insufficient, a set of eight special excellencies [644] is enumerated
separately as springing from his character (sāttvika). These are
brilliance (çobhā), including compassion for inferiors, emulation with
superiors, heroism, and cleverness; vivacity (vilāsa), including a firm
step and glance and a laughing voice; grace (mādhurya) manifested in
the display of but slight change of demeanour in trying circumstances;
impassivity (gāmbhīrya) or superiority to emotion; steadfastness
(sthairya) in accomplishing his object despite obstacles; the sense of
honour (tejas) which will punish insult even at the cost of life
itself; lightheartedness as grace of deportment; and nobility (audārya)
exhibited in sacrifice for the sake of the good.
The enemy of the hero (pratināyaka) [645] is self-controlled and
vehement (dhīroddhata); but he is also avaricious, stubborn, criminal,
and vicious; such are Rāvaṇa and Duryodhana as contrasted with Rāma and
Yudhiṣṭhira. On the other hand, the hero of the episode, the companion
(pīṭhamarda) [646] of the hero, is to possess, but in a less degree,
the qualities of the hero; he is to be intelligent, ever in attendance
on the hero, and devoted to his interests, as are Makaranda in the
Mālatīmādhava and Sugrīva in the dramas based on the Rāma legend. The
term, however, is unknown to these plays, while in the Mālavikāgnimitra
the nun Kauçikī is styled a Pīṭhamardikā, and serves as a trusted
go-between. The theory here seems to have stereotyped a relationship
commoner in an older type of drama.
The heroine, Nāyikā, [647] plays a part in the economy of the drama
similar to that of the hero, and not of less importance. The types of
heroine depend primarily on her relation to the hero; she may be his
wife (svā, svīyā) or belong to another (anyā, anyastrī) or be a
hetaera. The hero’s wife must be upright and of good character, but she
may be inexperienced (mugdhā), partly experienced (madhyā), or fully
experienced and bold (pragalbhā). The inexperienced wife is shy in her
love and gentle in her anger with her spouse’s infidelities. The partly
experienced is full of the love of youth, and even faints in her
passion; when angry, if self-controlled, she chides her husband with
double entendres; if but partly controlled, she allows her tears to aid
her reproaches; if uncontrolled, she adds harsh words. The bold wife is
frantically in love, fainting at the first embrace; when angry, if
self-controlled, she adopts an attitude of haughty reserve and
indifference to the pleasures of life; if lacking in self-control, she
uses threats and blows; if partly self-controlled, she employs the
weapons of raillery and equivoke. A further division is possible, for
each of these three kinds of heroine may be subdivided according as the
lady is the earlier or later of the loves of the husband.
A woman, who is in the power of another, may be the wife of another man
or a maiden. An amour with a married woman may not form the subject of
the dominant sentiment in the play, but that for a maiden may occur as
an element in the principal or the secondary action. Even when a parent
or guardian is willing to permit a maiden’s marriage, there may be
other obstacles, as in the case of the love of Mālatī and Mādhava and
in Vatsa’s numerous amours. The woman who is common to all (sādhāraṇī)
is a courtesan, skilled in the arts, bold, and cunning; she accepts as
lovers the rich, the foolish, the self-willed, the selfish, and the
impotent so long as their money lasts, then she has them turned out of
doors by her mother, who acts as go-between. If she is a heroine, she
must be represented as in love, like Vasantasenā in the Mṛcchakaṭikā,
except in a Prahasana or farce, where she can be depicted as fleecing
her lovers for comic effect; she must not figure as a heroine if the
hero is divine or royal.
The heroine may occupy eight different relations to her lover. [648]
She may be his absolute mistress (svādhīnapatikā) and he her obedient
slave; she may be awaiting him in full dress (vāsakasajjā); she may be
distressed by his involuntary absence (virahotkaṇṭhitā), enraged
(khaṇḍitā) at discovering him disfigured by the marks of her rival’s
teeth and nails, or be severed from her beloved by a quarrel
(kalahāntaritā) and suffer remorse, or be deceived (vipralabdhā) by a
lover who fails to meet her at the rendezvous which she has named. Her
lover may be absent abroad (proṣitapriyā), or she may have to seek him
out or press him to come to her (abhisārikā), giving as meeting-place a
ruined temple, a garden, the house of a go-between, a cemetery, the
bank of a stream, or in general any dark place. The first two classes
of heroine are bright and gay, the others are wearied, tearful,
changing colour, sighing, and wear no ornaments as token of their
dejection. A woman, who is subject to another, cannot stand in all
these relations to a lover; she may be distressed at his absence,
deceived, or driven to seek him out, but she cannot be enraged, for she
is not the mistress of her lover, and thus the king’s courtesy to
Mālavikā in Kālidāsa’s play is not to be treated as an effort to
appease an enraged heroine.
The heroine is accorded even a more generous allowance of excellencies
than the hero. [649] The first three are physical, the first display of
emotion in a nature previously exempt (bhāva), the movement of eyes and
brows betokening the awakening of love (hāva), and the still more open
manifestation of affection. The next seven are inherent characteristics
of the heroine; the brilliance of youth and passion; the added touch of
loveliness given by love, sweetness, radiance, courage, dignity, and
self-control. Then come ten graces; the sportive imitation of the
movements or words of the beloved one, the swift change of aspect at
his arrival, tasteful arrangement of one’s ornaments to increase
radiance of appearance, studied confusion of ornaments, hysteria
(kilakiñcita), in which anger, fear, joy, and tears mingle,
manifestations of affection (moṭṭāyita) on hearing the beloved
mentioned or seeing his portrait, pretended anger (kuṭṭamita) on the
lover touching hair or lip, affected indifference (bibboka), born of
excess of pride, a graceful pose (lalita), and the bashfulness which
forbids speech even when an opportunity presents itself. To these
twenty Viçvanātha adds eight more graces; the pride which is vain of
youth and beauty, the ennui which besets the maiden in her lover’s
absence, the naïveté which displays itself in pretended ignorance and
innocence, the distraction evinced by ornaments in disorder, wandering
glances, and truant words, curiosity, the meaningless laugh of youth
and high spirits, the tremors of fear causeless but common in the
presence of the lover, and the sportive play of young affection. The
same source gives us in great detail the modes in which the different
types of heroine display their affection, in maidenly modesty or in
shameless boldness, an analysis showing keen and deep insight into all
the outward manifestations of love at an Indian court. Less
praiseworthy is the perverse ingenuity which enumerates the different
types of heroine, and educes first 128 from the combination of the
eight forms of relationship to the lover with the sixteen kinds based
on the division of wife, another’s, and hetaera. These are then
multiplied by three on the basis of the division of all characters as
high class, middle class, and low class.
The same division of classes is applied to all the other characters
(pātra) which can appear in a play, but a much more fundamental
classification is that by sex, masculine, feminine, and neuter. Most of
the rôles are such as are incidental to the life of a palace, for the
normal drama deals with the amours of a king, and his entourage and
that of the queen account for practically all the normal characters of
the drama.
The king’s confidant and devoted friend is the Vidūṣaka, [650] a
Brahmin, ludicrous alike in dress, speech, and behaviour. He is a
misshapen dwarf, baldheaded, with projecting teeth and red eyes, who
makes himself ridiculous by his silly chatter in Prākrit, and his greed
for food and presents of every kind. It is a regular part of the play
for the other characters to make fun of him, but he is always by the
king’s side, and the latter makes him his confidant in all his affairs
of the heart, while the Vidūṣaka repays him by willing, if frequently
incompetent or unlucky, attempts at service. The theorists offer no
explanation of the anomaly of a Brahmin in such a curious position, but
Açvaghoṣa already has the figure, as has Bhāsa, though not in his epic
dramas, and later he is established as almost an essential feature in
all dramas not derived from the epic; the chief exception is the
Mālatīmādhava, where, however, his place is taken by the hero’s friend
in sport (narmasuhṛd).
A much less common, but an interesting character is that of the Viṭa,
[651] who resembles, though distantly, the parasite of the Greek drama;
he is a poet skilled in the arts, especially music, acquainted au fond
with the ways of hetaerae, in short a perfect man of the world with
literary and artistic culture to boot. He is an essential figure in the
Bhāṇa, or monologue, in which he relates his own shady adventures, but
in other forms of drama he plays but a small part; Kālidāsa and
Bhavabhūti ignore him, and, while Harṣa depicts him in the Nāgānanda,
his position there is episodic; in the Mṛcchakaṭikā alone does he
attain full development in his relation to the boastful Çakāra. Both
these figures appear also in the Cārudatta, Çūdraka’s model. The
Çakāra, [652] brother of a royal concubine, is of low caste, easily
angered and appeased, fond of fine raiment, and proud of his office, in
which, however, he shows himself corrupt and incompetent. He is found
also in an episode of the Çakuntalā, but then fades from the drama
leaving, however, a clear suggestion of its early history.
The king requires in his amours the aid of a messenger (dūta) [653] as
well as for more serious affairs. The holder of this rôle must be
possessed of loyalty, energy, courage, a good memory, and adroitness;
he may be given full powers to act as seems best in each emergency, or
have limited authority, or be a mere bearer of a message. Others
intimately associated with the royal household are the servants (ceṭa),
[654] the mercenaries, Kirātas or Mlecchas, the chaplain, priest, and
other theologians. There are also those employed in the government of
the realm, which the king is only too pleased to neglect. [655] The
minister (mantrin, amātya) is of good family, of high intelligence,
skilled in affairs human and divine, and devoted to the interests of
the country. The general (senāpati) is also of high birth, incapable of
weakness, skilled in both the theory and the practice of war, and kind
of speech; ready to note the weakness of the enemy and to direct at the
suitable moment a campaign against him. The judge (prāḍvivāka) must be
master of the laws and of judicial procedure, absolutely impartial,
devoted to his duty, free from anger or pride, master of himself. The
other officers are required to possess high qualities of intelligence,
activity, and devotion to duty, while for less important work the king
commands the services of foresters, military officers, and soldiers.
The prince royal (kumāra) and the friend are also mentioned in the
Nāṭyaçāstra, but without detail.
Of women’s rôles [656] the most important in dignity is that of the
chief queen (mahādevī), the equal in age and rank of her husband, whose
lapses in affection wound her, without robbing her of her sense of
self-respect or dignity. In good fortune or evil she is devoted to him
and seeks ever his welfare. The queen (devī) is also a daughter of a
king, but she is more proud than dignified, and, intoxicated by her
youth and beauty, her mind is set on the pleasures of love. The
favourite (svāminī) is the daughter of a general or a minister,
seductive by her beauty and intelligence, honoured by the king and
others. There are other types of concubine (sthāyinī and bhoginī) with
characteristics but little distinctive. The harem includes also the
chief attendants (āyukta), who are charged with the supreme oversight
of some department of the court, the king’s personal attendant who is
always with him (anucārikā), the maid who performs his toilet and holds
over him the umbrella of state, the women—called sometimes Yavanīs,
once Greek maidens—who act as his body-guard, and those aged women who
are skilled in political traditions and are respected on that score.
There are also the princess, ingénue and modest, and the duenna
(mahattarā), who among other things sees to the punctual performance of
auspicious rites, and the more humble adepts in the dance, in song, in
handicrafts, in acting, and in the favourite amusement of swinging the
ladies of the harem. The hetaera is painted in attractive colours; she
is thoroughly well educated, exempt from the normal defects of women,
kind of heart, adroit, active, a born coquette, and seductive in every
way. Special importance among these feminine rôles attaches to that of
the heroine’s messenger, the counterpart of the hero’s agent. She may
be a friend, a slave, a foster-sister, a neighbour, a workwoman, or an
artiste, or strangely enough, a nun, usually of Buddhist connexions, a
curious and interesting sidelight on Indian views of the devotees of
that faith. The doorkeeper (pratīhārī) has the function of announcing
to the king such political events as the declaration of war and the
conclusion of peace.
The neuter rôles [657] are filled by men who have either taken vows of
chastity, or have been deprived of virility in order to permit of their
employment in the harem. The Snātaka is a Brahmin, who has completed
his course of religious study, is familiar with religious and social
affairs; he resides within the palace. The chamberlain (kañcukin) is an
old Brahmin, worn out in the service of the king, but still mentally
alert and skilled in his business of conveying the royal orders in the
palace. The eunuchs (varṣadhara, nirmuṇḍa, upasthāyika) are effeminate
and cowardly but not lacking in savoir faire; they find employment in
the king’s amours.
The nomenclature [658] of the characters is in some measure regulated
by rule; the name of a hetaera should end in dattā, senā, or siddhā, as
does that of Vasantasenā in the Cārudatta; that of a merchant in datta
as in Cārudatta; that of the Vidūṣaka from spring or a flower, but in
the Avimāraka he is styled Saṁtuṣṭa; that of a servant, male or female,
should be derived from some object, which occurs in descriptions of the
seasons, &c., as in the names Kalahaṅsa and Mandārikā in the
Mālatīmādhava; those of Kāpālikas, a species of ascetics, should end in
ghaṇṭa as in Aghoraghaṇṭa in the same play.
There is also an elaborate etiquette [659] as to the mode of addressing
the diverse personages. A king is styled thus by ascetics, but Deva or
Svāmin by his courtiers; his charioteer and Brahmins generally hail him
as Āyuṣmant, ‘long-lived’, while inferiors style him Bhaṭṭa, ‘master’.
The crown prince is styled Svāmin, like his father; the other princes
of the blood (bhartṛdāraka), but also common people, Bhadramukha or
Saumya, preceded by he in the latter case, terms designed to conciliate
by attributing to those addressed the qualities they are desired to
show. [660] The style Bhagavant, ‘blessed’, is appropriate to the gods,
to great sages and saints; Ārya, ‘noble’, is appropriate to Brahmins,
ministers, and elder brothers, while a wife should address her husband
as Āryaputra. Sages address an ascetic as Sādhu; ministers are styled
Amātya or Saciva; the king calls his Vidūṣaka, and is called by him,
Vayasya, ‘friend’. Sugṛhītābhidha, ‘well named one’, is the address
[661] of a pupil to his master, a son to a father, or a younger to an
elder brother, while the latter in return uses Tāta or Vatsa, both
affectionate and condescending terms, suitable also for use to a son,
or any person who owes one respect. Heretics should be given the styles
they affect, thus a Buddhist should be hailed as Bhadanta; Çakas should
be styled by such terms as Bhadradatta. The interjection Haṅho may be
used between men of middle rank, Haṇḍe between common people. The
Vidūṣaka addresses the queen and her ladies as Bhavatī; otherwise the
queen is styled Bhaṭṭinī or Svāminī, a wife as Āryā, a princess
Bhartṛdārikā, a hetaera Ajjukā, a go-between or aged dame Ambā; Halā is
used between friends of equal rank, Hañjā is addressed to a servant.
5. THE SENTIMENTS
The most original and interesting part of dramatic theory is the
gradual definition of the nature of the sentiment which it is the aim
of the performance to evoke in the mind of the audience. [662] The
statement of the Nāṭyaçāstra is simple. Sentiment is produced from the
union of the determinants (vibhāva), the consequents (anubhāva), and
the transitory feelings (vyabhicārin). The determinants fall in the
later classification into two divisions, the fundamental determinants
(ālambana) and the excitant determinants (uddīpana); fundamental
determinants comprise such things as the heroine or the hero, for
without them there can be no creation of sentiment in the audience;
excitant determinants are such conditions of place and time and
circumstance as serve to foster sentiment when it has arisen, for
instance the moon, the cry of the cuckoo, the soft breeze from Malaya,
all things which foster the erotic sentiment. The consequents are the
external manifestations of feeling, by which the actors exhibit to the
audience the minds and hearts of the persons of the drama, such as
sidelong glances, a smile, a movement of the arm, and—though this is
but slightly indicated in later texts—his words. [663] A special class
is later made of those consequents, which are the involuntary product
of sympathetic realization of the feeling of the person portrayed, and
hence are called Sāttvika, as arising from a heart which is ready to
appreciate the sorrows or joys of another (sattva); these are
paralysis, fainting, horripilation, perspiration, change of colour,
trembling, weeping, and change of voice. The transitory or evanescent
feelings are given as thirty-three; they are discouragement, weakness,
apprehension, weariness, contentment, stupor, joy, depression, cruelty,
anxiety, fright, envy, indignation, arrogance, recollection, death,
intoxication, dreaming, sleeping, awakening, shame, epilepsy,
distraction, assurance, indolence, agitation, deliberation,
dissimulation, sickness, insanity, despair, impatience, and
inconstancy. But these factors are not sufficient to account for
sentiment, nor does the Nāṭyaçāstra intend this. It recognizes that an
essential element in the production of sentiment is the dominant
emotion (sthāyibhāva) which persists throughout the drama amid the
variations of the transitory feelings; it stands to the other factors
in the position of the king to his subjects or a master to his pupils,
as the Çāstra says; it is, says the Daçarūpa, the source of delight,
and brings into harmony with itself the transitory states of feeling.
It is the dominant emotions which in some fashion determine or become
sentiments even in the view of the Nāṭyaçāstra, though in it there is
clearly difficulty in conceiving the precise signification of the
process, a fact revealed in a tendency to confuse the terms emotion and
sentiment, Bhāva and Rasa. In Bhaṭṭa Lollaṭa [664] we have a determined
effort to make clear the implication of the doctrine. The dominant
emotion of love, for instance, generated by a fundamental determinant
such as a maiden, inflamed by an excitant determinant such as a
pleasant garden, made cognizable by consequents such as sidelong
glances and embraces, and strengthened by transitory feelings such as
desire, becomes the erotic sentiment first of all in the hero of the
drama, e.g. Rāma. The sentiment is subsequently attributed to the actor
who imitates the hero in form, dress, and action, and so it becomes the
source of charm to the audience. The fatal objection to this theory is
clear; it fails to recognize that the sentiment must be that of the
spectator himself; he cannot have enjoyment of a sentiment which exists
merely in the actor as a secondary outcome of its existence in Rāma.
Moreover, the actor whose chief aim is to please the audience and earn
money need not feel at all the emotions of Rāma, while, if he does so,
he is then in the same position as a spectator.
The view of Lollaṭa, which is classed as one of the production
(utpatti) of sentiment and regarded as that of the Mīmāṅsā school, is
opposed by the doctrine of Çrīçan̄kuka, regarded as the Naiyāyika view,
which interprets the manifestation of sentiment as a process of
inference. The emotions, love, &c., are inferred to exist in the actor,
though not really present in him, by means of the determinants, &c.,
cleverly exhibited in his acting; the emotion thus inferred, being
sensed by the audience, through its exquisite beauty, adds to itself a
peculiar charm and thus finally develops into the state of a sentiment
in the spectator. This view, however, is open to the fatal objection
that it is commonly admitted that it is not inference, or any other
derivative mode of knowledge, which produces charm, but perception
alone, and no adequate ground exists for disregarding this general
truth in this case.
In Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka [665] we find yet a different point of view, which
denies either the production (utpatti) of sentiment, its perception or
apprehension (pratīti) or its revelation (abhivyakti). If sentiment is
perceived as appertaining to another, then it cannot personally affect
oneself. But it cannot be perceived as present in oneself as a result
of study of a work about Rāma; there are no factors present in the self
to produce any such result; it is impossible to hold that an emotion
dormant in oneself is called to life by seeing or reading the story of
Rāma; experience shows that one’s own beloved does not come up to one’s
mind to raise love, nor could a tale of a goddess evoke the picture of
a mortal amour; again, such marvellous deeds as Rāma’s have nothing
common to mortal efforts so as to be able to awake conceptions of acts
of our own. Thus sentiment cannot be apprehended. Nor is it a case of
production; if so, no one would go twice to a play of a pathetic type,
since one would experience actual misery as the result, in lieu of a
pleasant melancholy; again the sight of lovers united does not in real
life produce sentiment. Nor is a case of the revelation of something
existing potentially (çaktirūpa). If this were so, then, when the
potential emotions were let loose, they would occupy their field of
action in diverse degrees—thus contradicting the nature of sentiment as
one; moreover there would be the same difficulties as in the case of
apprehension as to whether revelation applied to the hero or oneself.
The true solution, therefore, is to ascribe to a poem a peculiar
threefold potency of its own, the power of denotation (abhidhā), which
deals with what is expressed, the power of realization (bhāvakatva),
which relates to the sentiment, and the power of enjoyment
(bhojakatva), which has regard to the audience. If denotation were all,
there would be no difference between poetic figures and manuals, there
would be absence of the distinctions produced by divergence of literal
and metaphorical sense, and the avoidance of harsh sounds would be
needless. As it is, we have the second function of realization of
sentiment, which causes the expressed sense to serve as the basis of
the sentiment, and confers on the determinants, &c., the essential
feature of being appropriated by the audience as universal. From this
comes the appreciation by the audience of the sentiment, an
appreciation consisting in a mental condition made up entirely of the
element of goodness or truth (sattva), uninfluenced by the other
elements of passion (rajas) and dullness (tamas), that is, entirely
free from desire, comparable with meditation on the absolute. This
condition is the vital element; the enjoyment ranks above the aesthetic
equipment [666] which renders it possible. To this theory which is
sometimes ascribed to the Sāṁkhya, [667] and called the Bhuktivāda,
doctrine of the enjoyment of sentiment, the objection is made that the
two powers ascribed to poetry, realization, and enjoyment, have no
legitimate foundation.
The view finally adopted by the theorists is that defended, but not
first enunciated, by Abhinavagupta, based on the general doctrine of
suggestion (vyañjanā) as lying at the basis of all poetic pleasure. The
spectator’s state of mind must be considered; it is in him that from
experience of life there come into being emotional complexes, which lie
dormant, ready to be called into activity by the reading of poems or by
seeing plays performed. Those whose life has left them barren of
impressions of emotions are, accordingly, incapable of relishing
dramas, a fate which awaits men whose minds are intent merely on
grammar or on the complexities of the Mīmāṅsā. The sentiment thus
excited is peculiar, in that it is essentially universal in character;
it is common to all other trained spectators, and it has essentially no
personal significance. A sentiment is thus something very different
from an ordinary emotion; it is generic and disinterested, while an
emotion is individual and immediately personal. An emotion again may be
pleasant or painful, but a sentiment is marked by that impersonal joy,
characteristic of the contemplation of the supreme being by the adept,
a bliss which is absolutely without personal feeling. There is in fact
a close parallel between the man of taste (sahṛdaya) [668] and the
adept (yogin); both have in them the possibility of attaining this
bliss, and, to make it real, the one must investigate the determinants,
&c., while the other must apply himself to concentration on the
absolute. It is this peculiar nature of sentiment which forbids it
being created as the result of denotation or indication by speech, of
perception, inference, or recollection. It cannot exist without
determinants, &c., but these are not in the normal sense causes; an
effect can exist when its causes have disappeared, but sentiment exists
only while the determinants, &c., last; the terms used in this regard
are one and all distinct from the normal terminology of causation.
Sentiment is something supernatural (alaukika); its relations to the
factors may be compared with that of a beverage to the black pepper,
candied sugar, camphor, &c., which compose it, but of which as such no
trace remains in the liquor as produced. This characteristic enables us
to understand how it is that the list of sentiments includes that of
horror or odium (bībhatsa) and that of fear (bhayānaka), as well as the
pathetic sentiment. These are awakened into life by things which cause
disgust, fear, and grief in ordinary life, and these emotions in real
life are far from pleasant in any sense of that term. But, conveyed as
ideal and generic, they produce this supernatural pleasure or
happiness, which is not to be compared with normal pleasure, just as
the joy of the contemplation of the absolute is not to be described as
pleasure in the ordinary sense. Bhānudatta, in his Rasataran̄giṇī, a
work composed before A.D. 1437, distinguishes Rāsa as natural (laukika)
and supernatural or transcendental; the former is the emotion
experienced in ordinary life—which may more conveniently be
distinguished as Bhāva,—the latter includes the emotion experienced in
dream experiences, in the building of castles in the air, and in the
appreciation of poetry, and he is careful to emphasize the totally
different nature of the natural and the transcendental emotion. [669]
The doctrine set out in Abhinavagupta is also that of the Daçarūpa,
although it is rendered more obscure there by the brevity of its
exposition. The process of transformation of an emotion to a sentiment
is formally described; ‘a dominant feeling or emotion becomes a
sentiment when it is transformed into an object of enjoyment through
the co-operation of the determinants, the consequents, including the
involuntary manifestations of feeling, and the transitory feelings’.
[670] The sense is made further precise by the assertion [671] that the
dominant emotion becomes a sentiment, because it is enjoyed by the
spectator of taste, and he is actually at present in existence; the
sentiment is not located in the hero whose actions are represented, for
he belongs to the past, nor does it appertain to the poem, for that is
not the object of the poem—its function being to set out the
determinants, &c., through which the dominant emotion is brought out
and generates the sentiment,—nor is sentiment the apprehension by the
spectator of the emotions enacted by the actor, since in that case
spectators would feel not sentiment, but an emotion varying in the
different individuals, just as in real life from seeing a pair in union
those who see them feel according to their nature shame, envy, desire,
or aversion. The position of the spectator is compared to that of the
child which, when it plays with its clay elephants—the ancient
equivalent of our tin soldiers—experiences the sensation of its own
energy as pleasant; the deeds of Arjuna arouse a like feeling in the
spectator’s mind. This experiencing sentiment is a manifestation of
that joy which is innate as the true nature of the self, and this
manifestation comes into being as the result of the pervasion of the
mind of the spectator with the dominant emotion and the determinants,
&c., in combination.
An effort is made to describe the precise nature of the mental activity
involved in the enjoyment of sentiment, and to base upon it a division
of the sentiments. The four sentiments of love, heroism, horror, and
fury are taken as primary, and brought into connexion with mental
conditions described as the unfolding (vikāsa), expansion (vistara),
agitation (kṣobha), and movement to and fro (vikṣepa) of the mind.
[672] These are evidently mental conditions, believed to be reached by
introspection, and they have the merit of giving a quasi-psychological
rationale for the doctrine of four primary and four secondary
sentiments found in the Nāṭyaçāstra. [673] But there was no early
agreement on this piece of psychology; Abhinavagupta, [674] with Bhaṭṭa
Nāyaka, accepts only three aspects of mental condition as involved, the
melting (druti), expansion, and unfolding, a division which is applied
also in the theory of poetics to justify the doctrine of the existence
of three qualities only of words. [675] On Dhanaṁjaya’s view the
sentiment of calm which he denies for drama, [676] if it exists at all,
must be regarded as combining all the four mental aspects above
distinguished.
It is now possible to understand clearly the essential relation of the
spectator to the actors; we see on the stage, for instance, Rāma and
Sītā, who excites his affection, aided by suitable circumstances of
time and place; this affection is intimated by speech and gesture
alike, which indicate both the dominant emotion of love and its
transient shapes in the various stages of love requited. The spectacle
evokes in the mind of the spectator the impressions of the emotion of
love which experience has planted there, and this ideal and generic
excitation of the emotion produces in him that sense of joy which is
known as sentiment. The fullness of the enjoyment depends essentially
on the nature and experience of the spectator, to whom it falls to
identify himself with the hero or other character, and thus to
experience in ideal form his emotions and feelings. He may even succeed
in his effort to the extent that he weeps real tears, feels terror and
sorrow, but the sentiment is still one of exquisite joy. We may compare
the thrill of pleasure which the most terrifying narration excites in
us, and we are all conscious of the sweetness of sad tales.
Viçvanātha insists very strongly on the necessity of the identification
of the spectator with the personages depicted, a process which enables
him to accept without any difficulty such episodes of extraordinary
character as Hanumant’s leap over the ocean. [677] He must not treat
the emotion of love as his own, for in that case it would never become
a sentiment; it would remain a feeling, and in the case of fear, for
instance, it would cause pain, not joy. Nor must he regard it as
belonging solely to the hero, for then it would remain his feeling, and
in no wise affect the spectator or become a sentiment. Similarly, the
determinants, &c., are not to be treated as pertaining to the hero
alone; they must be felt as generic. This generic action (sādhāraṇī
kṛti) is the essential feature, replacing the generic power which
Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka attributes to poetry. We can now see clearly the position
of the actor; the Nāṭyaçāstra [678] bids him as far as possible to
assume the emotions of the person whom he represents, and to depict
them by costume, speech, movements, and gestures as his own, but
Viçvanātha [679] is more anxious to insist that the sentiment is not
necessarily to be found in the actor, who often merely performs
mechanically his part according to rote and rule; if he actually does
experience the feelings he portrays, then he becomes in so far a
spectator. [680] Further, he points out the simultaneous presence of
all the factors is by no means essential, for the existence of one will
revive the others by force of the association of ideas. He insists also
on the necessity of experience and cultivation of the power of
imagination in one who seeks to enjoy sentiment; as we are by virtue of
the doctrine of transmigration—or if we prefer to modernize, by
heredity—endowed with the germs of the capacity of appreciation, we can
normally by study of poetical works develop the capacity, but, if we
devote ourselves to the study of grammar or philosophy, we shall
certainly deaden our susceptibilities. The difficult problem, why much
study of poetry leaves some still unable to relish the sentiment, is
explained by the convenient hypothesis that demerit in a previous birth
intervenes to frustrate present effort. He refutes at length the effort
of Mahiman Bhaṭṭa [681] to destroy the whole doctrine of suggestion in
poetry by the doctrine of inference; doubtless by inference we could
arrive at a belief in the existence of an emotion in the hero’s mind
but that inference would not produce any effect in us or arouse
sentiment; a logician might make the inference and draw the correct
conclusion, but would remain cold and unmoved. Suggestiveness, he
shows, is absolutely essential as a function of words and as the
characteristic of poetry, giving it power to create sentiment. What is
expressed may be understood by every one; the man of taste alone
appreciates the suggestion and enjoys the flavour resulting.
Now sentiment is one, it is a single, ineffable, transcendental joy,
but it can be subdivided, not according to its own nature, but
according to the emotions which evoke it. Thus the Nāṭyaçāstra
recognizes the existence of eight emotions or dominant feelings; love
(rati), mirth (hāsa), anger (krodha), sorrow (çoka), energy (utsāha),
terror (bhaya), disgust (jugupsā), and astonishment (vismaya), and
corresponding to these eight emotions we have eight forms of sentiment.
The erotic sentiment (çṛn̄gārarasa) is of two kinds, the union
(sambhoga) or sundering (vipralambha) of two lovers, according to the
Çāstra and the great mass of theorists, but the Daçarūpa [682]
distinguishes three cases, privation (ayoga), sundering (viprayoga),
and union. Privation denotes the inability of two young hearts to
secure union, because of obstacles to their marriage; such love passes
through ten stages, [683] longing, anxiety, recollection, enumeration
of the loved one’s merits, distress, raving, insanity, fever, stupor,
and death. Sundering may be due to absence or resentment, and this in
its turn may be caused by a quarrel between two determined lovers, or
indignation at finding out, by sight, hearing or inference, that one’s
lover is devoted to another. The hero may counteract anger by
conciliation, by winning over her friends, by gifts, by humility, by
indifference, and by distracting her attention. Absence again may be
due to business, to accident, or a curse; if the reason is death the
love sentiment cannot, in Dhanaṁjaya’s view, be present, though others
allow of a pathetic variety of this sentiment. [684] In union the lover
should avoid vulgarity or annoyance.
The heroic (vīra) sentiment corresponds to the emotion of energy; it
may take the three forms of courage in battle as in Rāma; compassion as
in Jīmūtavāhana; and liberality as in Paraçurāma. Assurance,
contentment, arrogance, and joy are the transitory states connected
with it. The sentiment of fury (raudra) is based on anger; its
transitory states are indignation, intoxication, recollection,
inconstancy, envy, cruelty, agitation, and the like. The comic (hāsya)
sentiment depends on mirth, which is caused by one’s own or another’s
strange appearance, speech, or attire. [685] The transitory states in
connexion with it are sleeping, indolence, weariness, weakness, and
stupor. The sentiment of wonder (adbhuta) is based on astonishment; the
transitory states are usually joy, agitation, and contentment. The
sentiment of terror (bhayānaka) is based on terror; the states
associated with it are depression, agitation, distraction, fright, and
the like. The pathetic (karuṇa) sentiment is based on sorrow; its
associated states are sleeping, epilepsy, depression, sickness, death,
indolence, agitation, despair, stupor, insanity, anxiety, and so forth.
The sentiment of horror or odium (bībhatsa) is based on disgust; its
associated states are agitation, sickness, apprehension, and the like.
In each case the theorists give in full the determinants and the
consequents of each emotion, which becomes a sentiment, and a special
colour is ascribed to each; it is not surprising to find that red is
associated with fury, black with fear; whiteness may, in association
with the comic sentiment, be explained by the flashing teeth of a
laughing maiden, and the dark (çyāma) colour of the erotic sentiment is
a reflex of the favoured hue of the beloved; grey accords with pathos,
but the connexion of yellow with wonder, dark blue with horror, and
orange with heroism is not obvious. It is also artificial to find four
primary and four secondary sentiments laid down; the erotic, the
furious, the heroic, and that of horror, whence in order are supposed
to develop the comic, the pathetic, that of wonder and that of terror.
The Nāṭyaçāstra recognizes these eight only, [686] but later
authorities add the sentiment of calm (çānta) based on indifference to
worldly things (nirveda), although this is in the Çāstra merely a
transitory feeling. Those who follow the Çāstra contend that there is
no such sentiment, for it is impossible to destroy utterly love,
hatred, and other feelings, which have been operative from time without
beginning; others admit the existence of the sentiment, as does
Mammaṭa, but not in drama, on the ground that indifference to all
worldly things is incapable of being represented. But this also is
erroneous; the actor’s power of representing indifference is not in
point, as it is the spectator who is to feel the sentiment, and the
fact that the Çāstra places it first in the list of transitory states,
though that would normally be an inauspicious beginning, indicates that
it was meant to serve both as an emotion and a transitory feeling, and
it is fully recognized by Vidyādhara, Viçvanātha, and Jagannātha,
though Dhanaṁjaya barely admits it. [687] The interrelations of the
sentiments, their possible combinations, their harmonies and conflicts,
are detailed at length.
The sentiments may all be employed in drama, but there are rules
affecting their use. In each play there should be a dominant sentiment;
in the Nāṭaka it should be the erotic or the heroic; other sentiments
are merely auxiliary, but that of wonder is especially appropriate in
the dénouement; indeed something in the way of supernatural
intervention is often convenient to extricate the plot. An excess of
sentiments is as bad as a defect; if there are too many they destroy
the unity of the whole and detach it into a series of ill-connected
fragments, while the excessive use of action and of rhetorical display
is equally destructive to the merit of a piece.
The Çakuntalā illustrates excellently the sentiment of love as the
ruling motive of the play; the heroic sentiment appears in the verses
in Act II in which the hermits extol the king; the horrible in Act VI
in the scene in which Mātali menaces the Vidūṣaka; terror is evoked by
the description of the dusk at the close of Act III; the whole play
from the arrival of Kaṇva in Act IV to the departure of Çakuntalā
produces the sentiment of pathos, while that of fury is called into
being by the close of Act VI from the despairing cries of the Vidūṣaka
to the entry of Mātali; finally wonder is aroused by the strange
incident at the close when the king picks up the bracelet fallen from
the arm of the child which, unknown to him, is his own son by the wife
whom he has in ignorance repudiated. The Nāṭikās afford excellent
examples of the erotic sentiment; Harṣa, in complete accord with the
rules of the drama, helps out his plot in both the Ratnāvalī and the
Priyadarçikā by the use of incidents evoking the sentiment of wonder;
the imprisonment of Sāgarikā in the former play evokes the sentiment of
pathos, while terror is excited by the description in Act II of the
wild confusion caused by the monkey’s escape from the royal mews. The
sentiment of fury is frequently evoked in the Mahāvīracarita and the
Veṇīsaṁhāra; the Mālatīmādhava affords excellent illustrations evoking
horror, while the Mahāvīracarita is permeated by the sentiment of
heroism. The Nāgānanda reveals heroism in another aspect, that of the
perfection of compassion and nobility, for, as we have seen,
Jīmūtavāhana is not to be regarded as a hero in whom calm prevails.
There is doubtless pedantry in the theory of sentiment; the choice of
eight emotions, the subordination to them of transitory states, the
enumeration of determinants and consequents, are largely dominated by
empiricism, and not explained or justified. But in its essentials the
theory may be admitted to be a bold and by no means negligible attempt
to indicate the essential character of the emotional effect of drama.
6. THE DRAMATIC STYLES AND LANGUAGES
Plot, characters, and sentiment are not the only constituent elements
of drama; the poet must be an adept in adopting the appropriate manner
[688] or style (vṛtti), for each action of the hero; the style adds to
the play the indefinable element of perfection which is present in the
highest beauty of feature or dress. The manners allowed by the
Nāṭyaçāstra are four, the graceful (kaiçikī), the grand (sāttvatī), the
violent (ārabhaṭī), and the verbal (bhāratī), which owes its name to
the fact that, unlike the others, it depends for its effect on words,
not action.
The graceful manner is appropriate to the erotic sentiment; it employs
song, dance, and lovely raiment, admits both male and female rôles, and
depicts love, gallantry, coquetry, and jesting. It admits of four
varieties. The first is pleasantry (narman), which is based on what is
comic in speech, dress, or movement in the actors; the pleasantry may
be purely comic, or be mingled with love, or even with fear, as when
Susaṁgatā makes fun of Sāgarikā and adds that she will tell the queen
of the episode of the picture. [689] When love is mingled, it may serve
to evince affection, or to ask for a response, or to impute a fault on
the lover’s part. A comedy of costume is seen in the Nāgānanda where
the Viṭa, misled by his garments, mistakes the Vidūṣaka for a woman; a
comedy of action in the Mālavikāgnimitra where Nipunikā punished the
Vidūṣaka by dropping on him a stick which he takes, naturally enough,
for a snake. The second form is the outburst of affection
(narmasphūrja) [690] at the first meeting of lovers, which ends in a
note of fear, as in the meeting of the king and Mālavikā in Act IV of
the Mālavikāgnimitra. Thirdly, there is the manifestation of a recent
love by physical signs (narmasphoṭa), [691] and, fourth, the
development of affection (narmagarbha), illustrated by the adoption of
a disguise by the hero to attain his end, as when Vatsa in the
Priyadarçikā comes on the scene in the garb of Manoramā. [692]
The grand manner is appropriate to the sentiments of heroism, wonder,
and fury, and in a less degree to the pathetic and erotic. Virtue,
courage, self-sacrifice, compassion, and righteousness are its
subjects, not sorrow. Its divisions are the challenge (utthāpaka), as
in the Mahāvīracarita, Act V, Vālin defies Rāma; breach of alliance
(saṁghātya) among one’s foes, which may be brought about by deliberate
stratagem, as in the Mudrārākṣasa, or by fate, as in the Rāma dramas
Vibhīṣaṇa severs himself from Rāvaṇa; change of action (parivartaka) as
when in the Mahāvīracarita Paraçurāma offers to embrace Rāma, whom he
came to overthrow; and the dialogue (saṁlāpa) of warriors such as that
of Rāma and Paraçurāma in the same play.
The violent manner accords with the sentiments of fury, horror, and
terror. It employs magic, conjuration, conflicts, rage, fury, and
underhand devices. Its elements include, first, the almost immediate
construction (saṁkṣipti) of some object by artificial means, such as
the elephant of mats made to contain Udayana’s men in the lost
Udayanacarita; but others interpret this member as a sudden change of
hero, whether real, as in the substitution of Vālin for Sugrīva, or
merely a change of heart on the hero’s part, as in Paraçurāma’s
submission to Rāma; in either case only a secondary hero can change or
be changed, else the unity of the drama would disappear. The other
elements are the creation of an object by magic means (vastūtthāpana);
the angry meeting of two persons who end by fighting (sampheṭa), as do
Mādhava and Aghoraghaṇṭa in the Mālatīmādhava; and a scene of
tumultuous disturbance (avapāta), such as that when the monkey escapes
in the Ratnāvalī or of the attack on Vindhyaketu in the Priyadarçikā,
Act I.
The verbal manner is based on sound, as the other three are on sense.
The voice only is its means of expression; women may not use it, and
the men must speak Sanskrit; these actors bear the name Bharata, which
is appropriated to this manner. It is adapted to all the sentiments,
or, according to the Nāṭyaçāstra, only to those of heroism, wonder, and
fury. Its elements are, in true scholastic fashion, likewise reckoned
as four; two of them, the propitiation (prarocanā), and the
introduction (āmukha, prastāvanā), essentially belong to the prologue
of the drama, and will be considered in that connexion; the other two
are given as the garland (vīthī) and the farce, which are species of
drama. But the theorists agree that the elements (an̄ga) of the garland
[693] are applicable in any part of the drama, especially the first
juncture, and they are evidently an essential part of the verbal
manner.
The first element is the abrupt dialogue (udghātya), which takes either
the form of a series of questions and answers in explanation of
something not at once understood, or a monologue of question and reply.
The second is continuance (avalagita) of one section by another in
substitution, as where, when Sītā has decided to go to the forest for
pleasure, Rāma is persuaded to let her go indeed, but into exile, or,
according to Dhanaṁjaya alone, where there is a sudden turn in an event
in progress. [694] The third is the Prapañca, which passes for a comic
dialogue, in which two actors frankly set out each other’s demerits,
[695] or, according to Viçvanātha, such a clever ruse as that of
Nipuṇikā in the Vikramorvaçī, Act II, where she worms out from the
Vidūṣaka the king’s infatuation. The triple explanation (trigata), a
term which is used in a different sense in the rule regarding the
prologue, seems to denote guesses made at the cause of a sound, which
in its character is ambiguous and may be, e.g. the hum of the bees, the
cry of the cuckoo, or the music made by celestial maidens. [696]
Cheating (chala) denotes the use of words of seeming courtesy but
boding ill, as in the inquiry for Duryodhana, their foe, by Bhīma and
Arjuna in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act V. The repartee (vākkelī) produces comic
effect in a series of questions and answers; but the same term is
applied to the interruption of a sentence by Dhanaṁjaya, and by
Viçvanātha to a single reply to many questions. Outvying (adhibala or
atibala) applies to a dialogue in which those conversing vie with one
another in violence, as in the discussion of Arjuna, Bhīma, and
Duryodhana in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act V. The abrupt remark (gaṇḍa) is one
which intervenes vitally in the tale; thus in the Uttararāmacarita Rāma
has just declared that separation from Sītā would be unbearable, when
the porteress announces Durmukha, the spy of the king, who comes to
destroy the king’s happiness. Reinterpretation (avasyandita) is the
taking up of an expression which has escaped one in a different sense;
thus in the Chalitarāma, Sītā carelessly tells her sons to go to
Ayodhyā and greet their father, and seeks to remedy this slip by
insisting that the king is father of his people. The enigma (nālikā)
conceals the sense under joking words. Incoherent talk (asatpralāpa) is
the speech of one just awake, drunk, asleep, or childish; such are the
hero’s words in Vikramorvaçī, Act IV. In another sense, admitted by
Viçvanātha, it denotes good advice thrown away, as in the Veṇīsaṁhāra,
Act I, Gāndhārī’s admonition of Duryodhana. Humorous speech (vyāhāra)
is a remark made for the sake of some one else, which provokes a laugh,
as when the Vidūṣaka in the Mālavikāgnimitra, Act II, by his chatter
makes the damsel laugh, and permits the king longer to gaze on her
charms. Mildness (mṛdava) denotes the turning of evil into good, or
vice versa, as when in the Çakuntalā, Act II, the virtues of hunting, a
vice in the eyes of the sacred law, are extolled.
It is an essential defect of Indian theory in all its aspects that it
tends to divisions which are needless and confusing. Besides the
elements of the garland we find thirty-three dramatic ornaments
(nāṭyālaṁkāra) [697] and thirty-six characteristics or beauties
(lakṣaṇa), [698] which cannot be distinguished as two classes on any
conceivable theory, [699] for both consist largely of modes of
exposition and figures of thought and diction, while they also contain,
as recognized by Dhanaṁjaya, a number of feelings which fall within the
sphere of sentiment and its discussion. Thus we find as ornaments the
benediction, the lamentation, raillery, the use of argument to support
a view (upapatti), the prayer, the expression of resolution, the
reproach, the provocation, the adduction of a common opinion in order
to administer covertly a rebuke, the request, the narrative, reasoning,
and the telling of a story. The beauties again include the combination
of merits of style with poetic figures; the grouping of letters to make
up a name; the use of analogy and example; the citation of admitted
facts to refute incorrect views; the fitting of expression to the
sense; the explanation by reasoning of a fact which is not capable of
sense perception; the description of an object from the point of view
of place, time, or shape; the indication of a characteristic which
serves to distinguish two objects otherwise alike; the allusion to the
truth of the literal meaning of a name; the use of the names of famous
persons in a eulogy of some living being; the expression unconsciously,
under the influence of passion, of the contrary of what one means; the
statement in succession (mālā) of several means to attain a desired
object; the expression of two different views, one of which in reality
strengthens the other; the reproach; the question; the use of
commonplaces; eulogy; the employment of a comparison to convey a sense
which it is not desired directly to express; the indirect expression of
desire; the veiled compliment; and the address of gratitude.
Unfortunately no scientific attempt at orderly arrangement or
examination of the principles on which these matters are based is
attempted.
The Nāṭyaçāstra [700] adds an account of four ornaments of the drama
(nāṭakālaṁkāra), which the Daçarūpa ignores, doubtless for the adequate
reason that these matters appertain to poetics in general, and they are
treated of in vast detail by the text-books of that science. The first
is simile, defined as a comparison based on the similarity of
characteristics in two objects; there are five kinds, the simile which
extols, that which condemns, that with an imagined thing, as when the
elephant is likened to a winged mountain, that based on similarity, and
that on partial similarity, as in ‘Her face is like the full moon, her
eyes like the blue lotus’. The metaphor is an abridged comparison which
unites the two objects so as to efface their distinction, as ‘The
fisher Love casts on the ocean of this world his lure, woman’. The
illuminator (dīpaka) is the figure of speech, which uses but one verb
to express the connexion between a subject series and a string of
qualifications. Of forms of alliteration (yamaka), the repetition of
vowels and consonants forming different words and meanings, there are
enumerated ten kinds, a striking proof of the importance attached to
these verbal jingles in early poetics.
The Çāstra [701] adds some vague and valueless suggestions as to the
use of these ornaments and metrical effects in connexion with the
expression of the sentiments. The erotic sentiment demands metaphors
and Dīpakas, and prefers the Āryā metre. The heroic affects short
syllables, similes, and metaphors; in passages of lively dialogue the
metres [702] Jagatī, Atijagatī, and Saṁkṛti; in scenes of battle and
violence, the Utkṛti. The sentiment of fury adopts the same metres, and
also favours short syllables, similes, and metaphors. The Çakvarī and
Atidhṛti metres are appropriate to the pathetic sentiment; it prefers
long syllables, a liking shared by the sentiment of horror.
An effort is made by later writers on poetics to apply to the doctrine
of the sentiments the theory of excellencies (guṇa), which is laid down
generally in Daṇḍin, Vāmana, Bhoja, and other writers. In Daṇḍin [703]
we find assigned to the Vaidarbha style a miscellaneous number of
qualities, ten in all, which are defined in terms sometimes vague and
unsatisfactory; these qualities include both those of sense and sound
(artha and çabda). They include strength or majesty (ojas), elevation
(udāratva), clearness (prasāda), precision of exposition (arthavyakti),
beauty or attractiveness (kānti), sweetness or elegance (mādhurya),
metaphorical language (samādhi), and in the use and combination of
sounds homogeneity (samatā), softness (sukumāratā), and a natural flow
(çleṣa). The chief opponent of the Vaidarbha style is given as the
Gauḍa; it is vaguely credited with the possession of features the
opposite of those of its rival; more specifically, we find it credited
with the fondness for the use of long compounds both in prose and
verse, while the Vaidarbha objects to such compounds in verse at least,
and with affecting alliterations. Vāmana [704] develops the doctrine by
distinguishing ten qualities of sense and ten of sound, and he ascribes
all the qualities to the Vaidarbha style; to the Gauḍa he allots
reliance on force and beauty, to the exclusion of sweetness and
softness, while he recognizes as a third style the Pāñcāla, which is
marked with sweetness and softness, and therefore is rather feeble. In
Mammaṭa [705] and later we find a new view of the qualities; those of
sense are explained away as being rather the absence of defects (doṣa),
so that the qualities are reduced to the sphere of sound alone. In this
regard they are further reduced from ten to three, sweetness, strength,
and clearness, and these are now brought into effective connexion with
the sentiments.
Sweetness, the source of pleasure, causing as it were the melting of
the heart, is appropriate in the sentiments of love in enjoyment,
pathos, love in separation, and calm; it is normal in love in union,
and rises in degree successively in the other three forms of sentiment;
unmixed in the others, in that of calm it is combined with a small
degree of strength, because of the relation of the sentiment of calm to
the emotion of disgust. Strength causes the expansion of the heart; it
rises in vehemence in the sentiments of heroism, horror, and fury, and
it is found also in that of terror. The quality of clearness is
appropriate to all the sentiments, and is that which causes the sense
to become intelligible, pervading the mind as fire does wood or water a
cloth, as the outcome of merely hearing the words. The precise mode in
which sweetness is produced is by the use of mutes other than
cerebrals, with their appropriate nasals, r and ṇ with short vowels,
and no compounds or short compounds; strength results from the use of
compound letters, doubled letters, conjunct consonants of which r forms
part, cerebrals other than ṇ, palatal and cerebral sibilants, and long
compounds. The older names, Vaidarbha, Gauḍa, and Pāñcāla are now given
up in favour of refined (upanāgarikā), harsh (paruṣā), and soft
(komalā). But Mammaṭa reminds us that in drama very long compounds are
undesirable, a rule ignored largely by the later dramatists.
More important than these technical details, which are illustrated
often enough in the verses composed by the later dramatists, and no
doubt possess considerable antiquity, is the changed view [706] which
brings the qualities in the new sense into relation with the sentiment.
Sentiment is the very soul of poetry, and the relation of the qualities
to it may be most effectually compared with that of such virtues as
heroism to the soul of man. They serve to heighten the effect of the
sentiment, and therefore they cannot be considered save in close
relation to that sentiment. However soft and sweet the verbal form of a
work, none the less it cannot be said to possess the quality of
sweetness, unless it has a sentiment to which sweetness is appropriate.
To give it the name of sweet, if the sentiment is incompatible with
sweetness, is compared with regarding a tall man as brave on the
strength of his appearance only. The sounds, therefore, produce the
qualities only as instruments, for the real cause is the sentiment,
even as the soul is the true cause of the heroism and other qualities
of a man.
The case of figures, whether of sound or sense, is somewhat similarly
handled; the figures are compared with the ornaments which, placed on a
man’s body, and through this union with him, gratify the soul; the
figures adorn words and meanings which are parts of poetry by their
union with them, and thus serve to heighten the sentiment, provided one
exists. If there is no sentiment, through the defective ability of the
poet, then the figures serve merely to lend variety to the composition,
and even when sentiment exists the figures may fail to be appropriate
to it. Both figures and qualities thus are in a very intimate relation
with the sentiment, but that does not mean that the two are identical.
From this doctrine, which makes sentiment essentially the main element
in poetry, the view of Vāmana, [707] who laid down that style was the
soul of poetry and that the qualities give the essential beauty or
distinction (çobhā) to a poem, while the figures increase such
distinction, is necessarily regarded as inadequate. If the doctrine is
interpreted to mean that it is the possession of all the qualities
which makes a poem, then all compositions in the Gauḍa and Pāñcāla
styles would be denied the rank of poetry; if the presence of a single
quality gave the right to the style of poem, then a perfectly prosaic
verse passage containing the quality of strength would have to be
dubbed a poem, while a stanza containing elegant figures, but no
qualities, would be denied that style, which in point of fact is
regularly accorded by usage and must be recognized as valid.
As regards language we have, as often in the theory, no explanation of
a principle which is laid down as accepted, the divergent use of
Sanskrit and Prākrit in the same play. Yet it cannot be held that, when
the theory was developed in such works as the Daçarūpa, and very
possibly in the Nāṭyaçāstra itself, the usage of the plays could be put
down simply to the copying of the actual practice in real life. That
such was its origin we may believe in the general way; the Vidūṣaka in
the Mṛcchakaṭikā derides a woman using Sanskrit as resembling a young
cow with a rope through her nose; but there is evidence that already in
the time of the Kāmaçāstra [708] the use of Prākrit was artificial. We
are there told that the cultured man about town (nāgaraka) in social
meetings (goṣṭhī), should neither confine himself to Sanskrit nor to
the vernacular (deçabhāṣā) if he is to win repute for good manners. We
have here a sign that matters were already, at the time of the
Kāmaçāstra, much in the same condition as in modern India, where the
use of Sanskrit terms with the vernacular is a regular sign of
education. Now Vātsyāyana tells us clearly that those who frequent such
gatherings are hetaerae, Viṭas, Vidūṣakas, and Pīṭhamardas, in short
the wits of the court, and to them in the theory is assigned Çaurasenī
and kindred Prākrit dialects. We are justified, therefore, in assuming
that at Vātsyāyana’s epoch in actual life, as opposed to the
conventional existence of the stage, Prākrits were definitely out of
employment. The same text includes in the requisites of the knowledge
of a hetaera the knowledge of the local speech, and, as there is no
doubt of the knowledge of the Andhras as kings by Vātsyāyana, it is
interesting to note that in the famous passage in which Somadeva tells
of the reason why the Bṛhatkathā [709] was written in Paiçācī he treats
as the three forms of human speech contemporaneous with Sātavāhana,
whose name shows his connexion with the Andhras, Sanskrit, Prākrit, and
the vernacular.
The date of Vātsyāyana thus becomes of interest, but unluckily it is
still undefined with any precision. [710] It certainly seems, however,
that Kālidāsa was familiar with a text very similar to and perhaps
identical with the Kāmaçāstra, and this reasonably may be regarded as
giving A.D. 400 as the lower limit of date. That the Kauṭilīya
Arthaçāstra has been used by Vātsyāyana gives no precise result, in
view of the difficulty of dating exactly that text. But the mention by
Vātsyāyana of the Ābhīras [711] and Andhras certainly suggests, taken
into conjunction with his silence as to the Guptas, that he wrote
before the power of the latter had established itself in western India,
and we may assign his work to approximately A.D. 300. If so we must
believe that already in Kālidāsa’s age the Prākrits of his characters
were more or less artificial, and with this well accords his
introduction of Māhārāṣṭrī for the verses of those to whom Çaurasenī is
assigned in prose, an obviously literary device.
Elaborate rules for the use of language [712] by the characters are
given in the Nāṭyaçāstra and, in much less detail, by the Daçarūpa. The
use of Sanskrit is proper in the case of kings, Brahmins, generals,
ministers, and learned persons generally; the chief queen is assigned
it, and so also ministers’ daughters, but this rule is not in practice
observed. On the other hand, it is used by Buddhist nuns, hetaerae,
artistes, and others on occasion. It is a rule that in the description
of battles, peace negotiations, and omens Sanskrit shall be resorted
to, and this is done by Bṛhannalā in Bhāsa’s Pañcarātra. The use of
Sanskrit by allegorical female types is also found both early and late.
The general rule for women and persons of inferior rank [713] is the
use of Prākrit, but it may be resorted to as a means of self-aid by
persons of higher position. The types of Prākrit to be used are
described with much confusion in the Nāṭyaçāstra, and the amount of
variation contemplated is large. Thus the use of Çaurasenī is permitted
in the Çāstra in lieu of the dialect of the Barbara, Andhra, Kirāta,
and Draviḍa, though these may be used. The Çāstra gives seven different
Prākrits as in use. Çaurasenī is the speech of the land between the
Yamunā and the Gan̄gā or Doab; it is to be used by the ladies of the
play, their friends and servants, generally by ladies of good family
and many men of the middle class. Prācyā is assigned to the Vidūṣaka,
but in fact he speaks practically Çaurasenī, and therefore the term can
only denote an eastern Çaurasenī dialect. Āvantī is ascribed to
gamblers or rogues (dhūrta), but is only an aspect of Çaurasenī, as
spoken at Ujjayinī, and the Prākrit grammarian Mārkaṇḍeya calls it a
transition between Çaurasenī and Māhārāṣṭrī. Māhārāṣṭrī is unknown to
the Çāstra; it is assigned to the verses of persons who use Çaurasenī
by the Daçarūpa, while the Sāhityadarpaṇa limits it to the verses of
women; normally, but not absolutely, it is used in all verses, [714]
though Çaurasenī verses occasionally occur, and possibly were more
frequent originally. The earlier drama of Açvaghoṣa and Bhāsa has no
clear evidence of Māhārāṣṭrī at all. Ardha-Māgadhī is prescribed for
slaves (ceṭa), Rājaputras and guildsmen (çreṣṭhin) by the Çāstra, but,
save in Açvaghoṣa and possibly the Karṇabhāra of Bhāsa, it is unknown
to our dramas. Māgadhī, on the other hand, is important in theory, and
of some consequence in practice; it is ascribed to all those men who
live in the women’s apartments, diggers of underground passages,
keepers of drink shops, watchers, and is used in time of danger by the
hero, and also by the Çakāra, according to the Çāstra. The Daçarūpa
assigns it and Paiçācī to the lowest classes, which accords with facts
as regards Māgadhī, but Paiçācī is not found clearly in the dramas.
The Nāṭyaçāstra provides for the use of Dākṣiṇātyā in the case of
soldiers (yodha), police officers (nāgaraka), and gamblers (dīvyant),
and there are slight traces in the Mṛcchakaṭikā of the existence of
this dialect. Bālhīkā is assigned by the same authority to the Khasas
and the northerners, but has not yet been traced in any drama.
We learn also from the Çāstra and from Mārkaṇḍeya in special of a
number of Vibhāṣās, [715] which seem to be modified forms of the more
normal Prākrits, as stereotyped for use by certain characters in the
drama. Thus the Çāstra attributes Çākārī to the Çakas, Çabaras, and
others, while the Sāhityadarpaṇa accords Çābarī to these persons. The
Çāstra ascribes Çābarī to charcoal-burners, hunters, wood-workers, and
partly also to forest dwellers in general, and Ābhīrī is ascribed with
the option of Çābarī to herdsmen, Cāṇḍālī to Caṇḍālas, and Drāviḍī to
Draviḍas, while Oḍri, mentioned by the Çāstra, is left unascribed;
presumably it was assigned to men of Orissa. Something of this is seen
in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, where Çākārī, Cāṇḍālī, and a further speech Ḍhakkī
or Ṭākkī appear. They all have nothing very marked as to their
characteristics; the first two may be allied to Māgadhī, the last is
more dubious.
The addition of Chāyās or translations in Sanskrit to explain the
Prākrit is normal in the manuscripts of the dramas, and it is certain
that it is old, for it is alluded to by Rājaçekhara in his
Bālarāmāyaṇa. Evidently, even so early as A.D. 900, there was no public
which cared for Prākrit without a Sanskrit explanation.
On the subject of the use of stanzas, as opposed to prose, the
text-books are curiously and unexpectedly silent. [716] This indicates
how entirely empirical they are in these matters. The use of Prākrits
in the dramas obviously varied, and something had to be said regarding
this point, but the alternation of prose and verse is accepted as
something established, on which comment is unnecessary. The fact is
recognized, but its implications and purpose remain unexplored. In the
stanzas themselves, it is clear, we must distinguish between those
which were sung and those which were simply recited; recitation must
clearly have been the normal form of use, and as sung we have normally
at any rate only some of the stanzas in Māhārāṣṭrī which are placed in
the mouths of women. Çaurasenī stanzas, on the other hand, we may
assume to have been recited, but the distinction has practically
vanished from the texts preserved.
7. THE DANCE, SONG, AND MUSIC
Of the part played by the song, dance, and music in the drama the
theorists curiously enough tell us comparatively little of interest,
though it is certain that both were most important elements in the
production of sentiment. The types of dance recognized in the
Nāṭyaçāstra are two, the violent dance of men, invented by Çiva
himself, the Tāṇḍava, and the tender and voluptuous dance of Pārvatī,
the Lāsya. The latter alone, by reason of its special importance, is
carefully analysed into ten parts by the Çāstra, [717] which shows the
essential union of song and dance. The first is the song proper, which
is sung by one seated, to the accompaniment of a lute, without dancing;
the recitation standing (sthitapāṭhya) is a declamation in Prākrit by a
woman pacing rapidly under the influence of love, or it may also mean,
according to Abhinavagupta, a declamation by a woman in anger. The
recitation sitting (āsīna) is performed by a woman lying down, under
the stress of sorrow, without musical accompaniment. In the
Puṣpagaṇḍikā various metres are used; Sanskrit may be employed; men act
as women and vice versa, and there is a musical accompaniment. In the
Pracchedaka a woman sings to the lute her grief at her lover’s
infidelity. The Trigūḍha is the acting of a man in woman’s dress, as of
Makaranda in the Mālatīmādhava, Act VI. The Saindhava is a song to a
clear accompaniment of a lady whose love has failed to keep his tryst.
The Dvigūḍhaka is a harmonious song, full of sentiment, in dialogue
form. The Uttamottaka is a song filled with the bitterness of a
troubled love. The Uktapratyukta is a duet, in which one lover
addresses to the other feigned reproaches. These divisions, of course,
appear to ignore their nature as parts of a dance, but it must be
remembered that the motions of the performers are essential in the
performance.
The music of the drama is not described at length in the later
theorists; what is clear is that each sentiment has its special
appropriate music, and each action its special accompaniment. Thus the
Dvipadikās accompanied the performance of the rôles of persons
distressed, unwell, and unhappy; the Dhruvās were chosen so as to
intimate at once to the audience the quality of the new arrival on the
stage. [718]
8. THE PRELIMINARIES AND THE PROLOGUE
The Nāṭyaçāstra [719] prescribes an elaborate series of preliminaries
(pūrvaran̄ga) which must be performed before the actual drama begins;
they are intended to secure divine favour for the performance, each act
having a definite share in the result, and doubtless they present us
with a reminiscence of the early theatre in the mingling of music,
dance, and song. First there is the beat of drum (pratyāhāra)
announcing the beginning of the performance, and the carpet is spread
out for the orchestra; the singers and the musicians then enter and
take their places (avataraṇa): then the chorus try their voices
(ārambha); the musicians try their instruments (āçrāvaṇā); they tune up
their wind and string instruments, and manipulate their hands to make
them ready for the work; then an instrumental concert follows,
succeeded by the appearance and practice steps of the dancers. [720] A
song follows, to please the gods; then the Tāṇḍava is performed,
increasing in violence as it proceeds; then a song accompanies the
raising by the Sūtradhāra of the banner (jarjara) of Indra; he scatters
flowers and purifies himself with water from a pitcher borne by an
attendant, while another carries the banner; there follows a
perambulation of the stage, the praise of the world guardians, and
homage to the banner. Then comes the Nāndī or benediction; it is
followed by the recitation by the Sūtradhāra of a verse in honour of
the god whose festival it is, or the king or a Brahmin; then comes the
Ran̄gadvāra, which is said to mark the beginning of the dramatic action
(abhinaya), the Sūtradhāra reciting another verse, and bowing before
the banner of Indra. There follow steps and movements of erotic
character (cārī) in honour of Umā, and more violent movements of the
same kind in honour of the Bhūtas. A discussion (trigata) between the
Sūtradhāra, the Vidūṣaka, who talks nonsense, and an attendant follows.
Finally the Prarocanā announces the content of the drama, and the
Sūtradhāra and his two attendants leave the stage, and the
preliminaries are ended.
Immediately after, according to the Nāṭyaçāstra, another person,
similar in appearance and qualities to the Sūtradhāra, is to enter and
introduce the play, a function which gives him the style of introducer,
Sthāpaka. [721] His costume should indicate the nature of the drama, as
dealing with divine or human affairs. An appropriate song greets his
entrance, he dances a Cārī, praises the gods and Brahmins, propitiates
the audience by verses alluding to the subject of the play, mentions
the name of the author and the play, and describes some season in the
verbal manner, thereby opening the prologue (prastāvanā, āmukha,
sthāpanā) [722] of the play. The essential feature of the prologue is
an address by the director with an attendant (pāripārçvika) or an
actress or the Vidūṣaka on some personal business which indirectly
hints at the drama. The mode of connexion is given by Dhanaṁjaya as
threefold, as in the Nāṭyaçāstra; the words of the director may be
caught up (kathodghāta) by a character in the drama, entering from
behind the curtain, as in the Ratnāvalī Yaugandharāyaṇa catches up the
consolation offered to the actress which is applicable to his own
scheme, and in the Veṇīsaṁhāra Bhīma brusquely denounces the
benediction of his adversaries. Or a person may enter (pravṛttaka), who
has just been mentioned by the director in a comparison with the season
of the year, as in the Priyadarçikā. Excess of representation
(prayogātiçaya) is taken in the Daçarūpa as applying to a case where
the director actually mentions the entry of a character of the drama,
as at the beginning of the Çakuntalā, where he assures the actress that
her song has enchanted him, as the gazelle enchants Duḥṣanta, who just
then enters. Viçvanātha, on the other hand, treats this form as an
instance of continuance (avalagita), and interprets the phrase as
denoting the supersession of the director’s action; thus, in the lost
Kundamālā, about to call on the actress to dance, he hears the word,
‘Lady, descend’, and realizes that it is a reference to Sītā, who is
being led into exile. He admits also the abrupt dialogue (udghātya) as
a means of connexion; thus in the Mudrārākṣasa the director alludes to
the demon of eclipse as eager to triumph over Candra, the moon, and
Cāṇakya behind the scenes calls out, ‘Who then while I live claims to
triumph over Candragupta?’ and enters a moment later. The theorist
Nakhakuṭṭa is also credited with the view that a voice behind the
scenes or from the air may be used to introduce the chief personage.
This account of the preliminaries and the prelude presents obvious
difficulties both in itself and in connexion with the actual specimens
of the Sanskrit drama. The Daçarūpa and Viçvanātha alike give no
details of the preliminaries, and the Nāṭyaçāstra indicates that, in
addition to the complete form of Pūrvaran̄ga, there might be an
abbreviated form and also an extended form with additional ceremonials.
There is an obvious overlapping between the Pūrvaran̄ga and the rest of
the performance, for the last element of the former, the giving the
content of the drama in the Prarocanā, is essentially an element in the
latter. We are quite definitely told by Viçvanātha that in his time
there was not a complete performance of the preliminaries; when,
therefore, we find in Bhāsa’s dramas that there is no mention of the
name of the author or the drama in the prologue, we may safely assume
that it was after his time that the practice grew up of transferring
from the preliminaries, which were not a matter for the poet, the
substance of the Prarocanā, and embodying it in the poet’s own work. In
Viçvanātha’s time also we are told that the Sūtradhāra or director
performed the whole of the work assigned in the theory to him and the
Sthāpaka. But it is extremely difficult to say how far back this goes;
the extant dramas with occasional exceptions, [723] such as
Rājaçekhara’s Karpūramañjarī and Mādhava’s Subhadrāharaṇa mention only
the Sūtradhāra, and Pischel [724] suggested that it was Bhāsa who
banished the Sthāpaka, in view of the reference in Bāṇa to his dramas
as begun by the Sūtradhāra. It is uncertain, however, what precisely
the sense of this reference is. The Daçarūpa expressly provides for the
activity of the Sthāpaka, but then proceeds to style him Sūtradhāra,
and there is agreement that he is to have the attributes of the
Sūtradhāra, so that the use of the name may merely be explained by this
reason. This is certainly supported by the express reference in the
Sāhityadarpaṇa to the transfer of his functions to the Sūtradhāra and
the silence of the Daçarūpa on this head. The point would be of
importance only if it meant that Bhāsa dropped the Pūrvaran̄ga as part
of the drama; nothing, however, even hints at this; as we have seen,
his omission to name himself or his play in the prologue tells strongly
in favour of the view that the old Prarocanā was still in use.
More complex still is the question of the Nāndī or benediction. Most
Sanskrit dramas open with a verse or verses of this type, followed by
the remark, ‘At the close of the Nāndī the Sūtradhāra enters,’ but in
Bhāsa’s dramas, in old manuscripts of the Vikramorvaçī, and now and
then in South Indian manuscripts of such plays as the Nāgānanda, the
Mudrārākṣasa, and other more modern dramas, [725] we find the play
begun with these words, and a verse or verses following. We have also
the direct testimony of Viçvanātha, who tells us that some authorities
held that the introductory verse in the Vikramorvaçī which normally
passes for the Nāndī was not that at all, but was the Ran̄gadvāra, with
which, according to the Nāṭyaçāstra, the play properly begins, as in it
we first find acting in the shape of a combination of speech and
action; that verse, they argued, could not be reconciled with the
definition of the extent of the Nāndī given in the Nāṭyaçāstra; others,
however, on the authority of Abhinavagupta repelled this objection.
Viçvanātha adopts as the definition of Nāndī what is recited in praise
of a deity, Brahmin, king or the like, and is accompanied by a
benediction, consisting of twelve inflected words (with nominal or
verbal endings) or eight lines (quarter-verses); this would exclude the
beginning of the Vikramorvaçī, but Abhinavagupta permits of a greater
variety of forms. In Viçvanātha’s view the Nāndī is part of the
preliminaries, which must be preserved, however much these are
shortened. It is clear, therefore, that gradually the benediction, like
the Prarocanā with its appeal to the benevolence of the audience, [726]
came to be worked into the play by the author himself, though the
period when the custom became normal cannot be stated with any
precision, and in the south of India, at any rate, the older practice
of leaving the benediction to the Sūtradhāra seems to have been
sometimes followed. There can, indeed, be little doubt that the extent
to which the preliminaries were retained differed from time to time;
Viçvanātha evidently contemplates their almost total disappearance, but
the Amṛtodaya of Gokulanātha in the sixteenth century assumes their
presence; the authority of the Nāṭyaçāstra told heavily in their
favour, and the stock phrase, ‘Enough of this ceremony,’ which occurs
frequently at the opening of the plays, doubtless refers to the dance,
song, and music with which the drama was prefaced. [727]
These facts explain the confusion [728] of the notices of the theorists
as to the actor by whom the benediction is to be recited. We find
ascribed to Bharata the view that a special actor, the Nāndī, should
recite it, or that duty should be performed by the Sūtradhāra; another
authority permits the Sūtradhāra or any other actor to recite it. The
situation is complicated by the rule that at the end of the
preliminaries the Sūtradhāra is supposed to leave the stage and the
Sthāpaka to come on, while our dramas, as a rule, have the benediction
followed by the entry of the Sūtradhāra, or rarely, as in the
Pārthaparākrama, the Sthāpaka. The theory, therefore, suggests that the
benediction is recited by the Sūtradhāra or Sthāpaka (called Sūtradhāra
by reason of similarity of function and character) behind the curtain,
and then he enters on the stage. The matter is not cleared up by the
practice followed in the embryo dramas introduced into others: in that
included in the Bālarāmāyaṇa the Sūtradhāra recites a benediction of
twelve inflected words, and then proceeds with the prologue without a
break; in the Jānakīpariṇaya it is one of the actors who does so, as in
Ravivarman’s Pradyumnābhyudaya, the director then beginning the play;
in the Caitanyacandrodaya the benediction is recited behind the
curtain, but that is stated to be because the piece to be acted is a
Bhāṇa or Vyāyoga, implying that in other cases it normally was recited
on the stage, presumably by an actor other than the director.
The extent of the benediction was, as we have seen, disputed. [729]
Bharata’s rule of eight or twelve Padas does not stand alone, for he is
credited with mentioning four or sixteen as possible numbers, and Pada
may mean inflected word, line, or proposition. Abhinavagupta allows
three, six, or twelve Padas in a benediction of three times; four,
eight, or sixteen in one of four times; and definitely takes Pada as
proposition; illustrations of eight- and twelve-Pada benedictions of
this type are given by Abhinavagupta and Bharata. The dramas differ;
the Çakuntalā has one of eight propositions or four lines; the
Ratnāvalī four stanzas; the Mālatīmādhava and the Mudrārākṣasa eight
lines each; the Uttararāmacarita twelve words.
Harmony between the benediction and the character of the drama is
naturally demanded by the theory, and is observed largely in practice;
thus the Prabodhacandrodaya, a philosophic drama, begins with an
adoration of the sole reality, the Mudrārākṣasa, a drama of political
intrigue, with a verse as tortuous as the diplomacy of Cāṇakya. It is a
characteristic of the determination to carry matters to extremes which
distinguishes Indian theory that attempts are made to extract from the
benediction not merely a general harmony with the theme, but also a
reference both to the main characters and to the chief events. [730]
9. THE TYPES OF DRAMA
The types of drama are distinguished by the theorists according to the
use which they make of the various dramatic elements enumerated. The
highest of the ten main forms, Rūpakas, is the Nāṭaka or heroic comedy.
The term is generic; it may denote any representation whether by
pictures or dumb show, but it has also the more important specific
sense of the drama proper.
The subject of a Nāṭaka [731] should be drawn from tradition, not
invented; the hero should be a king, royal sage, or god, who may appear
in human form; the dominant sentiment must be the heroic or the erotic,
but all may be illustrated, and that of wonder is well suited for the
dénouement, which should be led up to through the whole series of
stages of the action and junctures. The end must be happy; tragedy is
forbidden, though the prohibition is unexplained. The prose should be
simple without elaborate compounds; the verses clear and sweet; the
Prākrits should be varied; the whole style noble and harmonious, with
full use of all the beauties and the adventitious attractions of the
song and the dance as well as music. The number of acts should be from
five to ten; if a play contains every kind of episode, it is styled a
Mahānāṭaka, if it has ten acts. The rule is generally obeyed, but late
dramas styling themselves Nāṭakas are known of one (Ravidāsa’s
Mithyājñānaviḍambana), two (Vedāntavāgīça’s Bhojacarita), three, or
four acts, [732] and one comparatively early work exists in one version
of fourteen acts, without any passage in Prākrit, the Mahānāṭaka; the
Adbhutārṇava of a Kavibhūṣaṇa has twelve acts. The name of a Nāṭaka
should be derived from the hero or the subject-matter, and this is
regularly the case. Four or five is the number of chief personages
permitted.
The bourgeois comedy, Prakaraṇa, [733] is a comedy of manners of a rank
below royalty, which in the main follows the laws of construction of
the Nāṭaka. The subject-matter is to be framed at his good pleasure by
the poet. The hero should be a Brahmin, minister, or merchant, who has
fallen on evil days and is seeking through difficulties to attain
property, love, and the performance of duty, in which he at last
succeeds. The heroine may be of three types, a lady of good family, as
in the lost Puṣpadūṣita (°bhūṣita); a hetaera as in the lost
Taran̄gadatta; or a lady of good family may share the honours with a
hetaera, with whom, however, she may not come in contact, as in the
Cārudatta and the Mṛcchakaṭikā. The drama offers an appropriate place
for slaves, Viṭas, merchant chiefs, and rogues of various kinds. The
erotic sentiment should dominate, though Dhanaṁjaya allows also the
heroic, and the structure should include all five junctures. The number
of acts should be as in the Nāṭaka, and the name be derived from the
hero or heroine or both, as in the Mālatīmādhava and the
Çāriputraprakaraṇa of Açvaghoṣa. It must, however, be noted that the
Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa has but four acts, and the Mṛcchakaṭikā, unlike
the Cārudatta, does not follow the rule as to name.
The supernatural drama, Samavakāra, [734] is described in our sources
obviously on the basis of a single play, the Amṛtamanthana, the
churning of the ocean to obtain the ambrosia, at which all participants
attained their desires. The precise duration of each of its three acts
is given, at twelve, four, and two Nāḍikās (of forty-eight minutes).
The subject must be taken from a tale of the gods and demons. The
juncture, pause, is omitted, and the expansion (bindu) as an element of
the plot. The number of heroes may reach twelve, each pursuing an
object which he attains. The heroic sentiment dominates. Each act
exhibits one type of cheating, tumultuous action, and love. The
graceful manner is excluded, or but faintly developed; the Uṣṇih,
Kuṭila, and Anuṣṭubh metres are appropriate. The description fits but
loosely Bhāsa’s Pañcarātra, the only old drama to which that name may
plausibly be applied.
The Īhāmṛga, [735] of which no old example is known, owes its name,
according to the Daçarūpāvaloka to the fact that in it a maiden as hard
to attain as a gazelle (mṛga) is sought after (īhā). The subject is one
partly derived from legend and partly the poet’s imagination; in
special, if the legend relates the death of a great man, this result
must be avoided. The essence of the drama is that some one seeks to
deprive the hero, who on one view may be divine or human, on another
divine only, of a heavenly maiden; the result is a conflict of wills,
but actual fighting is to be avoided by artifice. The hero and his
rival must both be of the noble and haughty type; the latter must do
wrong in error. Only the first two and the last junctures are allowed,
and the graceful style is excluded. There are four acts, but Viçvanātha
mentions a view which allows one act only and makes the hero a god, or
six rivals for a divine maiden’s hand.
The Ḍima [736] is also little known, though the Nāṭyaçāstra cites a
Tripuradāha as a specimen. Its subject is to be legendary; there is to
be no pause juncture. The heroes are sixteen gods, demi-gods, and
demons, all of the haughty type; magic, sorcery, combats, eclipses of
the sun and moon are in place. The erotic and comic sentiments are
excluded, that of fury is predominant. There are four acts without
introductory scenes of any kind, but the late Manmathonmathana of Rāma
has them. The graceful manner is forbidden. It is clear that the type
is described on the basis of inadequate material; it may represent a
popular form of entertainment which did not attain full recognition.
The origin of the name is unknown, for no root ḍim, to wound, is found
in the language, though Dhanika asserts its existence.
The Vyāyoga [737] is, as its name suggests, a military spectacle. Its
subject must be legendary, its hero a god or royal sage, but Dhanaṁjaya
allows a man. It is in one act, the action not extending over a day,
and it is filled with strife and battle, the intervention of women as
the cause of battle being excluded. The first two and last junctures
alone are permitted, the erotic and comic sentiments are barred, and
the graceful manner. The type is old, for it is found in Bhāsa and
revives later.
The Act or Isolated Act (An̄ka, Utsṛṣṭikān̄ka) [738] is a single-act
piece, whose longer style serves to discriminate it from an act of a
normal drama. Its subject is taken from legend, but may be developed by
the poet; the first and last junctures alone are permitted. The hero
should be human, of the common folk, according to the later theory. The
sentiment should be the pathetic, and the style the verbal. The laments
of women should accompany the description of battles and fights, but
these should not take place on the stage. Viçvanātha gives the
Çarmiṣṭhāyayāti as an example, but the type is not represented by any
early play.
The farce, Prahasana, [739] on the other hand, has every sign of
popular origin and vogue. The subject is the poet’s invention; it deals
essentially with the tricks and quarrels of low characters of every
kind. There is but one act, and only the first and last junctures; the
comic sentiment predominates. The Daçarūpa recognizes three kinds; the
pure is that in which heretics, Brahmins, men- and maid-servants and
parasites are represented in appropriate costume and language; the
modified represents eunuchs, chamberlains, and ascetics in the garb,
and with the speech, of lovers; and the mixed is styled so because it
contains the elements of the Vīthī, and is filled with rogues. Only the
first and last are recognized by the Nāṭyaçāstra, the second being
included in the third, while Viçvanātha recognizes the possibility of
there being only one hero or several, and allows the use of two acts in
such a case, as in the Laṭakamelaka. The graceful and violent manners
are excluded.
The monologue, Bhāṇa, [740] has also an obviously popular character and
origin. The subject-matter is invented by the poet; a parasite sets
forth his own or another’s adventures, appealing to both the heroic and
the erotic sentiments by descriptions of heroism and beauty in the
verbal manner. There are only the first and last junctures, and but one
act. The actor speaks in the air, repeating answers supposed to be
received. The elements of the Lāsya are specially in place, a fact
which shows that we have here a formal version of a primitive mimetic
performance. Viçvanātha gives as example the Līlāmadhukara; the
Çāradātilaka is one of the best known.
The garland, Vīthī, [741] has a certain similarity to the Bhāṇa in that
it includes frequent speeches in the air, and is in one act. But it is
played by one or two actors, or, according to Viçvanātha on one view
found in the Nāṭyaçāstra, by three, one of each station in rank. The
leading sentiment is the erotic, but others are hinted at. The graceful
manner is forbidden by the Nāṭyaçāstra, but enjoined by the other
authorities, and the elements of the garland are available. Only the
first and last junctures are employed, but all the elements of the plot
are present. The theorists are sadly at a loss to explain the name
garland; it is suggested that the several sentiments are gathered into
it as into a garland, or the meaning ‘way’ or ‘road’ is accepted in
lieu. The only example given by Viçvanātha is the Mālavikā, which is
not the Mālavikāgnimitra; the first act of the Mālatīmādhava is styled
Bakulavīthī, but is in no sense even taken by itself an example of this
type.
The later theory as seen in Viçvanātha [742] adds descriptions of
eighteen minor forms of drama, Uparūpakas, which represent refinements
on the original scheme. Needless to say, though omitted in the
Nāṭyaçāstra, quotations are found ascribing to Bharata the doctrine,
though he mentions in them but fifteen with several variations of name;
[743] the Agni Purāṇa [744] mentions eighteen with some variants of
name, while a verse cited by Dhanika [745] names seven forms of mimetic
dramas, which it classes in conjunction with the Bhāṇa. The age of
these divisions is, therefore, uncertain; the Daçarūpa condescends to
mention only the Nāṭikā, but obviously knows of the existence of
others, confining its scope to the main forms, as its title indicates.
The Nāṭyaçāstra [746] mentions, in a passage suspected of
interpolation, but without special cause, a type of dramas Nāṭī, which
later is styled Nāṭikā, or lesser heroic comedy. The subject-matter in
this view may be either legendary or invented; the later opinion
requires it to be invented as in the Prakaraṇa, which is the model for
the Nāṭikā in this regard. The hero is to be that of the Nāṭaka, a gay
king, and the intrigue consists of his efforts to attain marriage with
the heroine, who is an ingénue of royal family, whom he is destined to
marry, but who by some accident or design has been introduced into the
harem in an inferior capacity. The lovers have to strive against the
jealousy of the queen, a lady of mature character and devotion to the
king, who at last is induced to sanction the nuptials. The life of the
court gives opportunity for introducing music, song, and the dance as
elements in the entertainment. The graceful manner is appropriate, and
the erotic sentiment is prescribed; by an excess of zeal, when the
drama as usual has four acts, they are in theory to contain each one of
the four members of the graceful style. A lesser number of acts is
allowed by Dhanaṁjaya. There is certainly not much difference between
such a Nāṭaka as the Mālavikāgnimitra and the normal Nāṭikā, save the
length, as expressed in the number of the acts, but it would be unwise
to assert that the distinction is based on this alone. It is a fact
that both in the Priyadarçikā and the Ratnāvalī the poet has freely
enough invented his episodes, and this is a fact justifying the
discrimination.
The little bourgeois comedy, the Prakaraṇikā, [747] is precisely of the
same character as the Nāṭikā, save that its hero and heroine are of the
merchant class. It is clear that it is due merely to a false desire for
symmetry, as it is merely a Prakaraṇa when judged by the three
determinants of plot, character, and sentiment, and Dhanika rightly
rejects it as a species, though Viçvanātha admits it.
A variant of the Nāṭikā is the Saṭṭaka, [748] which differs from it
merely by being all in Prākrit, in having no introductory scenes of any
kind, and in having the acts called Javanikāntara. As the name denotes
a form of dance, it is quite possible that it owes its origin as a
species to the use of such dances in these plays. We have an example in
Rājaçekhara’s Karpūramañjarī.
The Troṭaka [749] or Toṭaka is merely a variant of the Nāṭaka; the
Bengālī recension of the Vikramorvaçī which contains Apabhraṅça verses
and an appropriate dance of the distracted king alone gives the name.
The term denotes both a dance and confused speech, and the origin of
the species need be sought only in this peculiarity. The other
manuscripts call it a Nāṭaka.
The other species enumerated have no representatives in the old
literature, nor is this wonderful, for they show the character rather
of pantomime with song, dance, and music than of serious drama; the
Goṣṭhī [750] has nine or ten men and five or six women as actors; the
Hallīça [751] is clearly a glorified dance; the Nāṭyarāsaka [752] a
ballet and pantomime; the Prasthāna, [753] in which hero and heroine
are slaves, is based on a mimetic dance; so also apparently are the
Bhāṇikā, [754] or little Bhāṇa, and the Kāvya, both one-act pieces; the
Rāsaka, of the same general type, includes dialect in its language. The
Ullāpya may have one or three acts, and its hero is of high rank, while
battles form part of its subject, as they do also in the Saṁlāpaka,
which may have one, three, or four acts. The Durmallikā has four acts,
a hero of low rank, and a precise time-table of duration of acts. The
Vilāsikā has one act, but is interesting in that the hero has, to
support him, not only the Vidūṣaka, but also the parasite and a friend
(pīṭhamarda); the sentiment is erotic. The Çilpaka is mysterious, for
it has four acts, allows all the manners, has a Brahmin as hero with a
man of lower rank as secondary hero, excludes the calm and comic
sentiments, and has twenty-seven most miscellaneous constituents; if a
pantomime, it was clearly not amusing. The Pren̄khaṇa, or Prekṣaṇa, is a
piece in one act, with a hero of low birth, full of combats and hard
words; it has no introductory scenes, and both the benediction and the
Prarocanā are performed behind the scenes, but none of the late works
which bear approximately this title conforms to type. The Çrīgadita is
in a single act, the story legendary, the hero and heroine of high
rank, the manner verbal; the word Çrī is often mentioned, or the
goddess is presented seated and singing some verse. The only play known
of that name is the Subhadrāharaṇa of Mādhava before A.D. 1600, which
is much like an ordinary play, but contains a narrative verse,
suggesting connexion with the shadow-drama. It is characteristic that
the theory ignores wholly this type.
10. THE INFLUENCE OF THEORY ON PRACTICE
Though we cannot say precisely at what date the Nāṭyaçāstra obtained
definite form, we can be assured that by the time of Kālidāsa it was
not merely known, but its authority was already accepted as binding on
poets. The mere fact that Kālidāsa’s dramas exhibit a marvellous
fidelity to the rules of the Çāstra might be explained by the theory
that it drew its principles from them rather than vice versa. But in
his epics Kālidāsa, in due accord with the duty of a poet to display
every form of his erudition, has emphatically shown a far-reaching
competence in the terminology of the Çāstra. In the Kumārasambhava
[755] Çiva and Pārvatī watched the performance in honour of their
nuptials of a Nāṭaka in which the different dramatic manners were
combined with the junctures, the modes of the music corresponded with
the sentiments, and the Apsarases displayed their grace of form. There
are similar references in the Raghuvaṅça. [756] The knowledge of the
Çāstra by later writers goes without saying. The author of the
Mudrārākṣasa [757] depicts Rākṣasa as comparing political combinations
with the work of a dramatist and giving a brief plan of the structure
of the drama, and Bhavabhūti [758] and Murāri [759] alike show
familiarity with the terminology of the Çāstra as well as with its
rules. The most complete proof, however, of the domination of the
theory is the absence of any original creations in dramatic form. There
must, it is certain, have been a time when the genius of Indian poetry
was active in trying and developing the new instrument of drama, but
with the appearance of the Nāṭyaçāstra this creative epoch came to all
intents and purposes to a close, and the writers of the classical drama
accept without question the forms imposed upon them by authority,
although that authority rests on no logical or psychological basis, but
represents merely generalizations, often hasty, from a limited number
of plays.
The Nāṭaka, accordingly, remains the form of drama par excellence, a
pre-eminence due to its comparative freedom from narrow restrictions as
well as to the submissive spirit of the dramatists. The form serves
very different purposes; it accommodates itself not only to the grace
and charm of Kālidāsa, but to the unmeasured and irregular genius of
Bhavabhūti; it permits of the political drama of Viçākhadatta, as well
as the philosophical disquisitions of Kṛṣṇamiçra and the devotional
fervour of Kavikarṇapūra’s Caitanyacandrodaya.
The Prakaraṇa is essentially similar to the Nāṭaka save in the social
status of the hero and heroine; the distinction between the
Mālatīmādhava and a Nāṭaka is far less important than the similarity.
The Mṛcchakaṭikā, indeed, departs from type, but that is not surprising
now that it is known that it is based on Bhāsa’s Cārudatta, which is
not merely the work of a man of unusual talent, but came into being
before the rules of the drama had attained the binding force they later
achieved. The Nāṭikā, however, which is likewise closely allied to the
Nāṭaka, became stereotyped at an early stage, leaving no room for
serious innovation; the charms of the song and dance appear to have
prevailed, and to have dissuaded efforts at originality of plot. The
Vyāyoga is hardly more than an aspect of the Nāṭaka; the spirit of such
works as those of Bhāsa in this genre is reflected in many passages of
the Mahāvīracarita and the Veṇīsaṁhāra.
The farce and the monologue, of which we have many specimens in the
later drama, are confined to representations of the lower and coarser
side of life, but curiously enough they fail entirely to achieve what
might have seemed the legitimate aim of a vivid portrayal of the lives
and manners of contemporary society; tradition has proved too strong
for the dramatists whose works deal with types, not individuals. On the
other hand, we find practically no living tradition of the construction
of dramas of the other five classes of the theory, Ḍima, Samavakāra,
Īhāmṛga, Vīthī, and Utsṛṣṭikān̄ka. We may legitimately assume that these
were types erected on little foundation of fact, and that, while the
theory could restrict enterprise, it could not induce life in forms
which had no real vitality of their own. The mere fact that later poets
occasionally patronize these forms is sufficient evidence of the
strength of the authority of the Çāstra. It is amazing, however, that
we find no serious effort to produce pure comedy; the farce and the
monologue may hover on the borders of that form; they certainly never
attain it.
To the force of the tradition is presumably to be ascribed the absence
of any effort at tragedy, though its absence undoubtedly coincides with
the mental outlook of the Indian people and their philosophy of life.
Bhāsa has indeed been claimed as a tragedian, but with complete
disregard for the facts; there is in fact in his dramas disregard of
the rule which objects to death on the stage, but the slain are always
evil men, whose death is just punishment; the Ūrubhan̄ga may to us be
tragic, but that is because we are not adorers of Viṣṇu who regard with
relish the fate of the enemy of that god, the evil Duryodhana. The
tragic sentiment is nowhere recognized, for the term (raudra), which is
unhappily often so rendered, is the sentiment which is based on anger,
and has nothing truly tragic in it. The idea is, indeed, entirely
wanting in the theory as it is in the practice.
To the developed thought of India, as it existed during the vogue of
the drama, there was little possibility of a realization of the
elements of which Greek tragedy is composed. The conception of human
activity striving with circumstance, endeavouring to assert itself in
the teeth of forces superhuman in power and uncontrollable, and meeting
with utter ruin, but yet maintaining its honour, which affords the
spring of tragedy in Greece, is alien to Indian thought. Fate is
nothing outside man; he is subject to no alien influences; he is what
he has made himself by acts in past lives; if he suffers evil he has
deserved it as just retribution, and to sympathize with him, to feel
the pathos of his plight, is really unthinkable. Death, therefore, by
violence is merely a just punishment of crime, and it is a more refined
taste than that of Bhāsa which bids us banish from the stage the
spectacle of what is no more than an execution, a scene as ill-suited
to the decorum and good taste of the serious drama [760] as to the rude
merriment of the farce or monologue.
11. ARISTOTLE AND THE INDIAN THEORY OF POETICS
It is natural that contemporaneously with the effort to prove the Greek
origin of the Indian drama efforts [761] should have been made to
establish the indebtedness of the Nāṭyaçāstra to Aristotle’s theory of
drama. [762] There is no doubt of the many parallels between the two
theories. The unity of action is fully recognized in the Çāstra, and
the rule which insists that the events described in an Act shall not
exceed in duration a day has a certain similarity to the unity of time
in Aristotle, [763] and is much more significant than such agreement as
there is as to unity of place. The doctrine that the drama is an
imitation (anukṛti) does not differ from the doctrine of Mimesis, but
there is an essential distinction in what is imitated or represented;
in the Çāstra it is a state or condition, in Aristotle it is action, a
distinction absolutely in accord with the different geniuses of the two
peoples. The importance of acting is common in both schemes, but
Aristotle makes little of the dance. Both stress the plot, which the
Çāstra recognizes as the body of the drama. The Indian division of
characters as high, middle, and low has a certain parallelism to the
Aristotelian distinctions of modes of depicting character as ideal,
real, and inferior. The Çāstra, like Aristotle, shows appreciation of
the distinction between male and female characters. To some degree we
find in the Çāstra the recognition of the necessity of conflict in
drama, and of the emotions of pity and fear in the sentiment of pathos
and in the element of the development known as Vidrava. The Çāstra also
touches on the relation of the feelings aroused in the actor and in the
audience as in the Poetics. Both recognize the use of significant
names, and deal with the linguistic aspects of style.
Other suggestions of Greek influence may also be adduced; thus we have
the mention of what seems a derivative of the Greek caryatides in the
description of the theatre; the monologue may be based on the Greek
Mime, and we have the actual mention in a passage of the Çāstra of
Yavanas, while the description of the Viṭa suggests derivation from the
Greek parasite. But it is impossible to take these pieces of evidence
as conclusive proof of borrowing; we are, in fact, faced with the usual
difficulty that, if there were borrowing, the Indian genius has known
how to recast so cleverly and to adapt what it borrowed so effectively
that the traces which would definitely establish indebtedness cannot be
found. In all the instances enumerated there is no doubt similarity,
but there is also essential difference such as renders independent
development of the Indian doctrine at least as probable as borrowing.
PART IV
DRAMATIC PRACTICE
XIV
THE INDIAN THEATRE
1. THE THEATRE
The Sanskrit drama of the theorists is, despite its complexity,
essentially intended for performance, nor is there the slightest doubt
that the early dramatists were anything but composers of plays meant
only to be read. They were connoisseurs, we may be certain, in the
merits which would accrue to their works from the accessories of the
dance, music, song, and the attractions of acting; the Vikramorvaçī
must, for instance, have had much of the attraction of an opera, and as
a mere literary work loses seriously in attraction.
On the other hand, the existence of regular theatres for the exhibition
of drama is not assumed in the theorists. A drama was, it is clear,
normally performed on an occasion of special rejoicing and solemnity,
such as a festival of a god, or a royal marriage, or the celebration of
a victory, and the place of performance thus naturally came to be the
temple of the god or the palace of the king. We learn often in the
drama and tales of the existence of dancing halls and music rooms in
the royal palace where the ladies of the harem were taught these
pleasing arts, and one of these could easily be adapted for a dramatic
performance. But we have from the second century B.C. the remains of a
cave which seems to have been used, if not for the performance of
plays, at any rate for purposes of recitation of poems or some similar
end; it is found in the Rāmgarh hill [764] in Chota Nagpur, and,
although it is quite impossible to prove that it had anything to do
with plays, it is interesting to note that the Nāṭyaçāstra states that
the play-house should have the form of a mountain cave and two stories.
According to the Çāstra, [765] the play-house as made ready for
performance may be of three types, the first for the gods, 108 hands
(18 inches) long; the second rectangular, 64 hands long and 32 broad;
the third triangular, 32 hands long, the second being praised on
acoustic grounds. The house falls into two parts, the places for the
audience and the stage. The auditorium is marked off by pillars, in
front a white pillar for the seats for the Brahmins, then a red pillar
for the Kṣatriyas, in the north-west a yellow pillar marks the seats
for the Vaiçyas, while the Çūdras have a blue-black pillar in the
north-east. The seats are of wood and bricks, and arranged in rows. In
front beside the stage is a veranda with four pillars, apparently also
for the use of spectators. In front of the spectators is the stage
(ran̄ga), adorned with pictures and reliefs; it is eight hands square in
the second form of play-house; its end is the head of the stage
(ran̄gaçīrṣa), decorated by figures, and there offerings are made. [766]
Behind [767] the stage is the painted curtain (paṭī, apaṭī,
tiraskaraṇī, pratisīrā), to which the name Yavanikā (Prākrit, Javanikā)
is given, denoting merely that the material is foreign, and forbidding
any conclusion as to the Greek origin of the curtain itself or the
theatre. When one enters hastily, the curtain is violently thrown aside
(apaṭīkṣepa). Behind the curtain are the actors’ quarters
(nepathyagṛha) or tiring rooms. Here are performed the sounds necessary
to represent uproar and confusion which cannot be represented on the
stage; here also are uttered the voices of gods and other persons whose
presence on the stage is impossible or undesirable.
The colour of the curtain is given in some authorities as necessarily
in harmony with the dominant sentiment of the play, in accordance with
the classification of sentiments already given, but others permit the
use of red in every instance. Normally the entry of any character is
effected by the drawing aside of the curtain by two maidens, whose
beauty marks them out for this employment (dhṛtir yavanikāyāḥ). The
term Nepathya has suggested an erroneous deduction as to the relative
elevation of the stage and the foyer, for it is conceivable that it
denotes a descending (ni-patha) way, and it has been concluded [768]
that it was, therefore, below the level of the stage. But the regular
phrase of the entry of an actor on the stage (ran̄gāvataraṇa) would
suggest exactly the opposite, a descent from the foyer to the stage. In
the case of stages hastily put together, often for merely very
temporary aims, it would clearly be absurd to expect any fixed
practice, nor can we say what was the normal height of the stage
platform. In the case of a play within a play, in the Bālarāmāyaṇa of
Rājaçekhara, we find that both a stage and a tiring room are erected on
the original stage, though we may assume that these were of a very
simple structure.
The number of doors leading to the tiring room from the stage is
regularly given as two, [769] and apparently the place of the orchestra
was between them.
2. THE ACTORS
The normal term for actor is Naṭa, a term which has the wider sense of
dancer or acrobat; terms like Bharata, or Bhārata, Cāraṇa, [770]
Kuçīlava, Çailūṣa, or Çaubhika have interest practically only for the
history of the drama. The chief actor, whose name Sūtradhāra doubtless
denotes him as primarily the architect of the theatre, the man who
secures the erection of the temporary stage, is occasionally styled
‘troop-head of actors (naṭagāmaṇi)’, [771] and he is essentially the
instructor of the other actors in their art (nāṭyācārya), so that his
title Sūtradhāra can be used topically as equivalent to Professor. For
this high position his qualifications were to be numerous; he was
supposed to be learned in all the arts and sciences, to be acquainted
with the habits and customs of all lands, to combine the completeness
of technical knowledge with practical skill, and to be possessed of all
the moral qualities which an Indian genius can enumerate. To him falls
not merely the very important function of introducing the play, but
also of taking one of the chief parts; thus he plays Vatsa in the
Ratnāvalī, and in the Mālatīmādhava Kāmandakī, the nun, who powerfully
affects the current of the drama. He is normally the husband of one of
the actresses (naṭī), who aids him in the opening scene, and who is
compelled, poor woman, to combine the arduous life of an actress with
the domestic duty of looking after her husband’s material wants. She is
represented as devoted to him, fasting to secure reunion in another
life, preparing his meal and seeking to remove by her good works the
dangers which threaten him, and compelled to play her parts, although
anxious, as in the Ratnāvalī, over the difficulty of securing the
marriage of her daughter to a fiancé who has gone overseas, or, as in
the Jānakīpariṇaya, over the wickedness of another actor in seeking to
take her daughter from her.
The Sthāpaka, according to the theory, is to resemble in his attributes
the Sūtradhāra; as we have seen, to what extent he really in the dramas
known to us was employed as distinct from the Sūtradhāra, it is
impossible to say; the name suggests that he aided him in the structure
of the stage, and then in his actor’s duties. But there is no ground to
assume that he really had disappeared as a living figure before the
classical drama; the occasional mention of him in actual dramas as well
as in the theory need not be artificial. We have, however, a much more
common attendant of the Sūtradhāra in the Pāripārçvika, who appears in
the prologue of many plays, and in addition acted the parts of persons
of middle rank. He receives the orders of his master and passes them on
to the other actors, and directs the operations of the chorus, as in
the Veṇīsaṁhāra. He is addressed by his master as Mārṣa, and he greets
him as Bhāva.
The other actors, of whom there must often have been many in pieces
with crowds introduced, are to have the qualities of the Sūtradhāra in
as generous a measure as may be; they are divided, however, according
to their qualifications into superior, medium, and third-rate actors.
[772] The principal parts in any drama are, however, few; the king, the
Vidūṣaka, the parasite, the heroine, and a companion are stock types.
The division of rôles is seldom shown in the prologues, whence are
derived most of the details of our knowledge of actual performances.
The Sūtradhāra in the Ratnāvalī and the Priyadarçikā plays the part of
Vatsa, his younger brother that of Yaugandharāyaṇa in the former play
and that of Dṛḍhavarman in the latter; the Sūtradhāra and the
Pāripārçvika take in the Mālatīmādhava the rôles of Kāmandakī and her
pupil Avalokitā respectively. This taking of women’s parts by men is
not by any means the normal practice; the Naṭī normally plays an
important female part; [773] in the embryo drama in the Priyadarçikā we
find that the heroine’s part is played by Āraṇyikā, and the hero’s part
was to have been performed by another girl Manoramā, but Vatsa, without
the queen’s knowledge, insinuated himself into the scene in propria
persona. In the legend of Bharata’s exhibition of the Lakṣmīsvayaṁvara
the nymph Urvaçī is represented as playing the chief rôle, and in
Dāmodaragupta’s Kuṭṭanīmata, where an actual representation of the
Ratnāvalī is described, we find a woman in the rôle of the princess.
The Nāṭyaçāstra [774] expressly admits of three modes of
representation; the rôles may be filled by persons of appropriate sex
and age; the rôles of the old may be taken by the young and vice versa;
and the rôles of men may be played by women and vice versa. The taking
of women’s parts by men has, curiously enough, a very early piece of
evidence, for the Mahābhāṣya mentions the word Bhrūkuṅsa, which was
used to denote a man who made up as a female. [775]
We are, it is clear, to conceive of the troupe of actors under the
Sūtradhāra as ready to wander hither and thither in search of a
favourable opportunity of exhibiting their powers as interpreters. The
performance of a drama became, it is clear, in later times at any rate,
a worthy adornment of a festive occasion such as a religious festival,
the consecration of a king, a marriage, the taking possession of a town
or a new estate, the return of a traveller, and the birth of a son. The
best patrons of the actors might be kings, but there was evidently no
lack of appreciation of their services among men of lesser rank but of
large means. The later prologues give us details of the rivalry between
different troupes. In the Anargharāghava the actor declares that he has
come to exhibit a superior sort of drama to that played by a rival, and
asserts that the dearest desire of a player is to satisfy the public
and to win back the favour he has lost. Rājaçekhara twice introduces
the motive of a competition between actors to win the hand of an
actress who has been offered by her father in marriage to the most
adept of her suitors. Jayadeva invents a pleasing tale of an actor who
won great success and reputation, inducing a comedian of the south to
claim his name and steal his renown. The actor in revenge went south,
and, striking up a partnership with a singer, won both repute and
profit in the courts of the Deccan.
The reputation of actors and actresses was low and unsavoury; they are
reputed to live on the price of their wives’ honour (jāyājīva,
rūpājīva), and Manu imposes only a minor penalty on illicit relations
with the wife of an actor on the score of their willingness to hand
over their wives to others and profit by their dishonour. [776] The
Mahābhāṣya gives equally clear testimony of the lack of chastity among
the actresses or their predecessors. [777] The law book of Viṣṇu [778]
treats them as Āyogavas, a mixed caste representing the fruit of
alliances, improper and undesirable, between Çūdras and the daughters
of the Vaiçya; to be an actor or a teacher of the art is ranked as a
lesser sin in Baudhāyana. [779] The Kuçīlava is described as a Çūdra,
who ought to be banished; [780] his evidence, and indeed that of any
actor, is not to be accepted in law, [781] and Brahmins may not accept
food offered by an actor, [782] a fact attested by the Sūtradhāra in
the prologue to the Mṛcchakaṭikā who can find no one in Ujjayinī to
accept his hospitality. Actors again are classed in Manu with wrestlers
and boxers. An actress was often, if not necessarily, one of the great
army of courtesans; Vasantasenā, the hetaera of the Cārudatta and
Mṛcchakaṭikā, is herself skilled in acting, and has in her household
maidens learning to act, and Daṇḍin includes lessons in this art in his
account of the education of the perfect courtesan in the
Daçakumāracarita.
On the other hand, we have traces of a higher side of the profession,
which doubtless can quite fairly be connected with the gradual
elevation of the drama from humble origins to the rank of an elaborate
and refined poetry. Bharata, the alleged founder of the Nāṭyaçāstra,
ranks as a Muni, or holy sage, and Urvaçī, a divine nymph, is treated
as an actress. What is more important is that Bāṇa definitely
enumerates in the Harṣacarita among his friends an actor and an
actress; Bhartṛhari [783] refers to their friendship with kings, which
is also attested in the legend of Vasumitra, son of Kālidāsa’s hero
Agnimitra, who was slain amidst his actors by his enemy. Kālidāsa
himself represents Agnivarṇa, king of Raghu’s line, as pleased to
compete with actors in their own speciality. Vatsa, in the
Priyadarçikā, is prepared to play a part without question, and
Bhavabhūti in two of his prefaces asserts his friendship with his
actors. In truth, men who could effectively declaim the stanzas of
Bhavabhūti must have possessed both education and culture in a high
degree, and have been very different from the acrobats and jugglers,
dancers, and others whose humble occupations account for the censures
of the law books and the Arthaçāstra.
3. THE MISE-EN-SCÈNE AND REPRESENTATION OF THE DRAMA
We have no trace in the drama of any attempt to introduce scenery into
the representation. The curtain remained as a background throughout the
entertainment, and it was in the main left to the imagination of the
spectator, aided by the descriptions of the poet, to conceive the
beauties of the situation supposed to be presented to his eyes. We have
for this conclusive proof, if any were needed beyond the silence of the
text-books, in the abundant stage directions which accompany the text
of our dramas, and are found even in the fragments of Açvaghoṣa. When
actions such as watering a plant were ascribed to an actress, no
serious effort was made to bring in plants and perform the ceremonial
of watering; on the contrary, she went through a mimicry of the
process, which was enough to satisfy the audience. The king may mount a
chariot, but no effort is made to bring one for this purpose; he merely
goes in elaborate pantomime through the action of getting up off the
ground, and the audience, trained and intelligent, realizes what has
happened. At the beginning of the Çakuntalā the gazelle which Duḥṣanta
follows is not a real animal, but the Sūtradhāra tells us that the king
is pursuing a gazelle, and the actor, who represents the monarch, by
his eager gaze and his gestures reveals himself as in the act of
seeking to shoot the deer. To pluck flowers is merely to imitate the
movements of one who really does so, and an actress with any skill has
no difficulty in persuading an audience by her marks of agitation that
she is escaping from the attacks of a bee.
There is thus no tedious attempt at realism, though the dramatists vary
in the care with which they avoid the absurd in their use of
conventions; the works of Bhāsa show doubtless an excessive tendency to
allow of strain being placed on the credulity of the audience. The
exits and entrances of the characters are often abrupt and unnatural,
but the drama was not primarily intended as a realistic copy of events,
and doubtless was not felt unsatisfactory by the audience. Nor, it may
be remembered, has perfection in detail in any form of ceremonial ever
made a strong appeal to Indian minds; in the most gorgeous celebrations
there will occur, without exciting surprise or comment, strange
deviations from western canons of good taste and elegance.
To a limited extent, however, use was made of minor properties, which
are classed under the generic style of model work (pusta). [784] The
Nāṭyaçāstra distinguishes three forms of such objects; they may be made
up (sandhima) from bamboos covered with skins or cloths; or mechanical
means might be employed (vyājima); or merely clothes (veṣṭita) used. We
hear of the making of an elephant in the Udayanacarita; the
Mṛcchakaṭikā owes its name to the toy cart which appears in it; the
Bālarāmāyaṇa has mechanical dolls, and doubtless there were represented
houses, caves, chariots, rocks, horses, and so on; monsters with animal
heads and many arms could be made of clay and bamboos, and covered with
cloths; we are expressly told that weapons must not be made of hard
material, but that stocks of grass, bamboos, and lac may be made to
serve, and naturally gestures served in lieu of hard blows.
The dress [785] of the actors is carefully regulated, especially as
regards colour, which evidently was regarded as an important item in
matters of sentiment. Ascetics wear garments of rags or bark; those in
charge in the harem red jackets, kings gay garments or, if there are
portents described, garments without colour. Ābhīra maidens wear dark
blue clothes; in other cases dirty or uncoloured garments are
prescribed. Dirty clothes indicate madness, distraction, misery, or a
journey; uncoloured garb, one engaged in worship or some solemn
religious service, an interesting survival of antique custom, while
gods, Dānavas, Gandharvas, Uragas, Yakṣas, and Rakṣases, as well as
lovers and kings, normally wear gay clothing.
Colour, [786] however, is by no means confined to garments; the actors
are expected to adorn themselves with paint of hues appropriate to the
rôles they play. There are, on one theory, four fundamental colours,
white, blue-black, red, and yellow, from which others are developed,
for instance pigeon colour by mixing the first two; a reddish yellow
(gaura) from mixing the last two is also recorded. It or dark (çyāma)
is given as suited for kings, while happiness is indicated by it.
Kirātas, Barbaras, Andhras, Draviḍas, the people of Kāçi and Kosala,
Pulindas, and the people of the Deccan are to be black (asita); the
Çakas, Yavanas, Pahlavas, and Bālhikas [787] are to be reddish yellow;
Pāñcālas, Çūrasenas, Māhiṣas, Uḍras, Māgadhas, An̄gas, Van̄gas, and
Kalin̄gas are to be dark (çyāma), as also Vaiçyas and Çūdras in general,
while Brahmins and Kṣatriyas are to be reddish-yellow.
Naturally the hair [788] attracts attention; Piçācas, madmen, and
Bhūtas wear it loose; the Vidūṣaka is bald; boys have three tufts of
hair, and so also servants if it is not cut short; the maidens of
Avantī, and usually those of Bengal, wear ringlets, in the case of
women of the north it is worn high on the head, and otherwise plaits
are usual. The beard may be bright in hue, dark, or bushy. There is
also the same tendency to stereotype the ornaments, made out of copper,
mica, or wax, and the garlands carried by the various personages;
Vidyādharīs, Yakṣīs, Apsarases and Nāgīs carry pearls and jewels, while
the latter are at once recognizable by the snake’s hood rising over
their heads, as are Yakṣas by a large tuft of hair.
The dress and appearance of the actor thus serve in some measure to
carry out his duty of representation (abhinaya), of presenting before
our eyes the states or conditions of the personage for whom he stands.
This is the Āhāryābhinaya, the first of the four agencies enumerated by
the Nāṭyaçāstra. He has also to perform the duty of representation by
speech (vācika), using his voice to convey the dramatist’s words, and
by exhibiting in propria persona the appropriate physical counterparts
of the feelings and emotions of the characters (sāttvikābhinaya).
Finally, he has specially to concentrate on the expression by gesture
(ān̄gikābhinaya) of the feelings which he is supposed to experience. In
this regard most detailed rules are given, doubtless from the technique
of a period when more importance attached to gestures than later seems
natural. Each member of the body is singled out for description; deep
significance lies in the mode in which the head is shaken, the eyes
glance, the brows move; cheek, nose, lip, chin, and neck can all be
used to convey subtle senses. The hands are invaluable for this
purpose; the different manœuvres with the fingers can convey almost any
possible combination of meanings to the person sufficiently acquainted
with the Nāṭyaçāstra to understand them. But other parts of the body
down to the feet are valuable; great care is bestowed on their
postures, and the gait is invaluable in distinguishing classes of
persons and their deeds. Darkness need not artificially be induced;
movements of hands and feet to indicate groping are enough; one set of
movements shows the mounting of a chariot, another the climbing up to
the top of a palace; if the garments are pulled up, the crossing of a
river is plainly shown; if the motions of swimming are mimicked,
clearly the river is too deep to wade; a dexterous movement of the
hands shows that one is driving, and similarly one can mount an
elephant or a horse. [789]
It is characteristic of the nature of the Indian theory that, while it
descends into enormous detail, it leaves alone to all intents and
purposes the obvious duty of defining precisely the relation of the
varieties of representation described as Sāttvika and Ān̄gika. The true
relation is that under the head of Sāttvika are described the physical
states, which are deemed appropriate to feelings and emotions, while
the Ān̄gika prescribes the precise physical movements which express most
effectively both psychic states and physical movements, which cannot be
conveniently presented on the stage. The division accordingly is
unscientific, and, acute as is the investigation of the Nāṭyaçāstra in
detail, it is far from satisfying as a whole.
The importance of such accessories to the representation as garlands,
ornaments, and appropriate garments, is emphasized by Mātṛgupta, who
admits a specific form of sentiment styled Nepathyarasa, a fact which
illustrates the effect produced in the mind of the spectator by the
details of the mise-en-scène. The same impression may be derived from
the elaboration of the stage directions in the dramas, comparable only
to such as are given, for instance, in Mr. Bernard Shaw’s productions.
It is clear that they were intended not only for the direction of the
actors in actually performing one of the pieces, but as instruments to
aid the reader of the drama in realizing mentally the form of the
representation and in appreciating, therefore, the dramatic quality of
what he studied. Moreover, we have independent evidence which aids us
in seeing how complete these directions are. A fortunate chance has
preserved in Dāmodaragupta’s Kuṭṭanīmata, [790] written in the reign of
Jayāpīḍa of Kashmir in the eighth century A.D., an account of the
performance of the Ratnāvalī of Harṣa. The description is incomplete,
but it is perfectly clear that it was played exactly in accordance with
the stage directions which have come down to us, embedded in the text
of the drama as we have it.
The actual performance of the play was preceded, as we have seen in
describing the theory of the drama, by preliminaries, the essential aim
of which was the securing of the favour of the gods for the play to be
represented. Of the varied elements of the preliminaries special
importance seems to have attached to the praise of the world guardians
(dikpālastuti), and the reverence paid to Indra’s banner. A reed with
five knots is selected which is called Jarjara; the five sections are
painted white, blue-black, yellow, red, and a mixture of hues; banners
of every colour are tied to it, and the supplication is made to Gaṇeça,
the god who removes obstacles and favours literature, and to the
guardians of the quarters of the world.
A religious aspect is given also to the mingling of the pigments, the
materials employed being yellow arsenic, lamp black, and red among
others. The arsenic is formally addressed as being created by Svayambhū
for the purpose of serving as a pigment; then it is placed on a board
with fragments of brick, the whole reduced to fine powder, and mingled,
and then used as pigment. [791]
The time of the performance is not in many cases stated, but in a
number of plays, including the Mālatīmādhava, Karṇasundarī, and the
embryo drama in the Priyadarçikā, we find it assumed to be the moment
when the sun is just appearing. [792] The beat of drum announces the
beginning of the drama, the preliminaries, often reduced to little more
than a vocal and instrumental concert of brief duration, are completed,
and the benediction pronounced, to be followed by the prologue proper
and the drama.
4. THE AUDIENCE
A drama like the Sanskrit demanded the full attention of a cultivated
audience, and it is assumed or expressly asserted, as in the dramas of
Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti, that the spectators are critical and
experienced. The Nāṭyaçāstra [793] requires from the ideal spectator
(prekṣaka) keen susceptibility and excellent judgement, with ability to
make his own the feelings and emotions of the characters depicted by
the actors. But it is admitted that there are the usual degrees among
the spectators, good, medium, and indifferent; the question of the
success of a drama depends on the judgement of the critic (prāçnika),
who is to possess every possible good quality to fit him for the
delicate task. The audience, as it is to share the feelings of the
characters, is expected to show them by the usual outward signs;
laughter, tears, cries, hair standing on end, jumping up from their
seats, clapping with the hands and other manifestations of pleasure,
horror, fear, and other sentiments are both proper and natural.
The rules for placing the patron at whose bidding the drama is
performed, Sabhāpati, and his guests, are elaborate. [794] He sits
himself on the Lion Throne, the equivalent of the royal box, with the
ladies of his harem on the left, and on the right the personages of
highest importance, such as the vassal princes of a great king like
Harṣa. Behind the latter are the treasurer and other officers, and near
them the learned men of the court, civil and religious, including the
poets, and in their midst the astrologers and physicians. On the left
again are the ministers and other courtiers; all around are maidens of
the court. In front again of the king are Brahmins, behind the bearers
of fans, radiant in youthful beauty. On the left in front are the
reciters and panegyrists, eloquent and wise. Guards are present to
protect the sacred person of the sovereign.
How far the dramas were viewed by the public in general we cannot say;
the rules regarding the play-house contemplate the presence of Çūdras,
but that is a vague term, and may apply to a very restricted class of
royal hangers on. We have the general rule [795] that barbarians,
ignorant people, heretics, and those of low class should not be
admitted, but such prescriptions mean very little. There must, it is
clear, have been the utmost variation in the character of the audience
according to the place and circumstances of representation. At great
festivals, when plays were given in the temples, there must have been
admission for as many as could be crowded in; in private exhibitions
the audience may well have been more select. The fact that the dramas
must have been largely unintelligible to all save a select few of the
audience would not matter much; a drama was essentially a spectacle; in
many cases its subject was perfectly familiar to the audience, and the
elaborate use of conventional signs must have been enough to aid many
of the audience in following roughly the nature of the proceedings.