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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c12.s5: 5. The Language and the Metres

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c12.s5

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5. The Language and the Metres

c12.s5.1

In Kālidāsa we find the normal state of the Prākrits in the later drama, Çaurasenī for the prose speeches, and Māhārāṣṭrī for the verses.¹ The police officers and the fisher in the Çakuntalā use Māgadhī, but the king’s brother-in-law, who is in charge of the police and is a faint echo of the Çakāra, speaks, as we have the drama, neither Çakārī nor Māgadhī nor Dākṣiṇātyā but simply Çaurasenī. By this time, of course, we may assume that Prākrit for the drama had been stereotyped by the authority of Vararuci’s Prākrit grammar, and that it differed considerably from the spoken dialect; there would be clear proof if the Apabhraṁça verses of the Vikramorvaçī could safely be ascribed to Kālidāsa. The Māhārāṣṭrī unquestionably owes its vogue to the outburst of lyric in that dialect, which has left its traces in the anthology of Hāla and later texts, and which about the period of Kālidāsa invaded the epic.²

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¹ Traces of Çaurasenī in verses appear in the Çakuntalā. Cf. Hillebrandt, Mudrā-rākṣasa, p. iii; GN. 1905, p. 440.

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² Cf. Pravarasena’s Setubandha. On Hāla and Kālidāsa, cf. Weber’s ed., p. xxiv.

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Kālidāsa’s Sanskrit is classical; here and there deviations from the norm are found, but in most instances the expressions are capable of defence on some rule or other, while in others we may remember the fact of the epic tradition which is strong in Bhāsa.

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The metres of Kālidāsa show in the Mālavikāgnimitra a restricted variety; the Āryā (35) and the Çloka (17) are the only metres often occurring. In the Vikramorvaçī the Āryā (29) and the Çloka (30) are almost in equal favour, while the Vasantatilakā (12) and the Çārdūlavikrīḍita (11) make a distinct advance in importance. In the Çakuntalā the Āryā (38) and Çloka (36) preserve their relative positions, while the Vasantatilaka (30) and Çārdūlavikrīḍita (22) advance in frequency of use, a striking proof of Kālidāsa’s growing power of using elaborate metrical forms. The Upajāti types increase to 16. The other metres used in the drama are none of frequent occurrence; common to all the dramas are Aparavaktra,³ Aupacchandasika,⁴ and Vaitālīya, Drutavilambita, Puṣpitāgrā, Pṛthvī, Mandākrāntā, Mālinī, Vaṁçasthā, Çārdūlavikrīḍita, Çikhariṇī, and Hariṇī; the Mālavikāgnimitra and the *Çakuntalā* share also Praharṣiṇī, Rucirā,¹ Çālinī, and Sragdharā; the latter adds the Rathoddhatā,² the *Vikramorvaçī* a Mañjubhāṣiṇī.³ The earliest play has one irregular Prākṛit verse, the second two Āryās, and 29 of varied form of the types measured by feet or morae, and the last seven Āryās and two Vaitālīyas. The predominance of the Āryā is interesting, for it is essentially a Prākṛit metre, whence it seems to have secured admission into Sanskrit verse.

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³ ◡◡◡◡—◡—◡— | ◡◡◡◡—◡—◡— bis.

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⁴ 16 + 18 bis : normal type ◡◡—◡—◡—◡— | ◡◡—◡—◡—◡—◡—.

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¹ ◡ — ◡ —, ◡ ◡ ◡ ◡ — ◡ —.

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² — ◡ — ◡ ◡ — ◡ —.

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³ ◡ ◡ — ◡, ◡ ◡ ◡ — ◡ —.

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Not unnaturally, efforts⁴ have been made on the score of metre to ascertain the dates of the plays *inter se*, and in relation to the rest of the acknowledged work of Kālidāsa. The result achieved by Dr. Huth would place the works in the order *Raghuvaṅça*, *Meghadūta*, *Mālavikāgnimitra*, *Çakuntalā*, *Kumārasambhava*, and *Vikramorvaçī*. But the criteria are quite inadequate; the *Meghadūta* has but one metre, the Mandākrāntā, which occurs so seldom in the other poems and plays that any comparison is impossible,⁵ and the points relied upon by Dr. Huth are of minimal importance; they assume such doctrines as that the poem which contains the fewest abnormal caesuras is the more metrically perfect and therefore the later, while the poem which has the largest number of abnormal forms of the Çloka metre is artistically the more perfect and so later. A detailed investigation of the different forms of abnormal caesuras reveals the most perplexing counter-indications of relative date, and the essential impression produced by the investigations is that Kālidāsa was a finished metrist, who did not seriously alter his metrical forms at any period of his career as revealed in his poems, and that there is no possibility of deducing any satisfactory conclusions from metrical evidence. The fact that the evidence would place the mature and meditative *Raghuvaṅça*,⁶ which bears within it unmistakable proofs of the author's old age, before the *Meghadūta* and long before the *Kumārasambhava*, both redolent of love and youth, is sufficient to establish its total untrustworthiness.

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⁴ Huth, *op. cit.*, Table.

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⁵ Hillebrandt (*Kālidāsa*, p. 157) points out the complexity of the position.

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⁶ H. A. Shah (*Kautilya and Kālidāsa* (1920), p. 5), argues that *Raghuvaṅça*, ix. 53 shows a more advanced view of hunting as a useful sport when regulated (*Arthaçāstra*, p. 329) than the *Çakuntalā*. But the dramatic propriety of the passage of the *Çakuntalā* renders the contention uncertain. Whether Kālidāsa knew precisely our *Arthaçāstra* is also uncertain.

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