The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c12.s2.14

c12.s2.14

The play has come down in two recensions, one preserved in Bengālī and Devanāgarī manuscripts and commented on by Raṅganātha in A.D. 1656, and the other in South Indian manuscripts, commented on by Kāṭayavema, minister of the Reḍḍi prince, Kumāragiri of Koṇḍavīḍu about A.D. 1400. The most important among many differences is the fact that in Act IV the northern manuscripts give a series of Apabhraṅça verses, with directions as to the mode of singing and accompanying them, which are ignored in the southern manuscripts. The northern text calls the play a Troṭaka, apparently from the dance which accompanied the verses, the southern a Nāṭaka which it in essentials is. The arguments against the authenticity of the verses are partly the silence of the theorists, the fact that the existence in Kālidāsa’s time of Apabhraṅça of the type found is more than dubious,¹ that there is sometimes a degree of discrepancy between the verses and the prose of the drama, and that in the many imitations of the scene (*Mālatīmādhava*, Act IX, *Bālarāmāyaṇa*, Act V, *Prasannarāghava*, Act VI, and *Mahānā-* taka, Act IV) there are no similar verses. These reasons are on the whole conclusive, and the problematic fact that the Prākrit of the northern recension is better is not of importance.