The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c12.s2.19

c12.s2.19

A drama so popular has naturally enough failed to come down to us in a single recension.¹ Four are normally distinguished, Bengālī, Devanāgarī, Kāçmīrī, and South Indian, while a fifth may also be traced. There are, however, in reality, two main recensions, the Bengālī, with 221 stanzas, as fixed by the commentators Çañkara and Candraçekhara, and the Devanāgarī, with 194 stanzas, of Rāghavabhaṭṭa; the Kāçmīrī, which supplies an entr’acte to Act VII, is in the main an eclectic combination of these two representatives of North Indian texts, and the South Indian is closely akin to the Devanāgarī; Abhirāma and Kāṭayavema among others have commented on it. The evidence of superior merit is conflicting; Pischel² laid stress on the more correct Prākrit of the Bengālī and the fact that some readings in the Devanāgarī are best explained as glosses on the Bengālī text, while Lévi¹ proved that Harṣa and Rājaçekhara knew the Bengālī recension in some shape. On the other hand, Weber² contended for the priority of the Devanāgarī; certainly some readings there are better, and some of the Bengālī stanzas are mere repetitions of others found in both texts. Unless we adopt the not very plausible view of Bollensen that the Devanāgarī version is the acting edition of the play revised for representation, we must hold that neither recension is of conclusive value: the argument from the Prākrit is not conclusive, for it may merely rest on the superior knowledge of the copyists from whom the Bengālī original ultimately issued.³