Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c86.39

v2.c86.39

It is unnecessary, as it is unprofitable, in the discussion of general principles, to enter here into the elaborate definitions, distinctions and classifications of the amorous sentiment with all its varying emotional moods and situations, which these treatises industriously discuss and which have always possessed such attraction to mediaeval scholastic minds. The theorists delight in arranging into divisions and subdivisions, according to rank, character, circumstances and the like, all conceivable types of the hero, the heroine and their adjuncts, together with the different shades of their gestures and feelings, in conformity with the tradition which already obtained in the cognate sphere of dramaturgy²². Thus Rudrabhaṭṭa, after a preliminary enumeration and definition of the *rasas* and the *bhāvas*, proceeds to speak of two aspects of *śṛṅgāra* viz., *sambhoga* (love in union) and *vipralambha* (love in separation)²³, and classify the hero (*nāyaka*) into the faithful (*anukūla*), the gallant whose attention is equally divided among many (*dakṣiṇa*), the sly (*śaṭha*) and the saucy (*dhṛṣṭa*), according to his character as a lover. Later writers, however, subdivide each of these, again, into the best (*uttama*), the middling (*madhyama*) and the lowest (*adhama*), and arrange the whole classification under the fourfold division of the genus hero into four useful types (i) the brave and the high-spirited (dhīró-dātta) (ii) the brave and haughty (dhīróddhata) (iii) the brave and sportive (dhīra-lalita) and (iv) the brave and serene (dhīra-praśānta), thus giving us altogether forty-eight subdivisions of the hero²⁴. Then follows a brief description of the assistants of the hero²⁵ in matters of love (narma-saciva), viz., the Comrade (pīṭha-marda), the Companion (viṭa) and the Buffoon (vidūṣaka), some adding ceṭa (or the servant) in the enumeration.