A famous representative of the superior class of bayadères is the
heroine of King Çûdraka's drama just referred to--Vasantasena. She has
amassed immense wealth--the description of her palace takes up several
pages--and is one of the best known personages in town, yet that does
not prevent her from being spoken of repeatedly as "a noble woman, the
jewel of the city."[273] She is, indeed, represented as differing in
her love from other bayadères, and, as she herself remarks, "a
bayadères is not reprehensible in the eyes of the world if she gives
her heart to a poor man." She sees the Brahman Tscharudatta in the
temple garden of Kama, the god of love, and forthwith falls in love
with him, as he does with her, though he is married. One afternoon she
is accosted in the street by a relative of the king, who annoys her
with his unwelcome attentions. She takes refuge in her lover's house
and, on the pretext that she has been pursued on account of her
ornaments, leaves her jewelry in his charge. The jewels are stolen
during the night, and this mishap leads to a series of others which
finally culminate in Tscharudatta being led out to execution for the
alleged murder of Vasantasena. At the last moment Vasantasena, who had
been strangled by the king's relative, but has been revived, appears
on the scene, and her lover's life is saved, as well as his honor.
The royal author of this drama, who has been called the Shakspere of
India, probably lived in one of the first centuries of the Christian
era. His play may in a certain sense be regarded as a predecessor of
_Manon Lescaut_ and _Camille_, inasmuch as an attempt is made in it to
ascribe to the heroine a delicacy of feeling to which women of her
class are naturally strangers. She hesitates to make advances to
Tscharudatta, and at first wonders whether it would be proper to
remain in his house. See informs her pursuer that "love is won by
noble character, not by importunate advances." Tscharudatta says of
her: "There is a proverb that 'money makes love--the treasurer has the
treasure,' But no! she certainly cannot be won with treasures." She is
in fact represented throughout as being different from the typical
bayadères, who are thus described by one of the characters:
"For money they laugh or weep; they win a man's
confidence but do not give him theirs. Therefore a
respectable man ought to keep bayadères like flowers of
a cemetery, three steps away from him. It is also said:
changeable like waves of the sea, like clouds in a
sunset, glowing only a moment--so are women. As soon as
they have plundered a man they throw him away like a
dye-rag that has been squeezed dry. This saying, too,
is pertinent: just as no lotos grows on a mountain top,
no mule draws a horse's loud, no scattered barley grows
up as rice; so no wanton ever becomes a respectable
woman."
Vasantasena, however, does become a respectable woman. In the last
scene the king confers on her a veil, whereby the stain on her birth
and life is wiped away and she becomes Tscharudatta's legitimate
second wife.
But how about the first wife? Her actions show how widely in India
conjugal love may differ from what we know as such, by the absence of
monopoly and jealousy. When she first hears of the theft of
Vasantasena's jewels in her husband's house she is greatly distressed
at the impending loss of his good name, but is not in the least
disturbed by the discovery that she has a rival. On the contrary, she
takes a string of pearls that remains from her dowry, and sends it to
her husband to be given to Vasantasena as an equivalent for her lost
jewels. Vasantasena, on her part, is equally free from jealousy.
Without knowing whence they came, she afterward sends the pearls to
her lover's wife with these words addressed to her servants:
"Take these pearls and give them to my sister,
Tscharudatta's wife, the honorable woman, and say to
her: 'Conquered by Tscharudatta's excellence, I have
become also your slave. Therefore use this string of
pearls as a necklace.'"
The wife returned the pearls with the message:
"My master and husband has made you a present of these
pearls. It would therefore be improper for me to accept
them: my master and husband is my special jewel. This I
beg you to consider."
And, in the final scenes, the wife shows her great love for her
husband by hastening to get ready for the funeral pyre to be burnt
alive with his corpse. And when, after expressing her joy at his
rescue and kissing him, she turns and sees Vasantasena, she exclaims:
"O this happiness! How do you do, my sister?" Vasantasena replies:
"Now I am happy," and the two embrace!
The translator of Çûdraka's play notes in the preface that there is a
curious lack of ardor in the expression of Tscharudatta's love for
Vasantasena, and he naïvely--though quite in the Hindoo
spirit--explains this as showing that this superior person (who is a
model of altruistic self-sacrifice in every respect), "remains
untouched by coarse outbursts of sensual passion." The only time he
warms up is when he hears that the bayadères prefers him to her
wealthy persecutor; he then exclaims, "Oh, how this girl deserves to
be worshipped like a goddess." Vasantasena is much the more ardent of
the two. It is she who goes forth to seek him, repeatedly, dressed in
purple and pearls, as custom prescribes to a girl who goes to meet her
lover. It is she who exclaims: "The clouds may rain, thunder, or send
forth lightning: women who go to meet their lovers heed neither heat
nor cold." And again: "may the clouds tower on high, may night come
on, may the rain fall in torrents, I heed them not. Alas, my heart
looks only toward the lover." It is she who is so absent-minded,
thinking of him, that her maid suspects her passion; she who, when a
royal suitor is suggested to her, exclaims, "'Tis love I crave to
bestow, not homage."