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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c14.s3: 3. Bhavabhūti's Dramatic Art and Style

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c14.s3

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3. Bhavabhūti's Dramatic Art and Style

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It is difficult to doubt that Bhavabhūti must have been induced to write his Prakaraṇa in an effort to vie with the author of the *Mṛcchakaṭikā*. It is true that no such humour as lightens that drama is found in the *Mālatīmādhava*, but that was doubtless due to Bhavabhūti’s own temperament; conscious that he had no gift¹ in that direction, he omitted boldly the part of the Vidūṣaka which he could clearly not have handled effectively. But in doing so he lessened greatly his resources, and has to select for his theme in lieu of comic relief incidents of the terrible and horrible type blended with the supernatural. The main love-story, with the episode of the two young lovers, whose desires are thwarted by interposition of a powerful suitor, and whose affairs are mixed up with those of two other lovers, both affections ending in elopements, occurs in the *Kathāsarit-* sāgara,¹ and in that collection as elsewhere² we find the motifs of the sacrifice of a maiden by a magician and the offering of flesh to the demons to obtain their aid. But the credit is due to Bhavabhūti of combining them in an effective enough whole, and of producing in Act V a spectacle at once horrible and exciting. He has also improved his authorities in detail; the escaped tiger replaces the more conventional elephant; and the intrigue is more effectually welded together by making Madayantikā the sister of Nandana, the king’s favourite. Further, he has introduced the machinery of Kāmandakī and her assistants Avalokitā and Saudāminī. This again is taken from the romance; Daṇḍin, as Brahmanical an author as Bhavabhūti himself, adopts Buddhist nuns as go-betweens, and Kāmandakī’s offices are perfectly honourable; she merely undertakes, at the request of the parents, to subtract Mālatī from marriage with one unworthy of her and not her father’s choice. The influence of Kālidāsa explains Act IX, which is a manifest effort to rival Act IV of the *Vikramorvaçī*, which it excels in tragic pathos, if it is inferior to it in grace and charm. The same Act has a flagrant imitation of the *Meghadūta* in Mādhava’s idea of sending a cloud message to his lost love, and is full of verbal reminiscences of that text.

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¹ The deplorable effort in Act IV of the *Uttararāmacarita* at deliberate humour shows his weakness in this regard. A certain measure of irony of situation is all that he ever attains, e.g. in connexion with Rāma’s ignorance of the identity of his sons, cf. *Uttararāmacarita*, iv. 22/3; vi. 19/20.

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¹ xiii.

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² KSS. xviii.; xxv. (Açokadatta and the Rākṣasas) : cxxi. (Kāpālika and Madanamañjarī); DKC. vii. (Mantragupta and Kanakalekhā).

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The plot, however interesting, is extremely badly knit together; the action is dependent to an absurd degree on accident; Mālatī twice on the verge of death is twice saved by mere chance. Moreover, the characters live apart from all contact with real life; they are in a city like the characters of the *Mṛcchakaṭikā*, but seem to exist in a world of their own in which the escape of tigers and the abduction of maidens with murderous intent cause no surprise. There is little individuality in hero or heroine, though the shy modesty of the latter contrasts with the boldness of Madayantikā, who flings herself at Makaranda’s head. A friend of Mādhava, Kalahaṃsa, is asserted later³ to be a Viṭa, but has nothing characteristic, and probably the assertion is without ground.

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³ Kumārasvāmin, *Pratāparudrīya*, i. 38.

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The *Mahāvīracarita* lacks the novelty of the *Mālatīmādhava*, but Bhavabhūti’s effort to give some unity to the plot is commendable, though it is unsuccessful. The fatal error, of course, is the narration of events in long speeches in lieu of action. The conversations of Mālyavant and Ṣūrpaṇakhā, of Jaṭāyu and Sampāti, of Indra and Citraratha, and of Alakā and Laṅkā are wholly undramatic; the word-painting of the places of their adventures, as seen from the aerial car on the return home, has not the slightest conceivable right to a place in drama. The elaborate exchange of passionate and grandiose defiances between Rāma and Paraçurāma which drags through two Acts does credit to the rhetorical powers of the dramatist, but is wearisome and a mere hindrance to the action. On the other hand, the scene where Bharata determines to act as vicegerent and that between Vālin and Sugrīva are effective, while with excellent taste Vālin is made an enemy, who opposes Rāma under bad advice, and the treachery and fraternal strife of the Rāmāyaṇa disappear for good. The characterization is feeble; Rāma and Sītā are tediously of one pattern without shadow on their virtue, and neither Mālyavant nor Rāvaṇa surpasses mediocrity.

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The Uttararāmacarita reaches no higher level as a drama; he has a period of twelve years to cover, as he had fourteen in the Mahāvīracarita, and to produce effective unity would be hard for any author; Bhavabhūti has made no serious effort to this end; he has contented himself with imagining a series of striking pictures. The first Act is admirably managed; the tragic irony of Sītā’s gazing on the pictures of a sorrow over for good just on the verge of an even crueller fate, and of asking for a visit to see the old scenes of her unhappiness as well as her joy, which affords the king the means of immediately abandoning her, is perfectly brought out. Yet excuses are made for the king; it is the voice of duty that he hears; his counsellors who might have stayed his rash act are away. The scene in Act III, when Sītā sees and forgives her spouse, is admirable in its delicacy of the portrayal of her gradual but generous surrender to the proof that, though harsh, he deeply loved her. Lava again is a fine study in his pride, followed by submission to the great king when approached with courtesy, but the Vidyādhara’s tale of the use of the magic weapons, doubtless an effort to vie with Bhāravi’s Kirātārjunīya, is ineffective. The last Act, however, reveals Bhavabhūti at his best; the plain tale of the *Rāmāyaṇa* makes Kuça and Lava recite the story of the *Rāmāyaṇa* at a sacrifice and be recognized by their father; here a supernatural drama with goddesses as actors leads insensibly to a happy ending, for Bhavabhūti again defies tradition to attain the end, without which the drama would be defective even in our eyes. Sītā and Rāma are splendidly characterized; the one in his greatness of power and nobility of spirit, the other ethereal and spiritual, removed from the gross things of earth. Janaka and Kauçalyā are effectively drawn; their condolences have the accent of sincerity, but the other characters--there are twenty-four in all--present nothing of note. It was not within Bhavabhūti’s narrow range to create figures on a generous scale; in his other dramas they are reduced to the minimum necessary for the action.

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As a poem the merits of the *Uttararāmacarita* are patent and undeniable. The temper of Bhavabhūti was akin to the grand and the inspiring in nature and life; the play blends the martial fervour of Rāma and his gallant son with the haunting pathos of the fate of the deserted queen, and the forests, the mountains, the rivers in the first three Acts afford abundant opportunity for his great ability in depicting the rugged as well as the tender elements of nature; what is awe-inspiring and magnificent in its grandeur has an attraction for Bhavabhūti, which is not shown in the more limited love of nature in Kālidāsa. He excels Kālidāsa also in the last Act, for the reunion of Sītā and Rāma has a depth of sentiment, not evoked by the tamer picture of the meeting of Duḥṣanta and Çakuntalā; both Rāma and Sītā are creatures of more vital life and deeper experience than the king and his woodland love.

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We find, in fact, in Bhavabhūti, in a degree unknown to Kālidāsa, child of fortune, to whom life appeared as an ordered joyous whole, the sense of the mystery of things; ‘what brings things together’, he says, ‘is some mysterious inward tie; it is certainly not upon outward circumstances that affection rests.’¹ Self-sacrifice is a reality to Bhavabhūti; Rāma is prepared to abandon without a pang affection, compassion, and felicity, nay Sītā herself, for the sake of his people,² and he acts up to his resolve. Friendship is to him sacred; to guard a friend’s interests at the cost of one's own, to avoid in dealings with him all malice and guile, and to strive for his weal as if for one's own is the essential mark of true friendship.¹ Admirable also is his conception of love, far nobler than that normal in Indian literature; it is the same in happiness and sorrow, adapted to every circumstance of life, in which the heart finds solace, unspoiled by age, mellowing and becoming more valuable as in course of time reserve dies away, a supreme blessing attained only by those that are fortunate and after long toil.² The child completes the union; it ties in a common knot of union the strands of its parents' hearts.³ Bhavabhūti was clearly a solitary soul; this is attested by the prologue of the Mālatīmādhava:

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¹ *Uttararāmacarita*, vi. 12.

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² *Ibid.*, i. 12.

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¹ *Mahāvīracarita*, v. 59. Cf. *Uttararāmacarita*, iv. 13, 14.

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² *Ibid.*, i. 39.

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³ *Uttararāmacarita*, iii. 18.

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ye nāma kecid iha naḥ prathayanty avajñām: jānanti te
kim api tān prati naiṣa yatnaḥ
utpatsyate 'sti mama ko 'pi samānadharmā: kālo hy ayam
anavadhir vipulā ca pṛthvī.

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‘Those that disparage me know little; for them my effort is not made; there will or does exist one with like nature to mine, for time is boundless and the earth is wide.’ Yet we may sympathize with those who felt ⁴ that his art was unfit for the stage, for Bhavabhūti's style has many demerits in addition to the defects of his technique.

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⁴ Cf. *ibid.*, i. 5.

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Bhavabhūti in fact proclaims here as his own merit richness and elevation of expression (*prauḍhatvam udāratā ca vacasām*) and depth of meaning, and we must admit that he has no small grounds for his claims. The depth of thought and grandeur which can be admitted in the case of Bhavabhūti must be measured by Indian standards, and be understood subject to the grave limitations which are imposed on any Brahmanical speculation as to existence by the orthodoxy which is as apparent in Bhavabhūti as it is in the lighter-hearted Kālidāsa. When, therefore, we are told ⁵ that ‘with reference to Kālidāsa he holds a position such as Aeschylus holds with reference to Euripides’, we must not take too seriously the comparison. No poet, in fact, suggests less readily comparison with Euripides than does Kālidāsa. He has nothing whatever of the questioning mind of the Greek dramatist, contemporary of the Sophists, and eager inquirer into the validity of all established conventions. In style again he aims at a level of perfection of achievement, which was neither sought nor attained by Euripides. Unquestionably, if any parallel were worth making, Kālidāsa would fall to be ranked as the Sophokles of the Indian drama, for as far as any Indian poet could, ‘he saw life steadily and saw it whole’, and was free from the vain questionings which vexed the soul of Euripides. Bhavabhūti again cannot seriously be compared with Aischylos, for he accepted without question the Brahmanical conceptions of world order, unlike the great Athenian who sought to interpret for himself the fundamental facts of existence, and who found for them no solution in popular belief or traditional religion. There can, moreover, be no greater contrast in style than that between the simple strength of Aischylos, despite his power of brilliant imagery,¹ and the over-elaboration and exaggeration of Bhavabhūti. The distinction between Kālidāsa and his successor is of a different kind. Both accepted the traditional order, but Kālidāsa, enjoying, we may feel assured, a full measure of prosperity in the golden age of India under the Gupta empire, viewed with a determined optimism all that passed before him in life, in strange contrast to the bitterness of the denunciations of existence which Buddhism, then losing ground, has set forth as its contribution to the problems of life. Bhavabhūti, on his part, recognized with a truer insight, sharpened perhaps by the obvious inferiority of his fortunes and failure to enjoy substantial royal favour, the difficulties and sorrows of life; his theme is not the joys of a pleasure-loving great king or the vicissitudes of a Purūravas, too distant from humanity to touch our own life, but the bitter woes of Rāma and Sītā, who have for us the reality of manhood and womanhood, as many a touch reminds us:²

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⁵ Ryder, *The Little Clay Cart*, p. xvi.

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¹ G. Norwood, *Greek Tragedy*, pp. 121 ff.

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² i. 27.

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*kim api kim api mandam mandam asattiyogād : avicalitakapolaṃ jalpatoḥ ca krameṇa*
*aśithilaparirambhavyāprtaikaikadoṣṇoḥ : aviditagatayāmā rātrir evaṃ vyarānsīt.*

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‘As slowly and gently, cheek pressed against cheek, we whispered soft nothings, each clasping the other with warm embrace, the night, whose watches had sped unnoticed, came to an end.’

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As regards the formal side of Bhavabhūti’s style we must unquestionably admit his power of expression, which is displayed equally in all three dramas. To modern taste Bhavabhūti is most attractive when he is simple and natural, as he can be when it pleases him. Thus in Act VI of the *Mālatīmādhava* we have a pretty expression of Mādhava’s joy at the words of love of him uttered by Mālatī when she has no idea of his presence near her: *mlānasya jīvakusumasya vikāsanāni: saṃtarpaṇāni sakalendriyamohanāni* *ānandanāni hṛdayaikarasāyanāni: diṣṭyā mayāpy adhigatāni vacomṛtāni.*

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‘Fortune has favoured me, for I have heard the nectar of her words that make to bloom again the faded flower of my life, delightful, disturbing every sense, causing gladness, sole elixir for my heart.’ The deliberate rhyming effect is as appropriate as it is uncommon in such elaboration, and it is characteristic that the same effect is shortly afterwards repeated. Effective simplicity and directness also characterize the speech, in Sanskrit contrary to the usual rule, of Buddharakṣitā in Act VII, when she clinches the argument in favour of the elopement of Madayantikā and Makaranda: *preyān manorathasahasravṛtaḥ sa eṣaḥ: suptapramattajanam etad amātyaveśma* *prauḍhaṃ tamaḥ kuru kṛtajñatayaiva bhadram: utkṣiptamūkamaṇinūpuram ehi yāmaḥ.*

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‘Here is thy beloved, on whom a thousand times thy hopes have rested; in the minister’s palace the men are asleep or drunken; impenetrable is the darkness; be grateful and show thy favour; come, let us silence our jewelled anklets by laying them aside, and depart hence.’ Equally effective is the expression of the admirable advice tendered to Mādhava and Mālatī at the moment when Kāmandakī has succeeded in securing their union: *preyo mitram bandhutā vā samagrā: sarve kāmāḥ śevadhir jīvitaṃ vā* *strīṇāṃ bhartā dharmadārāś ca puṃsām: ity anyonyaṃ vatsayor jñātam astu.*

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‘Know, my dear children, that to a wife her husband and to a husband his lawful wife are, each to each, the dearest of friends, the sum total of relationships, the completeness of desire, the perfection of treasures, even life itself.' Pretty again are the terms in which Kāmandakī laments Mālatī in Act X when she learns of her disappearance:

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ā janmanaḥ pratimuhūrtaviçeṣaramyāṇy : āceṣṭitāni tava samprati tāni tāni
cāṭūni cārumadhurāṇi ca saṁsmṛtāni: dehaṁ dahanti hṛdayaṁ ca vidārayanti.

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‘My body is aflame and my heart torn in sunder by the memory of thy childish movements which grew more delightful every hour from thy birth, and of the beauty and sweetness of thy loving words.’

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It is, therefore, the more to be regretted that Bhavabhūti was not content with simplicity, but is often too fond of elaborate and overloaded descriptions, which are fatally lacking in simplicity and intelligibility and can be fully comprehended only after careful study and examination. We must, however, it is clear, admit that Bhavabhūti definitely improved in taste as the years went on. The latest of his dramas, the Uttararāmacarita, is far less obnoxious to criticism for defects of judgement than the Mālatīmādhava, which may be set down as an adventure in a genre unsuited to the poet’s talent. There is an admirable touch in the scene in Act I of the play where Sītā, wearied, falls to rest on the pillow of Rāma’s arm, that arm which no other woman can claim and which has ever lulled her to sleep, and he gazes on her in fond admiration:¹

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¹ i. 38.

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iyaṁ gehe lakṣmīr iyaṁ amṛtavartir nayanayor
asāv asyāḥ sparço vapuṣi bahulaç candanarasaḥ
ayaṁ kaṇṭhe bāhuḥ çiçiramasṛṇo mauktikasaraḥ
kim asyā na preyo yadi param asahyas tu virahaḥ.

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‘She is Fortune herself in my home; she is a pencil of ambrosia for the eyes; her touch here on my body is as fragrant as sandal juice; her arm round my neck is cool and soft as a necklace of pearls; what in her is there that is not dear, save only the misery of separation from her?’ Scarcely are the words said than the attendant enters with the word, ‘It has come’, which on her lips is to announce the advent of the spy whose report is to lead to Sītā’s banishment, while the audience, following the words, applies it at once to the separation which Rāma was deploring, and which to him was the parting in the past when Rāvaṇa stole his bride.

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The spontaneous regard which springs up for each other in the hearts of the two princes Lava and Candraketu when they meet is admirably depicted: ¹

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¹ v. 16.

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*yadṛcchāsampātaḥ kim u guṇagaṇānām atiśayaḥ*
*purāṇo vā janmāntaranibiḍabandhaḥ paricayaḥ*
*nijo vā sambandhaḥ kim u vidhivaśāt ko 'py avidito*
*mamaitasmin dṛṣṭe hṛdayam avadhānaṃ racayati?*

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‘Is it this chance encounter, or his wealth of splendid qualities, or an ancient love, firm bound in a former birth, or a common tie of blood unknown through the might of fate, which draws close my heart to him even at first sight?’

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The rebuke which Vāsantī addresses to Rāma for his treatment of Sītā, despite the loyalty of the queen, is effectively broken off by a faint: ²

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² iii. 27.

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*tvaṃ jīvitaṃ tvam asi me hṛdayaṃ dvitīyam*
*tvaṃ kaumudī nayanayor amṛtaṃ tvaṃ aṅge*
*ity ādibhiḥ priyaçatair anurudhya mugdhām*
*tām eva çāntam athavā kim ataḥ pareṇa.*

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‘“Thou art my life, my second heart, thou the moonlight of my eyes, the ambrosia for my body thou”: with these and a hundred other endearments didst thou win her simple soul, and now alas—but what need to say more?’

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Elsewhere we have less simplicity, but in these cases we must distinguish carefully between those instances in which the difficulty and complexity of expression serve to illustrate the thought, and those in which the words are made to stand in lieu of ideas. In many cases Bhavabhūti may justly claim to have achieved substantial success, even when he is not precisely simple. The effect of love on Mādhava is effectively expressed: ³

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³ i. 29.

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*paricchedātītaḥ sakalavacanānām aviṣayaḥ*
*punarjanmany asminn anubhavapathaṃ yo na gatavān*
*vivekapradhvaṃsād upacitamahāmohagahano*
*vikāraḥ ko 'py antar jaḍayati ca tāpaṃ ca kurute.*

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‘An emotion, evading determination, inexpressible by words, never before experienced in this birth of mine, wholly confusing because of the impossibility of examination, is at once numbing me within and filling me with a torment of fire.’

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The poet’s command of the philosophical conceptions of his day is shown in the verse following : *paricchedavyaktir bhavati na puraḥsthe ’pi viṣaye* *bhavaty abhyaste ’pi smaraṇam atathābhāvavirasam* *na saṃtāpacchedo himasarasi vā candramasi vā* *mano niṣṭhācūnyam bhramati ca kim apy alikhati ca.*

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‘Though an object be before one’s gaze, determination is not easy; brought back, memory intervenes to introduce an element of falsity; neither in the cool lake nor in the moonbeams can passion be quenched; my mind, powerless to attain a fixed result, wanders, and yet records something.’

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We have a further effective picture of the physical effect of love on Mādhava when he seeks to assuage his sorrows by depicting his beloved from memory:¹ *vāraṃ vāraṃ tirayati dṛcor udgamam bāṣpapūras* *tatsaṃkalpopahitajaḍima stambham abhyeti gātram* *sadyaḥ svidyann ayam aviratotkampalolāṅgulikaḥ* *pāṇir lekhāvidhiṣu nitarāṃ vartate kim karomi.*

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¹ i. 34.

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‘Time after time the tears that stream from my eyes blind my sight; my body is paralysed by the numbness born of the thought of her; when I seek to draw, my hand grows moist and trembles incessantly; ah, what is there that I can do?’

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It is, however, easy to pass into exaggeration, as in :² *līneva pratibimbiteva likhitevotkīrṇarūpeva ca* *pratyupteva ca vajralepaghaṭitevāntarnikhāteva ca* *sā naṣ cetasi kīliteva viṣikhaiṣ cetobhuvaḥ pañcabhiṣ* *cintāsaṃtatitantujālanibiḍasyūteva ca lagnā priyā.*

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² v. 10.

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‘So have I grasped my dear one that she is as it were merged in me, reflected in me, depicted in me, her form mingled in me, cast into me, cemented with adamant to me, planted within me, pinned to my soul by the five arrows of love, firmly sewn into the fabric of my thought continuum.’

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A stanza like this, whatever credit it may do to the ingenuity of its author, hardly gives any high opinion of his literary taste, but we are undoubtedly forced to assume that he believed deliberately in the merits of the style he adopted, which as contrasted with that of Kālidāsa belongs to the Gauḍī type,¹ which loves compounds in prose, and aims at the grandiose rather than sweetness and grace. The adoption of such a style, possibly under the influence of the reputation of Bāṇa, is wholly unjustified in drama; the prose, which normally in the plays moves freely and easily, is hampered by compounds of ridiculous length which must have been nearly as unintelligible to his audiences as they are now without careful study. The defect, it is true, gradually diminishes; the *Uttararāmacarita* is far freer from sins of this type. In the verse the theory does not make such demands for compounds, so that the poetry is often better than the prose; especially in his latest drama it gains clearness and intelligibility. Sanskrit, however, was clearly in large measure an artificial language to Bhavabhūti; he employs far too freely rare terms culled from the lexicons, honourable to his scholarship but not to his taste, and the same lack of taste is displayed in the excess of his exaggerations. Of the sweetness and charm of Kālidāsa he has as little as of the power of suggestion displayed by his predecessor; but he excels in drawing with a few strokes the typical features of a situation or emotion. He seeks propriety in his characters' utterances; Janaka shows his philosophical training, as do the two ascetics in Act IV; Lava manifests his religious pupilship under Vālmīki; Tamasā as a river goddess uses similes from the waters. Effective is the speech of the old chamberlain who addresses the newly-crowned Rāma as ‘Rāma dear’ to remember the change and fall back on ‘Your Majesty’. It may be admitted also that in many passages Bhavabhūti does produce effective concatenations of sounds, but only at the expense of natural expression and clearness of diction. The appreciation which he has excited in India is often due not to his real merits, but to admiration of these linguistic *tours de force*, such as the following:

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¹ Vāmana, i. 2.12; SD. 627; *Kāvyādarça*, i. 40 ff.

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*dordaṇḍañcitacandraçekharadhanurdaṇḍāvabhaṅgodyataṣ*
*ṭaṅkāradhvanir āryabālacaritaprastāvanāḍiṇḍimaḥ*
*drākparyastakapālasampuṭamiladbrahmāṇḍabhāṇḍodara—*
*bhrāmyatpiṇḍitacaṇḍimā katham aho nādyāpi viçrāmyati.*

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‘The twang, emanating from the broken staff of Çiva’s bow, bent by his staff-like arms, is the trumpet sound proclaiming to the world the youthful prowess of my noble brother; it ceases not yet, its reverberations enhanced by its rumbling through the interstices of the fragments of the universe rent asunder by the dread explosion.' It may readily be admitted that the sound effect of such a verse is admirable, but it is attained only at the sacrifice of clearness and propriety of diction.

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