Studies in the History of Sanskrit Poetics v2.c86.44

v2.c86.44

In the same way, the heroine is taken broadly in threefold aspects in her relation to the hero as his wife (svīyā), or belonging to another, (parakīyā) and as common to all (sāmānyā). The svīyā is subdivided again into the adolescent and artless (mugdhā), the youthful (madhyā), and the mature and audacious (pragalbhā), i.e., the inexperienced, the partly experienced and the fully experienced. The later authors introduce greater fineness by subdividing each of these according to her temper, into the self-possessed (*dhīrā*), the not-selfpossessed (*adhīrā*), and the partially self-possessed (*dhīrādhīrā*), or according to the rank, higher (*jyeṣṭhā*) or lower (*kaniṣṭhā*), each holds in the affection of the hero. The *parakīyā* or *anyadīyā*, which, according to Vaiṣṇava ideas, is the highest type of the heroine²⁶, is twofold, according as she is maiden (*kanyā*) or married (*ūḍhā*); while the *sāmānyā* heroine, who is sometimes extolled (Rudrabhaṭṭa) and sometimes deprecated (Rudraṭa), is only of one kind, the *veśyā* or courtesan²⁷. The sixteen types of heroine thus obtained are further arranged according to an eightfold diversity in their condition or situation in relation to her lover, viz., the heroine who has the lover under absolute control (*svādhīna-patikā*), the heroine disappointed in her assignation through misadventure or involuntary absence (*utkā*), the heroine in full dress expectant of her lover (*vāsaka-sajjikā*), the heroine deceived (*vipra- *labdhā*), the heroine separated by a quarrel (*kala-hānataritā*, also called *abhisandhitā*), the heroine outraged by the discovery of marks of unfaithfulness in the lover (*khaṇḍitā*), the heroine who meets her lover in assignation²⁸ (*abhisārikā*) and the heroine pining for the absence of her lover gone abroad (*proṣita-patikā*). We arrive in this way at an elaborate classification of the heroine into three hundred and eighty-four types; and one of the later writers states characteristically that there are other types also, but they cannot be specified for fear of prolixity (Viśvanātha, iii 88, p. 120).