[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.