. 48.
[277] v. 42.
[278] i. 13; cf. Cārudatta, i. 5.
[279] i. 22; cf. Cārudatta i. 11, on which it improves.
[280] v. 49.
[281] v. 15.
[282] v. 16.
[283] v. 25.
[284] v. 26.
[285] v. 32.
[286] Ryder, The Little Clay Cart, p. xvi.
[287] Jayadeva, Prasannarāghava, i. 22.
[288] Mahāvīracarita, i. 4.
[289] Cf. Pischel, Prākrit-Grammatik, pp. 25 ff.
[290] JRAS. 1913, p. 882; 1918, p. 513. Cf. Kāvyamīmāṅsā, p. 51.
[291] Used in verse even, e.g. by the Vidūṣaka.
[292] — — — —, — — — —. In no other classical drama is it found.
[293] The apparent occurrence of Māhārāṣṭrī stanzas is in all
probability not in accordance with the original text, which knew only
the Prākrits given in § 4; see Hillebrandt, GN. 1905, pp. 436 ff.
[294] Hillebrandt, Kālidāsa (1921), pp. 7 ff.
[295] JRAS. 1901, pp. 578 ff.
[296] e.g. Konow, SBAW. 1916, pp. 812 ff.
[297] JRAS. xii. (1880), 268 f.
[298] India (1883), pp. 281 ff.
[299] JRAS. 1909, pp. 89 ff.
[300] JBRAS. xix. 39 ff.
[301] iv. 68.
[302] Meghadūta (ed. 2), pp. vii ff. In v. 67 he reads Van̄kṣū = Oxus,
for Sindhu; see Haranchandra Chakladar, Vātsyāyana, p. 23.
[303] JRAS. 1903, pp. 183 f.; 1904, pp. 158 f.
[304] Huth, Die Zeit des Kâlidâsa, pp. 29 ff.
[305] Thomas’s suggestion (Hillebrandt, p. 12) of a reference to the
Sārasvata school in the same passage only adds to the improbability of
the reference.
[306] Keith, Indian Logic, p. 28.
[307] Pathak, IA. xl. 170 f.; Hoernle, 264; Haraprasād, JPASB. i.
(1905), 253; JBORS. ii. 35 f.; 391 f.
[308] Jacobi, ZDMG. xxx. 303 ff.; Monatsber. d. kgl. Preuss. Akad. d.
W., 1873, pp. 554 ff.; Huth, op. cit., pp. 32 ff., 49 ff.
[309] Keith, JRAS. 1909, pp. 433 ff.; Bloch, ZDMG. lxii. 671 ff.;
Liebich, IF. xxxi. 198 ff.; Konow, ID., pp. 59 f.; Winternitz, GIL.
iii. 43 f.
[310] Ed. F. Bollensen, Leipzig, 1879; trs. A. Weber, Berlin, 1856; V.
Henry, Paris, 1889; C. H. Tawney, London, 1891. The existence of a
variant recension is shown by the divergence of a citation from it in
comm. on DR. iii. 18 from the manuscript tradition.
[311] That the Meghadūta is younger is suggested, not proved, by the
lesser lyric power shown (Huth, p. 68). The Ṛtusaṁhāra, however, is
doubtless earlier; its authenticity is demonstrated by me in JRAS.
1912, pp. 1066 ff.; 1913, pp. 410 ff. The relation of the
Kumārasambhava and Raghuvaṅça to the two later dramas is uncertain.
[312] For the history, see CHI. i. 519 f.
[313] Ed. F. Bollensen, Leipzig, 1846; S. P. Paṇḍit, Bombay, 1901; M.
R. Kale, Bombay, 1898; trs. E. B. Cowell, Hertford, 1851; L. Fritze,
Leipzig, 1880; E. Lobedanz, Leipzig, 1861. The Bengālī recension is ed.
Pischel, Monatsber. d. kgl. Preuss. Akad. d. W., 1875, pp. 609 ff.
[314] Cf. Huth, op. cit., pp. 63 ff.
[315] The prototype here is clearly Rāma’s search for Sītā; Rāmāyaṇa,
iii. 60. The Sudhanāvadāna, cited by Gawroński (Les sources de quelques
drames indiens, pp. 19, 29) draws probably from the same source.
[316] Jacobi, Bhavisattakaha, p. 58; Bloch, Vararuci und Hemacandra,
pp. 15 f.
[317] Bengālī recension, R. Pischel, Kiel, 1877; M. Williams, Hertford,
1876, and M. R. Kale, Bombay, 1908, represent the Devanāgarī version,
and so mainly S. Ray, Calcutta, 1908; C. Cappeller, Leipzig, 1909.
There are South Indian edd., Madras, 1857, 1882. See also Burkhard, Die
Kaçmîrer Çakuntalā-Handschrift, Vienna, 1884.
[318] Konow, ID., pp. 67 f.; Hari Chand, Kālidāsa, pp. 243 ff.; B. K.
Thakore, The Text of the Śakuntalā (1922); Windisch, Sansk. Phil. pp.
344 f.
[319] De Kâlidâsae Çâkuntali recensionibus (1870); Die Recensionen der
Çakuntalā (1875).
[320] TI. ii. 37. The erotic passages in Act III in the Bengālī
recension must be judged by Indian taste; cf. Thakore, p. 13 for a
condemnation.
[321] IS. xiv. 35 ff., 161 ff. Cf. Bühler, Kashmir Report, pp. lxxxv
ff.
[322] Cf. above, p. 121, n. 1 as to the variation in correctness in
different classes of MSS.
[323] For a warm eulogy, see V. Henry, Les littératures de l’Inde, pp.
305 ff.
[324] xxiv; Viṣṇu, iv. 6; Bhāgavata, ix. 14; Pischel and Geldner, Ved.
Stud. i. 243 ff.; L. v. Schroeder, Mysterium und Mimus, pp. 242 ff. A.
Gawroński (Les sources de quelques drames indiens, pp. 19 ff.) suggests
a popular legend, comparing the Sudhanāvadāna, No. 30 of the
Divyāvadāna.
[325] i. 74. Winternitz’s denial (GIL., i. 319 f.) of priority is
impossible; cf. Gawroński, Les sources de quelques drames indiens, pp.
40, 91.
[326] The absurd silence as to Mālavikā’s origin in the
Mālavikāgnimitra is rendered acceptable by belief in prophecy.
[327] See S. D. and A. B. Gajendragadkar, Abhijñānaçakuntalā, pp. xxxvi
ff.; below, chap. xii.
[328] See Hari Chand, Kālidāsa et l’art poétique de l’Inde (1917), pp.
68 ff. On his suggestiveness, cf. Ekāvalī, p. 52.
[329] Çakuntalā, i. 15.
[330] Ibid., i. 20.
[331] Ibid., vi. 9.
[332] Ibid., vii. 19.
[333] Ibid., vi. 22.
[334] Ibid., vii. 32.
[335] Vikramorvaçī, iv. 55.
[336] Ibid., iv. 68.
[337] Ibid., iii. 11; for the text see Hari Chand, Kālidāsa, p. 231.
[338] Vikramorvaçī, iii. 19.
[339] Ibid., i. 9. The parallelism is, of course, complete in Sanskrit,
but inexpressible directly in English.
[340] Mālavikāgnimitra, iii. 2.
[341] Ibid., iv. 14.
[342] Ibid., v. 19.
[343] Ibid., v. 12.
[344] Ibid., v. 11.
[345] Traces of Çaurasenī in verses appear in the Çakuntalā. Cf.
Hillebrandt, Mudrārākṣasa, p. iii; GN. 1905, p. 440.
[346] Cf. Pravarasena’s Setubandha. On Hāla and Kālidāsa, cf. Weber’s
ed., p. xxiv.
[347] ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ — | ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ — bis.
[348] 16 + 18 bis: normal type ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ — — | ⏑ ⏑ — — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑
— ⏑ — —.
[349] ⏑ — ⏑ —, ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ —.
[350] — ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ —.
[351] ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ —, ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — — ⏑ —.
[352] Huth, op. cit., Table.
[353] Hillebrandt (Kālidāsa, p. 157) points out the complexity of the
position.
[354] H. A. Shah (Kauṭilya and Kālidāsa (1920), p. 5), argues that
Raghuvaṅça, ix. 53, shows a more advanced view of hunting as a useful
sport when regulated (Arthaçāstra, p. 329) than the Çakuntalā. But the
dramatic propriety of the passage of the Çakuntalā renders the
contention uncertain. Whether Kālidāsa knew precisely our Arthaçāstra
is also uncertain.
[355] Lévi, BEFEO. iii. 38 f.; Liebich, Das Datum des Candragomin und
Kalidasas; Konow, ID. pp. 72 f.; GIL. iii. 185, 399 f.
[356] v. 2275.
[357] v. 1629.
[358] p. 163; Subhāṣitāvali, 1916; Çārn̄gadhara, cxvii. 14; text
uncertain.
[359] Subhāṣitāvali, 66.
[360] Subhāṣitāvali, 69.
[361] M. Ettinghausen, Harṣa Vardhana, Louvain, 1905; S. P. Paṇḍit,
Gaüdavaho, pp. cvii ff.; K. M. Panikkar, Sri Harsha of Kanauj, Bombay,
1922. It is impossible to connect the dramas with any definite incident
of his reign such as the Prayāga festival celebrated by Hiuan-Tsang.
[362] i. 2. Cf. Soḍhala (A.D. 993) in Kāvyamīmāṅsā (GOS. i), p. xii.
[363] Trs. Takakusu, pp. 163 f.
[364] vv. 856 ff.
[365] Ed. C. Cappeller, Böhtlingk, Sanskrit-Chrestomathie, 3rd ed., pp.
326 ff.; trs. Wilson, ii. 255 ff.; L. Fritze, Schloss Chemnitz, 1878.
It was performed at a spring festival of Kāma.
[366] Ed. R. V. Krishnamachariar, Srirangam, 1906; trs. G. Strehly,
Paris, 1888.
[367] Ed. Calcutta, 1886; TSS. 1917; trs. P. Boyd, London, 1872; A.
Bergaigne, Paris, 1879; E. Teza, Milan, 1904.
[368] KSS. xxii. 16–257; xc. 3–201; BKM. iv. 50–108; ix. 2. 776–930.
[369] xv.
[370] Many traces of the Svapnavāsavadattā can be seen in the
Ratnāvalī, especially in the characterization of the Vidūṣaka.
[371] Āraṇyikā suggests that assertion would be undignified, seeing her
actual condition. In the Mālavikāgnimitra a prophecy is made to do
service as a motif.
[372] Cf. Schuyler, JAOS. xx. 338 ff.
[373] Ratnāvalī, iv. 6.
[374] Ratnāvalī, iv. 1.
[375] Ibid., iv. 16.
[376] Ibid., iv. 6/7. Cf. Priyadarçikā, i. on Vindhyaketu’s death.
[377] iii. 15.
[378] iii. 17.
[379] v. 25.
[380] i. 1.
[381] Or bodhau, ‘on his enlightenment.’
[382] iii. 4.
[383] iii. 2.
[384] iv. 7.
[385] iii. 15.
[386] Māgadhī is found in the Nāgānanda spoken by the servant. On the
variation of forms in the northern and southern editions see Barnett,
JRAS. 1921, p. 589.
[387] The Mattavilāsa, ed. TSS. lv. 1917.
[388] EI. iv. 152; South Ind. Inscr. i. 29 f.; G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, The
Pallavas, pp. 37 ff.
[389] A Sarvacarita is attributed to a Bāṇa in Rājarāma Çastrin’s
Sūcīpatra, but it may really be Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa’s as is the
Pārvatīpariṇaya (against Ettinghausen, Harṣa Vardhana, pp. 122 f.). The
Mukuṭatāḍitaka of Bāṇa is cited in Caṇḍapāla’s comm. on the Nalacampū,
p. 227.
[390] This verse is attributed to Bhāsa by Somadeva in his Yaçastilaka;
Peterson, Reports, ii. 46.
[391] pp. 7, 8, 9.
[392] So the Unmattaka in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa of Bhāsa.
[393] Antiquity is claimed by the editors of Caturbhāṇī (1922) for the
Bhāṇas, Ubhayābhisārikā of Vararuci, Padmaprābhṛtaka of Çūdraka,
Dhūrtaviṭasaṁvāda of Īçvaradatta, Pādatāḍitaka of Ārya Çyāmilaka, but
no reliance can be placed on the first two ascriptions, and none of the
plays need be older than 1000 A.D. Their technique is similar to that
of the Mattavilāsa.
[394] Pādavākyapramāṇajña; see Belvalkar, HOS. XXI. xxxvi. ff. where
the attempt to identify Padmapura with Padmāvatī as Pavāyā near Narvār
and the shrine of Kālapriya with Kālp on the Jumna is disproved. On his
Vedic studies, see Keith, JRAS. 1914, pp. 729 f. He knew the Kāmasūtra;
JBRAS. xviii. 109 f.
[395] iv. 144. On the dates, see Stein’s Intr., § 85, and notes on iv.
126 and 134.
[396] v. 799.
[397] i. 2. 12 (anonymous). That Bhavabhūti knew Bhāsa may be assumed;
his use of the rare Daṇḍaka metre may be borrowed, and similarities
between Uttararāmacarita, Act II and Svapnavāsavadattā, Act I, &c.,
exist.
[398] Ed. R. G. Bhandarkar, Bombay, 1876 (2nd ed., 1905); trs. Wilson,
ii. 1 ff.; G. Strehly, Paris, 1885; L. Fritze, Leipzig, 1884. Cf.
Gawroński, Les sources de quelques drames indiens, pp. 43 ff.; Cimmino,
Osservazioni sul rasa nel Mālatīmādhava, Naples, 1915.
[399] Ed. F. H. Trithen, London, 1848; NS. 1901; trs. J. Pickford,
London, 1892.
[400] Ed. and trs. S. K. Belvalkar, HOS. xxi–xxiii; trs. C. H. Tawney,
Calcutta, 1874; P. d’Alheim, Bois-le-Roi, 1906.
[401] The deplorable effort in Act IV of the Uttararāmacarita at
deliberate humour shows his weakness in this regard. A certain measure
of irony of situation is all that he ever attains, e.g. in connexion
with Rāma’s ignorance of the identity of his sons, cf.
Uttararāmacarita, iv. 22/3; vi. 19/20.
[402] xiii.
[403] KSS. xviii.; xxv. (Açokadatta and the Rākṣasas): cxxi. (Kāpālika
and Madanamañjarī); DKC. vii. (Mantragupta and Kanakalekhā).
[404] Kumārasvāmin, Pratāparudrīya, i. 38.
[405] Uttararāmacarita, vi. 12.
[406] Ibid., i. 12.
[407] Mahāvīracarita, v. 59. Cf. Uttararāmacarita, iv. 13, 14.
[408] Ibid., i. 39.
[409] Uttararāmacarita, iii. 18.
[410] Cf. ibid., i. 5.
[411] Ryder, The Little Clay Cart, p. xvi.
[412] G. Norwood, Greek Tragedy, pp. 121 ff.
[413] i. 27.
[414] i. 38.
[415] v. 16.
[416] iii. 27.
[417] i. 29.
[418] i. 34.
[419] v. 10.
[420] Vāmana, i. 2. 12; SD. 627; Kāvyādarça, i. 40 ff.
[421] ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ — ⏑ ⏑ —.
[422] VOJ. ii. 212 ff.; contra Dhruva, VOJ. v. 25; Charpentier, JRAS.
1923, pp. 585 f.
[423] ID. pp. 70 f. Cf. Antani, IA. li. 49 f.; Winternitz, GIL. iii.
210.
[424] Keith, JRAS. 1909, pp. 145 f.; Hertel, ZDMG. lxx. 133 ff. It is
later than the Mṛcchakaṭikā, the Raghuvaṅça (vii. 43 as compared with
v. 23), and the Çiçupālavadha (i. 47 as compared with the last verse).
[425] Ed. A. Hillebrandt, Breslau, 1912; trs. Wilson, ii. 125 ff.; L.
Fritze, Leipzig, 1886; V. Henry, Paris, 1888.
[426] Or Parvataka. For an effort to extract history, see CHI. i. 470
ff. It must be regarded as very dubious.
[427] TI. i. 226 f.
[428] His ability in this regard can be seen in the jingle of
Malayaketu’s lament in v. 16.
[429] v. 1728.
[430] Mudrārākṣasa, v. 5.
[431] iii. i.
[432] v. 7.
[433] ii. 14.
[434] ii. 19.
[435] vi. 21.
[436] p. 154.
[437] p. 189.
[438] p. 153.
[439] Ed. KM. pp. 80, 150.
[440] Konow, ID. p. 77.
[441] Ed. J. Grill, Leipzig, 1871; Bombay, 1905; trs. S. M. Tagore,
Calcutta, 1880. Traces of different recensions exist.
[442] ii. 41.
[443] ii. 47.
[444] v. 120.
[445] v. 122.
[446] i. 15.
[447] i. 25.
[448] vi. 197.
[449] v. 157.
[450] E.g. vi, p. 87 (Sanskrit); v, p. 59 (Prākrit).
[451] i. 27.
[452] v. 146.
[453] v. 144.
[454] vi. 178.
[455] SD. 408. Lévi, however, is in error (TI. i. 35, 224) in
suggesting that SD. 406 censures as inappropriate Duryodhana and
Karṇa’s dialogue in Act III.
[456] pp. 139, 140.
[457] See Aufrecht, ZDMG. xxxvi. 521.
[458] v. 36; Lévi, TI. ii. 87. The citations are mainly from his
Kapphiṇābhyudaya; Thomas, Kavīndravacanasamuccaya, p. 111.
[459] Pischel, ZDMG. xxxix. 315; Hultzsch, GN. 1886, pp. 224 ff.
[460] Bhattanatha Svamin, IA. xli. 139 f.; Bhandarkar, Report (1897),
pp. xi, xviii; Peterson, Report, ii. 59. The name is variously given as
Māyūrāja.
[461] Subhāṣitāvali, 1766.
[462] Ibid., 1366.
[463] Ibid., 1364.
[464] Ibid., 1634.
[465] i. 42; SD. 390; N. xix. 94; Lévi, TI. ii. 9.
[466] DR. ii. 54 comm.
[467] DR. iv. 26 comm.
[468] DR. i. 41 comm.
[469] DR. iii. 13 comm.
[470] DR. iii. 17 comm.
[471] DR. iii. 12 comm.
[472] DR. iii. 38 comm.; SD. 512.
[473] DR. iii. 56 f. comm.; SD. 516.
[474] vi. 30/31 is cited in i. 6/7.
[475] xxxviii. 68. For his date cf. Bühler, Kashmir Report, p. 42. See
Bhattanatha Svamin, IA. xli. 141; Lévi, TI. i. 277.
[476] ID. p. 83. Dhanika (DR. ii. 1) cites, anonymously as usual, iii.
21.
[477] xxv. 74.
[478] ZDMG. lxxv. 63.
[479] ii. 34, as compared with vii. 83.
[480] Ed. KM. 1894; cf. Baumgartner, Das Râmâyaṇa, pp. 125 ff.
[481] v. 6.
[482] vii. 87.
[483] vii. 82.
[484] vii. 107.
[485] vii. 90.
[486] Ed. p. 1, note.
[487] Konow, Karpūramañjarī, pp. 177 ff.; Hultzsch, IA. xxxiv. 177 ff.;
V. S. Apte, Rājaçekhara, Poona, 1886. Of special virtue is his
Kāvyamīmāṅsā on rhetoric, which is better than his dramas.
[488] Winternitz, GIL. iii. 47; Lévi, TI. i. 183 f.
[489] Ed. Calcutta, 1884.
[490] Ed. C. Cappeller, Strassburg, 1885; Weber, IS. xviii. 481 ff.
[491] Ed. S. Konow, trs. C. R. Lanman, HOS. iv. 1901; J. Charpentier,
Monde oriental, ii. 226 ff.
[492] Ed. Poona, 1886; trs. L. H. Gray, JAOS. xxvii. 1 ff.
[493] ii. 30. The translation of this and the next verse is taken from
Lanman’s version.
[494] ii. 47.
[495] ii. 49.
[496] Konow, ID. p. 87; Peterson, Reports, ii. 63; Bhandarkar, Report
(1897), p. xi.
[497] Peterson, Reports, iii. 340 f.
[498] Ed. Calcutta, 1884; trs. L. Fritze, Leipzig, 1883. On the same
theme is Rāmacandra’s Satyahariçcandra (twelfth cent.); see Keith,
JRAS. 1914, pp. 1104 f.
[499] Ed. Bombay, 1894; Poona, 1894; cf. Baumgartner, Das Râmâyaṇa, pp.
129 ff.
[500] Cf. Peterson, Subhāṣitāvali, pp. 38 f.; Keith, Indian Logic, pp.
33 f. The verses common to the play and the Mahānāṭaka are clearly not
evidence of prior date, despite Lévi, TI. ii. 48; Konow, ID. p. 88. He
is later than Murāri; Hall’s (DR. p. 36 n.) suggested reference to
Jayadeva in comm. on DR. ii. 10 is incorrect. He is known to R. (c.
A.D. 1330), iii. 171 f., and the Çārn̄gadharapaddhati.
[501] Ed. Madras, 1892; trs. by L. V. Ramachandra Aiyar, Madras, 1906.
[502] Ed. KM. 1896.
[503] Ed. TSS. 1910.
[504] Ed. KM. 1903.
[505] Ed. Murçidābād, 1880 f.
[506] Ed. KM. 1888.
[507] Ed. KM. 1894.
[508] Wilson, ii. 404.
[509] Ed. TSS. 1912 and 1911.
[510] Ed. GOS. 1917.
[511] Kielhorn, Bruchstücke indischer Schauspiele, Berlin, 1901.
[512] Ed. R. Schmidt, Leipzig, 1917; trs. K. Glaser, Trieste, 1886. Cf.
GIL. iii. 248, n. 4.
[513] Lévi, Le Népal, ii. 242.
[514] Haraprasād, Nepal Catal., p. xxxvii.
[515] Ed. KM. 1900; trs. L. H. Gray, JAOS. xxv. 197 ff.
[516] Ed. Kielhorn, op. cit.
[517] Ed. Bombay, 1891.
[518] Ed. Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, no. x, 1920. On the merits of
Vastupāla see also Arisiṅha’s Sukṛtasaṁkīrtana and Someçvara’s
Kīrtikaumudī.
[519] Usually Sin̄ghaṇa or Siṅhaṇa. Cf. Bhandarkar, Report (1907), pp.
15 ff., who equates Mīlacchrīkāra with Shamsu-d-din (1210–35).
[520] We hear of a Rājarājanāṭaka performed annually in a temple of
Çiva by order of the Cola Rājarāja I of Tanjore in the eleventh
century, but of its content we know nothing; H. Krishna Sastri in
Ridgeway’s Dramas, &c., p. 204.
[521] India Office Catal., no. 4194.
[522] Ed. Madras, 1912.
[523] Kumbhakonam, 1892.
[524] Ed. Bombay, 1898; trs. J. Taylor, Bombay, 1893. Cf. J. W.
Boissevain, Prabodhacandrodaya, Leiden, 1905.
[525] Ed. Kāñcī, 1914; trs. K. Narayanacharya and D. Raghunathaswamy
Iyengar, vol. i. Srirangam, 1917.
[526] Ed. KM. 1906; analysed by Lévi, TI. i. 237 ff. Date, c. A.D.
1550.
[527] Ed. KM. 1893. Another imitation is the Amṛtodaya of Gokulanātha,
Haraprasād, Report (1901), p. 17.
[528] Ed. KM. 1891. For the author of the Vidyāpariṇayana (Vedakavi,
nominally Ānandarāya) see KM. xliv. Pref. p. 9.
[529] Ed. Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, no. ix. 1918.
[530] This is probably the nuance intended, as in saumyatā.
[531] Ed. KM. 1888. Cf. Keith, Sansk. Lit., pp. 64 ff.
[532] Ed. E. Hultzsch, Leipzig, 1906; cf. GGA. 1908, pp. 98 ff.
[533] Ed. KM. 1895. The late Mṛgān̄kalekhā of Viçvanātha son of
Trimaladeva, is summarized in Wilson, ii. 390 f.
[534] Hultzsch, Reports, no. 2142. He wrote a Nāṭaka, a Bhāṇa, a
Prahasana, and the Ḍamaruka in ten Alaṁkāras; Madras Catal. xxi. 8403
ff.
[535] KM., Part 8, p. 51.
[536] Ed. Calcutta, 1878.
[537] Hultzsch, ZDMG. lxxv. 61 ff.
[538] Ed. Bhāvnagar, 1917.
[539] ZDMG. lxxv. 63. See above, chap. x. § 2.
[540] Ed. Bhāvnagar, 1917.
[541] Famous from the Nala onwards.
[542] Ed. Benares, Vīrasaṁvat, 2432.
[543] Ed. KM. 1889. R. iii. 271, &c., cites an Ānandakoça.
[544] Ed. in Lassen’s Anth. Sanscr., Bonn, 1838. Cf. Haraprasād, Nepal
Catal., p. xxxvii.
[545] Ed. Calcutta, 1896. Cf. Wilson, ii. 408 f.
[546] Ed. Calcutta, 1828; Wilson, ii. 410 f.
[547] Wilson, ii. 407.
[548] Cappeller, Gurupūjākaumudī, pp. 62 f.
[549] Ed. KM. 1896. R. iii. 248 gives an unknown Çṛn̄gāramañjarī as a
specimen. See p. 185, n. 3.
[550] Ed. KM. 1894.
[551] Ed. Madras, 1874.
[552] Wilson, ii. 384.
[553] Ed. KM. 1902.
[554] Ed. KM. 1893; JRAS. 1907, p. 729.
[555] Ibid., 1889.
[556] Ed. in Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, no. iv. 1917.
[557] Ed., with the other five plays, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, no.
viii. 1918.
[558] Ed. KM. 1902. Cf. SD. 514.
[559] Ed. KM. 1885; Wilson, ii. 374.
[560] Bendall, Brit. Mus. Catal., no. 273.
[561] Hultzsch, ZDMG. lxxv. 62 f.
[562] Konow, ID. p. 114.
[563] Schmidt, ZDMG. lxiii. 409 f., 623 f.
[564] Ed. KM. 1889.
[565] Konow, ID. p. 118.
[566] Ed. Murçidābād, 1881 f.
[567] Ed. KM. 1888.
[568] See above, ch. ii. § 4.
[569] Bikaner Catal., p. 251. It is trs., Gray, JAOS. xxxii. 59 ff. The
play borrows from the Bālarāmāyaṇa (ix. 58 f. = verses 52 f.), and the
Mahānāṭaka.
[570] SBAW. 1916, pp. 698 ff.
[571] Loc. cit.
[572] For the slightly different legend of Madhusūdana—current in
Bengal—see SBAW. 1916, pp. 704 ff. The number of verses varies greatly
in the manuscripts. The apparent citation by name in DR. comm. ii. 1 is
only in some manuscripts.
[573] Lüders’s attempt to read, in Madhusūdana’s recension only,
saubhyāḥ, shadow players, is clearly absurd; ZDMG. lxxiv. 142, n. 3.
[574] Lévi, TI. i. 244; G. Devèze, Çakuntalā, Paris, 1888.
[575] Lévi, TI. i. 235 ff.; Keith, Sansk. Lit., pp. 121 ff.
[576] Ed. W. Caland, Amsterdam, 1917. Cf. ZDMG. lxxiv. 138 ff.; IA.
xlix, 232 f.
[577] The Swāng, unlike the play, is metrical throughout; R. C. Temple,
Legends of the Panjab, I. viii, 121.
[578] In Greece, despite the great advantages of a public
representation, plays to be read only arose early; Aristotle, Rhetoric,
iii. 12. 2. Most of the dramas of the last few years seem literary.
[579] Cf. perhaps the nineteenth-century Citrayajña, described by
Wilson, ii. 412 ff.
[580] Devajīti as read by the editor and Winternitz is a quaint
misreading.
[581] See Jacobi, Bhavisattakaha, p. 58 n. Influence by the Yātrās is
probable; Windisch, Sansk. Phil. p. 407.
[582] Contrast Aristotle’s doctrine of plot as the soul of tragedy
(Poetics, 1450 a 38).
[583] See above, pp. 38, 96, 106.
[584] Contrast Aristotle’s doctrine of ἁμαρτία (Poetics, 1453 a 10
ff.), as in Euripides’s Hippolytos; G. Norwood, Greek Tragedy, pp. 209
f., 213 f.
[585] Greek tragedy progressively reduced the lyric element in the
drama, in harmony with the rhetorical trend of the Greek intellect, and
approximated in language to ordinary speech; Aristotle, Poetics, 1450 b
9; Rhetoric, iii. 1 and 2; Haigh, The Tragic Drama of the Greeks, ch.
vi, § 3.
[586] Contrast Greek tragedy; Butcher, Greek Genius, pp. 105 ff.; G.
Norwood, Greek Tragedy, pp. 97 f., 114 f., 128 f., 177, 318, 324; W.
Nestle, Euripides (1901).
[587] For its extension and popularity outside Athens, see Haigh, The
Tragic Drama of the Greeks, chap. vi, § 4.
[588] Gawroński, Les sources de quelques drames indiens, pp. 1 ff.
[589] See also Schmidt’s Beiträge zur indischen Erotik.
[590] pp. 57 ff.; Keith, Sansk. Lit. pp. 29 ff.
[591] Man̄kha, Çrīkaṇṭhacarita, xxv; Bhojaprabandha;
Vikramān̄kadevacarita; Kāvyamīmāṅsā, pp. 49 ff.
[592] The translation by Ryder.
[593] Kāvyamīmāṅsā, pp. 49 ff.
[594] Ibid., p. 33.
[595] Ibid., p. 78.
[596] Ibid., p. 53.
[597] AID., pp. 3 ff.; above, p. 31.
[598] Ed. KM. 1894, i–xiv; by J. Grosset, Paris, 1898; xviii–xx, xxxiv
in F. Hall’s Daçarūpa; xv–xvii (xiv–xvi), in Regnaud, Annales du Musée
Guimet, i and ii; xxviii in Grosset’s Contribution à l’étude de la
musique hindoue, Paris, 1888; vi and vii in Regnaud, Rhétorique
sanskrite.
[599] Bhau Daji, JBRAS. vi. 218 ff. Lévi (TI. ii. 4) suggests that the
Çāstra is largely made out of a versified comment on original Sūtras.
For various guesses as to Mātṛgupta, cf. JRAS. 1903, p. 570; see
Peterson, Subhāṣitāvali, p. 89. It is probable that the Çāstra is
related to an original Sūtra in the same way as the Kāmandakīya
Nītiçāstra to the Arthaçāstra. Cf. S. K. De, SP. i. 27 ff.
[600] Avimāraka, ii. A treatise on drama is also attributed to him;
Arthadyotanikā, 2.
[601] That in the Çāstra itself there is contradiction in this regard
between x. 83 f. and xviii. 19 f. is shown by Lindenau, BS., p. 34.
[602] Cf. Jacobi, Bhavisattakaha, pp. 83 ff., who suggests the third
century; the Prākrit seems anterior to Māhārāṣṭrī in development;
Jacobi suggests Ujjayinī as a possible location in view of the affinity
to Māhārāṣṭrī and Çaurasenī. Cf. GIL. iii. 8.
[603] Ed. F. Hall, Calcutta, 1865; trs. G. C. O. Haas, New York, 1912.
Jacobi (GGA. 1913, p. 301) presses for the identity of the writers, but
the difference of the name is fatal.
[604] Ed. K. P. Trivedī, Bombay, 1909.
[605] Ed. K. P. Trivedī, Bombay, 1903; cf. R. G. Bhandarkar, Report
(1897) pp. lxviii f.
[606] Ed. BI. with trs., 1851–75; in part by P. V. Kane, Bombay, 1910.
[607] Ed. TSS. no. L, 1916. It freely uses the Daçarūpa. Cf. Seshagiri,
Report for 1896–97, pp. 7 ff. Many verses by the author are cited.
[608] For the authorship of the Kāvyaprakāça see Hari Chand, Kālidāsa,
pp. 103 ff.
[609] cc. 337–41. On Dhvani see Keith, Sansk. Lit. ch. x.
[610] Bharata cited in Rucipati’s comm. on Anargharāghava, 9. Cf. DR.
i. 7; SD. 274.
[611] Cf. Hall, DR. pp. 6 f.
[612] N. xviii. 89; xix. 1; AP. cccxxxvii. 18, 27.
[613] DR. i. 15; iii. 20–22.
[614] N. xix. 2–6, 25 f.; DR. i. 11, 12, 16; SD. 296 f., 323.
[615] N. xix. 23; DR. i. 13; SD. 320–3; R. iii. 13 f.
[616] N. xix. 7–13; DR. i. 18–20; SD. 324–9; R. iii. 22–5.
[617] N. xix. 19–21; DR. i. 16 f.; SD. 317–19. The parallelism is
faulty: neither episode nor incident is necessary nor corresponds to
Prāptyāçā and Niyatāpti nor Garbha and Vimarça; Dhanika, DR. i. 33,
admits this in effect; there is no episode in Ratnāvalī, III. Cf. R.
iii. 22.
[618] N. xix. 16, 35 ff.; DR. i. 22 ff.; SD. 330 ff. Hali (DR., p. 11
n.) suggests nibarhaṇa as correct (N. xix. 36), wrongly. Cf. R. iii.
26–74. The precise parallelism of the Sandhis and Avasthās in the
Bālarāmāyaṇa is given in R. iii. 23–5.
[619] Abhinavagupta (Dhvanyāloka, p. 140) frankly treats the Avasthās
as the Sandhis as parts of the story, and distinguishes the
Arthaprakṛtis. DR. is responsible for the doctrine that each Sandhi
rests on an Avasthā and an Arthaprakṛti, accepted in Pratāparudrīya,
iii. 3; GGA. 1913, pp. 306–8; R. iii. 26 f.
[620] SD. 321.
[621] N. xix. 28; DR. i. 33.
[622] N. xix. 103; SD. 406.
[623] N. xix. 50 f.; SD. 407.
[624] SD. 342, 407.
[625] N. xviii. 16 ff.; DR. i. 51; iii. 31 f.; SD. 278.
[626] The rule is dubious; see Dhanika on DR. iii. 32, where he allows
the performance of essential religious rites.
[627] Jackson, AJP. xix. 247 ff.
[628] SD. 278, no doubt by misreading.
[629] N. xviii. 14 f., 22–4; DR. iii. 27, 32–4; SD. 278; R. iii. 205;
JAOS. xx. 341 ff.
[630] N. xviii. 28, 34 f.; xix. 109–16; DR. i. 52–6; SD. 305–13; R.
iii. 178 ff.
[631] Bhāsa has three in several cases; Lindenau, BS. p. 40 says
Prākrit is never used alone, as stated by Lévi, TI. i. 59, and Konow,
ID. p. 13, but see Vatsarāja’s Tripuradāha, II.
[632] R. iii. 185 f. calls Khaṇḍacūlikā an exchange of words between
one on and one off the stage at the beginning only of an act; e.g.
Bālarāmāyaṇa, VII.
[633] Mātṛgupta in Arthadyotanikā, 20.
[634] xix. 53–7, 105–9; R. iii. 95; 79–92.
[635] SD. 279.
[636] N. xix. 30–4; DR. i. 14; SD. 299–303; R. iii. 15–17, where N. is
cited with variant readings.
[637] This is differently taken by R. iii. 16 as an allusion to
Vāsavadattā’s anger to come.
[638] DR. i. 57–61; SD. 425; R. iii. 200 ff.
[639] DR. ii. 1; SD. 64; R. i. 61 ff.
[640] N. xxiv. (Hall, xxxiv.) 4–6; DR. ii. 3–5; SD. 67–9; R. i. 72–8.
[641] DR. ii. 4.
[642] ii. 10, 16; iv. 22.
[643] DR. ii. 6; SD. 71–5; R. i. 80–2. R. i. 79, 83–8 has a division
into husbands, adulterers (upapati), and the connoisseur of hetaerae
(vaiçika). For the courteous lover, see p. 205.
[644] DR. ii. 9–13; SD. 89–95; R. i. 215–19; 64, 69.
[645] DR. ii. 8; SD. 159.
[646] DR. ii. 7; SD. 76. Cf. Kāmasūtra, p. 60; R. i. 89, 90.
[647] DR. ii. 14 f.; SD. 96–100; R. i. 94–120, who takes the unusual
view that Irāvatī in the Mālavikāgnimitra is a hetaera.
[648] N. xxii. 197–206; DR. ii. 22–5; SD. 113–21; R. i. 121–51.
[649] N. xxii. 4–29; DR. ii. 28–39; SD. 126–55; R. i. 190–214, with
Bhoja’s views.
[650] N. xii. 121 f.; xxi. 126; xxiv. 106; DR. ii. 8; SD. 79; R. i. 92.
[651] N. xii. 97; xxiv. 104; DR. ii. 8; SD. 78; Kāmasūtra, p. 58;
Schmidt, Beiträge zur indischen Erotik, pp. 200 ff.
[652] N. xii. 130; xxiv. 105; DR. ii. 42; SD. 81.
[653] SD. 86 f., 158.
[654] N. xxiv. 107; DR. ii. 41; SD. 82.
[655] N. xxiv. 60 ff.
[656] N. xxiv. 15 ff. The Kāmasūtra, of course, covers much the same
ground.
[657] N. xxiv. 50 ff.
[658] SD. 426. R. iii. 323–38 gives very elaborate details.
[659] N. xvii. 73 ff.; DR. ii. 62–6; SD. 431 ff.; Lévi, TI. i. 129,
corrected JA. sér. 9, xix. 97 f.; R. iii. 306–22.
[660] A child may thus be addressed by persons of low rank, SD. 431;
cf. Mṛcchakaṭikā, x. p. 160.
[661] For another style, cf. Hāsyacūḍāmaṇi, p. 124; Upādhyāya, R. iii.
309.
[662] P. Regnaud, Rhétorique Sanskrite, pp. 266 ff.; Jacobi, ZDMG. lvi.
394 f.; M. Lindenau, Beiträge zur altindischen Rasalehre, Leipzig,
1913. See N. vi. and vii.; DR. iv.; SD. iii.; R. i. 298–ii. 265.
[663] Mātṛgupta (Hall, DR., p. 33) subdivides sentiment as vācika,
produced by words; nepathya, generated by appropriate garlands,
ornaments, clothes, &c.; svābhāvika, produced by such natural
excellencies as beauty, youth, grace, firmness, courage, &c.
[664] Ekāvalī, iii, pp. 86 ff.; Kāvyaprakāça (ed. 1889), pp. 86 ff. Cf.
R., pp. 173–5.
[665] See also Abhinavagupta, Dhvanisaṁketa, pp. 67 f.;
Alaṁkārasarvasva, p. 9.
[666] The term is vyutpatti; it is explained by Abhinavagupta, op.
cit., p. 70; GGA. 1913, p. 305, n. 1.
[667] The reference to Brahman shows that we have here the same fusion
of doctrine as in Sadānanda’s Vedāntasāra.
[668] In the same sense we have rasika and bhāvaka (e.g. R., p. 170).
[669] vi. 7 ff.; Huizinga, De Vidūṣaka in het indisch tooneel, pp. 67
ff.
[670] vibhāvair anubhāvaiç ca sāttvikair vyabhicāribhiḥ
ānīyamānaḥ svādyatvaṁ sthāyī bhāvo rasaḥ smṛtaḥ. (iv. 1.) Cf. R.
ii. 169.
[671] iv. 36 ff.
[672] iv. 41; R., p. 175, l. 1.
[673] vi. 39–41.
[674] Dhvanisaṁketa, pp. 68, 70.
[675] See § 6 below.
[676] iv. 33. Cf. R., p. 171.
[677] SD. 41. This possibility is denied by Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka.
[678] xxvi. 18 f. Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, xvii. 1455 a 30.
[679] SD. 50 ff. So such a great actress as Sarah Bernhardt might feel
emotion in acquiring her part, but not in the daily performance.
[680] Ekāvalī, p. 88; DR. iv. 40.
[681] Vyaktiviveka (Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, no. v).
[682] iv. 47 ff. Cf. R. ii. 170 ff.
[683] Cf. Haas, DR., pp. 133, 150; R. ii. 178–201, where a list of
twelve, with desire and eagerness prefixed, is rejected.
[684] Cf. R., pp. 189 f.
[685] Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, v. 1449 a 36.
[686] Save for a late reading in vi. 15.
[687] See Dhanika, DR. iv. 33; SD. 240; Ekāvalī, pp. 96 ff. Other
sentiments are sometimes recognized, such as friendship, faith, and
devotion; cf. Rasagan̄gādhara, p. 45. Bhoja admits love only. An example
of calm is the Prabodhacandrodaya. Cf. Jacobi, ZDMG. lvi. 395; R., p.
171.
[688] N. xx. 25–62; DR. ii. 44–57; iii. 5; SD. 285, 410–21; R. i.
244–94, which expressly denies a fifth manner composed of the four.
[689] Ratnāvalī, ii. R. i. 275 gives pā pā pāhi hi hīti as an instance
of comic fear exhibited in speech.
[690] Or narmasphañja.
[691] An alternative is love enjoyment interrupted, as in the
Ratnāvalī, ii. 17; R. i. 278.
[692] A variant ascribed to Bharata is given in R. i. 279, where a hero
dies and another fills his place, e.g. Rāvaṇa replaced by Vibhīṣaṇa.
[693] N. xviii. 106–16; DR. iii. 11–18; SD. 289, 293, 521–32; R. i.
164–74.
[694] The first kind is illustrated by Uttararāmacarita, i; the second
by a citation from the Chalitarāma.
[695] As in the Vīrabhadravijṛmbhaṇa, R. i. 168.
[696] As in the Abhirāmarāghava.
[697] SD. 471–503.
[698] N. xvii. 6–39; SD. 435–70; 36 bhūṣaṇāni, R. iii. 97–127.
[699] The Saṁgītadāmodara merges them in one (Lévi, TI. i. 104). Cf.
DR. iv. 78.
[700] xvii. 40 ff. The Alaṁkāra doctrine later develops enormously; cf.
Jacobi, GN. 1908, pp. 1 ff.
[701] xvii. 99 ff.
[702] See Weber, IS. viii. 377 ff.
[703] i. 41 ff.
[704] iii. i and 2; cf. Regnaud, Rhétorique Sanskrite, ch. v.
[705] Kāvyaprakāça, pp. 542 ff.; Ekāvalī, pp. 147–9; Alaṁkārasarvasva,
pp. 20 f. R. i. 229–43 has the ten Guṇas and komalā, kaṭhinā, and miçrā
as the three names.
[706] Mammaṭa, Kāvyaprakāça, viii. 1 ff.; Ekāvalī, v.; Sāhityadarpaṇa,
viii; Alaṁkārasarvasva, p. 7.
[707] iii. 1. 1–3.
[708] pp. 57, 60. Cf. Jacobi, Bhavisattakaha, pp. 68.
[709] vi. 147. Cf. Kāvyamīmāṅsā, pp. 48 ff.
[710] Jacobi, GN. 1911, pp. 962 f.; 1912, p. 841 f.
[711] Jacobi, Bhavisattakaha, pp. 74, 76. Cf. Haranchandra Chakladar,
Vātsyāyana (1921).
[712] N. xvii. 31 ff.; DR. ii. 58–61; SD. 432; R. iii. 299–305.
[713] Including, of course, persons assuming such rôles, e.g. in the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa and Mudrārākṣasa. For the use of Sanskrit by
women, usually in verse, as by Vasantasenā in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, and by
inferior characters, see Pischel, Prākrit Grammatik, pp. 31 f.
[714] R. iii. 300 assigns it as Prākṛta to low persons and Jains. He
assigns Apabhraṅça to Caṇḍālas, Yavanas, &c., but admits that others
give Māgadhī, &c.
[715] Grierson, JRAS. 1918, pp. 489 ff. Cf. R. i. 297 which has seven;
Çabara, Dramiḷa, Andhraja, Çakāra, Abhīra, Caṇḍāla, foresters.
[716] Contrast the Aristotelian doctrine as to the use of the lyric
choruses; Poetics, 1456 a 25 ff.; G. Norwood, Greek Tragedy, pp. 75–80;
Haigh, The Tragic Drama of the Greeks, ch. v, § 6.
[717] xviii. 117–29; DR. iii. 47 f.; SD. 504–9. On gesture see the
Abhinayadarpaṇa of Nandikeçvara, trs. Cambridge, Mass., 1917. R. iii.
236–48 gives other details of the Lāsya from the Çṛn̄gāramañjarī;
dialect is allowed in the Saindhava. He follows N. in having Trimūḍhaka
as expressing male emotions in smooth words, and has Dvimūḍhaka.
[718] Lévi, TI. ii. 18 f. For N. xxviii see J. Grosset, Contribution à
l’étude de la musique hindoue, Paris, 1888. The hints as to musical
accompaniment in Vikramorvaçī iv. and the Gītagovinda are unfortunately
largely unintelligible. Cf. also Çivarāma on Nāgānanda, i. 15.
[719] v. 1 ff.; Konow, ID., pp. 23 ff.
[720] These nine acts gratify the Apsarases, Gandharvas, Daityas,
Dānavas, Rakṣases, Guhyakas, and Yakṣas. They are performed behind the
curtain according to Konow, but cf. Lévi, TI. i. 376.
[721] N. v. 149 ff.; DR. iii. 2 ff.; SD. 283 ff. Cf. R. iii. 150 ff.
[722] An effort to discriminate Prastāvanā and Sthāpanā is made, R.
iii. 158.
[723] These are more common than formerly thought; the Sthāpaka is
found in various connexions in the Pārthaparākrama of Prahlādana, and
Vatsarāja’s Kirātārjunīya, Rukmiṇīharaṇa, Samudramathana. But the
Rasārṇavasudhākara ignores him. Çivarāma’s comm. on Nāgānanda, i. 1
shows that great doubt then existed both as to the preliminaries (p.
2), and the Sūtradhāra, Sūcaka, or Sthāpaka (pp. 6, 7). Cf. p. 273.
[724] GGA. 1883, p. 1234; 1891, p. 361. Bhāsa’s use of Sthāpanā for the
prologue suggests accord with the Daçarūpa.
[725] E.g. Tapatīsaṁvaraṇa and Subhadrādhanaṁjaya, where Sthāpanā is
used.
[726] A classification of poets on the basis of their confidence in
themselves as expressed in this place is given in R. i. 246 f.;
Kālidāsa is elevated (udātta) in the Mālavikāgnimitra; Bhavabhūti
haughty (uddhata) in the Mālatīmādhava; self assertion (prauḍha) is
seen in the Karuṇākandala; modesty (vinīta) in the Rāmānanda.
[727] Konow, ID. p. 25.
[728] Lévi, TI. i. 135, 379; ii. 26 f., 64, 66. Cf. Harivaṅça, ii. 93;
Kuṭṭanīmata, 856 ff.
[729] Lévi, TI. i. 132 f.; ii. 24 f.; Hall, DR., pp. 25 f. The
Veṇīsaṁhāra has six stanzas. R. iii. 137 f. takes Pada as word, giving
the Mahāvīracarita, Abhirāmarāghava, and Anargharāghava as examples of
8, 10, and 12 Padas.
[730] For a general reference see Pañcarātra, i. 1. In a Jain drama
like the Moharājaparājaya, the benediction is addressed to the three
Tīrthakaras; in the Nāgānanda to the Buddha.
[731] N. xviii. 10 ff.; DR. iii. 1–34; SD. 278, 433, 510; R. iii. 130
ff.
[732] Ghanaçyāma’s Navagrahacarita has three acts; Madhusūdana’s
Jānakīpariṇaya (A.D. 1705) has four.
[733] N. xviii. 41 ff.; DR. iii. 35–8; SD. 511 f.; R. iii. 214–18, who
gives Kāmadatta as the name of a hetaera drama.
[734] N. xviii. 57–70; xix. 43 f.; DR. iii. 56–61; SD. 515 f.; R. iii.
249–64.
[735] N. xviii. 72–6; xix. 44 f.; DR. iii. 66–8; SD. 518; R. iii. 284–8
(type Māyākuran̄gikā).
[736] N. xviii. 78–82; xix. 43 f.; DR. iii. 51–3; SD. 517; R. iii.
280–4 (type Vīrabhadravijṛmbhaṇa).
[737] N. xviii. 83–5; xix. 44 f.; DR. iii. 54 f.; SD. 514; R. iii.
229–32 (type Dhanaṁjayajaya).
[738] N. xviii. 86–9; xix. 45 f.; DR. iii. 64 f.; SD. 519; R. iii.
224–8 (type Karuṇākandala) who differs.
[739] N. xviii. 93–8; xix. 45 f.; DR. iii. 49 f.; SD. 534–8; R. iii.
268–79 (type Ānandakoça).
[740] N. xviii. 99–101; xix. 45 f.; DR. iii. 44–6; SD. 513; R. iii.
232–5.
[741] N. xviii. 102 f.; xix. 45 f.; DR. iii. 62 f.; SD. 520. Konow (ID.
p. 32) is in error as to N. R. iii. 265–70 has Mādhavī-Vīthikā.
[742] SD. 276.
[743] Hall, DR., p. 6.
[744] cccxxxvii. 2–4. R. iii. 218–23 denies the separate character of
the Nāṭikā or Prakaraṇikā.
[745] DR. i. 8.
[746] xviii. 54–6; DR. iii. 39–43; SD. 539.
[747] SD. 554.
[748] SD. 542. Cf. the Bharhut bas-relief of a dance, Sāḍika; Hultzsch,
ZDMG. xl. 66, no. 50.
[749] SD. 540.
[750] SD. 541. Cf. Hall, DR., p. 6.
[751] SD. 555.
[752] SD. 543.
[753] SD. 544.
[754] SD. 556; for the others see 546 ff. Names of plays are given, but
they are lost, and were probably late.
[755] vii. 90 f.; xi. 36.
[756] ii. 18.
[757] iv. 3.
[758] Mālatīmādhava, p. 79.
[759] vi. 48, and see pp. 108 f.; Lévi, TI. ii. 38.
[760] Cf. the later view in Rome, which forbids death on the stage,
Horace, Ars Poetica, 183 ff., with Aristotle, Poetics, 1452 b 10 ff.,
which approves the presentation of death and other acts on the stage.
[761] M. Lindenau, Festschrift Windisch, pp. 38 ff.
[762] Poetics, 1449 b sq. with Butcher’s trs. and Bywater’s notes.
[763] Poetics, 1449 b 13. For time analysis in Kālidāsa, see Jackson,
JAOS. xx. 341–59; in Harṣa, xxi. 88–108.
[764] Bloch, Arch. Survey of India Report, 1903–4, pp. 123 ff.
[765] ii; cf. JPASB. v. 353 ff.; Çilparatna (ed. TSS.), pp. 201 ff. Cf.
Kāvyamīmāṅsā, p. 54.
[766] For the Greek theatre, which presents certain points of
similarity but many of difference, see Dorpfeld, Das griechische
Theater; Haigh, Attic Theatre (3rd ed.); a brief summary is given in
Norwood, Greek Tragedy, pp. 49 ff.
[767] The theory of a transverse curtain (Wilson, I. lxviii) is not
supported by evidence of any clear kind. Cf. p. 113, n. 1.
[768] Weber, IS. xiv. 225. Cf. Lévi, TI. i. 374; ii. 62.
[769] The Greek number was three, later five. The Chinese stage, which
resembles the Indian in its primitive character, but has no curtain,
has two doors, one for entry, one for exit; Ridgeway, Dramas, &c., pp.
274 f.
[770] W. Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the N. W. Provinces and Oudh,
ii. 20 ff.
[771] Hillebrandt, AID., p. 12; cf. naṭagrāma, Epigr. Ind. i. 381.
[772] xxiv. 85 f.
[773] Cf. Karpūramañjarī, i. 12/13.
[774] xxvi.; cf. xii. 166 f.
[775] Weber, IS. xiii. 493.
[776] viii. 362; cf. Rāmāyaṇa, ii. 30. 8; Kuṭṭanīmata, 855.
[777] vi. 1. 13.
[778] xvi. 8.
[779] ii. 1. 2. 13.
[780] Kauṭilīya, p. 7.
[781] Manu, viii. 65; Yājñ. ii. 70.
[782] Manu, iv. 215; Yājñ. i. 161.
[783] iii. 57.
[784] N. xxi. 5 ff. Masks may have been used for animals, but not
normally as in Greece; cf. ZDMG. lxxiv. 137, n. 2.
[785] N. xxi.
[786] N. xxi. 62 ff.; Lévi, TI. i. 388; ii. 69. Cf. the Mahābhāṣya,
iii. 1. 26; Yājñavalkya, iii. 162.
[787] Also read Pāhravas and Bāhlikas. Cf. Kāvyamīmāṅsā, pp. 96 f.
[788] N. xxi.
[789] Cf. the Abhinayadarpaṇa of Nandikeçvara, trs. by A. Coomaraswamy
and G. K. Duggirala, Cambridge, Mass., 1917.
[790] 856 ff. Cf. the accounts in the Harivaṅça, ii. 88–93.
[791] Saṁgītadāmodara, 39.
[792] Cf. Nīlakaṇṭha’s reason for the alleged abbreviation of the
Mṛcchakaṭikā (Lévi, TI. i. 210).
[793] xxvii. 51 ff.; Lévi, TI. ii. 62 ff.
[794] Saṁgītaratnākara, 1327 ff.; Lévi, TI. i. 375 ff. Cf.
Kāvyamīmāṅsā, pp. 54 f.
[795] Tagore, Eight Principal Rasas, p. 61. That women as such were
excluded (Wilson, ii. 212) cannot have held good for the early stage.
[796] Kavikaṇṭhābharaṇa, p. 15.
[797] A certain revival of displays occurred in the nineteenth century;
e.g. the Citrayajña of Vaidyanātha Vācaspati Bhaṭṭācārya, written for
the festival of Govinda by request of the Rājā of Nadiyā about A.D.
1820. The Cakkyars of Malabar still act Çaktibhadra’s Āçcaryamañjarī
and Kulaçekharavarman’s plays, as well as Act III of the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, under the style of Mantrān̄kanāṭaka, and the
Nāgānanda; JRAS. 1910, p. 637; Pratimānāṭaka (ed. TSS.), p. xl; A. K.
and V. R. Pisharoti, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, III.
i. 107 ff., who maintain the impossible view that Bhāsa’s plays are
compilations or adaptations of the eighth century, or later, holding
that the Cārudatta is an adaptation of the Mṛcchakaṭikā (contrast p.
131), the Pratimānāṭaka is later than Kālidāsa, and the Avimāraka than
Daṇḍin. The genealogy of Rāma in the Pratimā (iv. 9 f.) is that of
Kālidāsa, but is also Purāṇic, and Daṇḍin, of course, is not the
inventor of the Kathā. Barnett (Bulletin, III. i. 35) accepts
Pisharoti’s views, holding the Nyāyaçāstra of Medhātithi (Pratimā, v.
8/9) to be the Manubhāṣya (tenth century), but this is wholly against
the context, and Barnett’s view is surely incompatible with the
priority of the Cārudatta to the Mṛcchakaṭikā which he admits, and the
absence of Māhārāṣṭrī. Cf. also p. 341.
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