The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c16.s5: 5. The Dramas of Rājaçekhara
The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c16.s5
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5. The Dramas of Rājaçekhara
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The *Bālarāmāyaṇa*³ is a Mahānāṭaka, that is one in ten acts, and the author, to add to the horror of the length, has expanded the prologue to almost the dimensions of an act, celebrating his non-existent merits, and has expanded each act to almost the dimensions of a Nāṭikā. The whole has 741 stanzas, and of these no less than 203 are in the 19-syllable Çārdūlavikrīḍita and 89 in the Sragdharā, which has two more syllables in each pada or 84 in a stanza. The play has a certain novelty, because the author has made the love of Rāvaṇa the dominating feature. He appears in person in the first act, but declines to test himself by drawing Çiva's bow, and departs, menacing evil to any husband of Sītā. In Act II he seeks the aid of Paraçurāma, but is insulted instead, and a battle barely prevented by intervention of friends. In Act III the marriage of Sītā is enacted before him to distract his amorous sorrow, but the attempt is as little a success as it deserved to be; he interrupts, and finally the scene has to be broken off. In Act IV the duel of Rāma and Paraçurāma is disposed of, but in Act V we find another ludicrous effort to amuse Rāvaṇa; dolls with parrots in their mouths are presented to him as Sītā and his foster sister; he is deceived until he finds that his grasp is on wood; distracted, he demands his beloved from nature, the seasons, the streams, and the birds, as does Purūravas in the *Vikramorvaçī*. The arrival of Çūrpaṇakhā, his sister, who has suffered severely from her attack on Rāma, brings him to a condition of more manly rage. A tedious Act then carries matters down to the death of the sorrowing Daçaratha. In Act VII the problem of inducing the ocean to accept the burden of the bridge is solved; Dadhittha and Kapittha, two monkeys, describe at length its construction to Rāma. A momentary terror is caused by a stratagem of Mālyavant; the severed head of Sītā seems to be flung on the shore, but it speaks and reveals the fraud; it is the head of the speaking doll. In Act VIII we have Rāvaṇa's impressions as disaster after disaster is announced; he sends out Kumbhakarṇa, but sees even him helpless, despite his magic weapons, before Rāma. In Act IX Indra himself describes the last desperate duel of Rāma and Rāvaṇa. In Act X the party of Rāma makes the usual aerial tour of India, including the world of the moon, and ending with the inevitable consecration.
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³ Ed. Calcutta, 1884.
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The *Bālabhārata*¹ is mercifully unfinished; it covers the marriage of Draupadī, and the gambling scene with the ill usage of Draupadī. The other two plays are really Nāṭikās, but the first, the *Karpūramañjarī*² is classed by the theory as a Saṭṭaka, simply because it is in Prākrit, none of the characters speaking Sanskrit. It is the old story; here the king is Caṇḍapāla, possibly a compliment to Mahendrapāla, and his beloved the Kuntala princess, Karpūramañjarī, who is really a cousin of the queen. In Act I a magician, Bhairavānanda, displays the damsel to the king and queen; the apparition tells her tale, and the queen decides to add her to the number of her attendants. The king and the maiden fall at once in love. In Act II a letter from the maiden avows her passion and the Vidūṣaka and her friend Vicakṣaṇā arrange to let the king see her swinging and also producing by her touch the blossoming of the Açoka. Between the Acts we must assume that the queen has found out the love, and has confined the maiden, while the king has secured the making of a subterranean passage giving access to her prison. In Act III by this means the princess and the king enjoy a flirtation in the garden, when the queen discovers them. In Act IV we find that the end of the passage giving on the garden has been blocked, but another passage has been made to the sanctuary of Cāmuṇḍā, the entrance concealed behind the statue. Thus the prisoner can play a game of hide-and-seek with the queen, and this enables her to carry out a clever ruse invented by the magician to secure the queen's blessing for the wedding. The queen is induced to demand that the king shall marry a princess of Lāṭa who will secure him imperial rank. She is still at her home, but the magician will fetch her to the place. The wedding goes on merrily, but the princess is no other than Karpūramañjarī, and the queen has unwittingly accomplished the lovers' desires.
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¹ Ed. C. Cappeller, Strassburg, 1885; Weber, IS. xviii. 481 ff.
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² Ed. S. Konow, trs. C. R. Lanman, HOS. iv. 1901; J. Charpentier, *Monde oriental*, ii. 226 ff.
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The same motif is repeated in the *Viddhaçālabhañjikā*,¹ which is a regular Nāṭikā. Act I tells us that Candravarman of Lāṭa, vassal of Vidyādharamalla, has sent to the court of his overlord his daughter Mṛgāṅkāvalī in the guise of his son and heir. The king, Vidyādharamalla, recounts a dream in the truthful hours of the morning, in which a beautiful maid had cast a collar of pearls round his neck; he is haunted by her, and next finds her in sculptured form (*çālabhañjikā*) in the picture gallery. He has a further glimpse of her in the flesh but no more, before the heralds announce midday. In Act II we learn that the queen proposes to marry Kuvalayamālā of Kuntala to the pretended boy, while the Vidūṣaka has been promised by her foster-sister, Mekhalā, marriage with a lady of the seductive name of Ambara-mālā, Air Garland. Imagine his disgust when she turns out to be a mere slave; the king has to calm him, and together they watch in hiding Mṛgāṅkāvalī playing in the garden, and hear her reading a letter of love. The heralds proclaim the evening hour. In Act III we are told that the dream of the king was reality, devised by Bhāgurāyaṇa, his minister, who knew that the husband of the heroine would attain imperial rule. The Vidūṣaka punishes Mekhalā’s ruse by another; he bids a woman hide herself and call out a warning to Mekhalā of evil to befall her unless she crawl between a Brahmin’s limbs. The queen begs the Vidūṣaka to permit this ceremony, and, it over, he avows the plot to the great indignation of the queen. The Vidūṣaka and the king then have an interview with the heroine. In Act IV we learn of a plot of the queen to punish the king. She induces him to agree to marry the sister of the pretended boy, meaning that he should find that he has married a boy. The king agrees; the marriage is completed; news comes from Candravarman that a son is born, begging the queen to dispose in marriage of his daughter, who may resume her sex. The queen, tricked and deceived, makes the best of her situation; with dignity and hauteur she bestows on her husband both Mṛgāṅkāvalī and Kuvalayamālā, while news is brought that the last rebels are subdued and the king’s suzerainty is recognized everywhere.
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¹ Ed. Poona, 1886; trs. L. H. Gray, JAOS. xxvii. 1 ff.
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There can be no doubt of the demerits of Rājaçekhara’s works; he is devoid of the power to create a character: Vidyādharamalla is stiff and uninteresting beside his model, the gay and gallant Vatsa; the queen is without the love or the majesty of Vāsavadattā; Bhāgurāyaṇa is a feeble Yaugandharāyaṇa, whose magician is borrowed in the *Karpūramañjarī* and spoiled in the borrowing. The heroines are without merit; the Vidūṣaka in the *Karpūramañjarī* is tedious, but Cārāyaṇa in the *Viddhaçāla-bhañjikā* has merits; he has plenty of sound common sense, though he is simple and capable of being taken in by others. The intrigue in both Nāṭikās is poorly managed; the confusion of exits and entrances in the *Karpūramañjarī* is difficult to follow and probably more difficult to act, while in the *Viddhaçāla-bhañjikā* the queen is induced to arrange a marriage out of a puerile incident affecting the Vidūṣaka only. The taste of giving two brides to the king at once is deplorable, as is the failure to explain why the king accepts the suggested marriage when ignorant of its true import.)
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In all his dramas, however, Rājaçekhara is merely concerned with exercises in style. The themes he frankly tells us in the prologue to the *Karpūramañjarī* are the same; the question is the expression, and the language is indifferent; therefore Prākrit being smooth, while Sanskrit is harsh, the language of women as opposed to men, can be used as a medium of style by one who boasts himself an expert in every kind of language. We have, therefore, elaborate descriptions in equally elaborate verses, of the dawn, midday, sunset, the pleasures of the harem, the game of ball, the swing, a favourite enjoyment of the Indian maidens, and in the Nāṭakas pictures *ad nauseam* of battles with magic weapons, and appalling mythical geography and topography. His allusions to local practices and customs may be interesting to the antiquarian, but are not poetical. More praiseworthy is his real accomplishment in metres, especially the Çārdūlavikrīḍita, his facility in which Kṣemendra justly praises, the Vasantatilaka, Çloka, and Sragdharā. His ability to handle elaborate Prākrit metres is undeniable; in 144 stanzas in the *Karpūramañjarī* he has 17 varieties. If poetry consisted merely of harmonious sound, he must be ranked high as a poet. He is fond of proverbs: *varaṃ takkālovaṇadā tittirī ṇa uṇa diahantaridā morī*, which gives our ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush’; he introduces freely words from vernaculars, including Marāṭhī. But, despite his parade of learning, he cannot distinguish accurately Çaurasenī and Māhārāṣṭrī in his drama; in the former we find such forms as *laṭṭhi* for *yaṣṭi*, *ammi* in the locative and *himto* in the ablative singular of *a*-stems, and *esa* for the pronoun. (Important as he is lexicographically for both Sanskrit and Prākrit, it is undeniable that both were utterly dead languages for him, which he had laboriously learned.) Forms like *dhilla* equivalent to *çithila* in the *Karpūramañjarī* show how far the vernaculars had advanced beyond the Prākrits of the drama.
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It would, however, be quite unjust to deny to Rājaçekhara the power of effective expression; like all the later dramatists he is capable of producing elegant and attractive verses, which are largely spoiled in their context by their being embedded in masses of tasteless matter. Thus the benediction of the *Viddhaçālabhañjikā* is decidedly graceful:
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*kulagurur abalānāṁ kelidīkṣāpradāne*
*paramasuḥrd anaṅgo rohiṇīvallabhasya*
*api kusumaprṣatkair devadevasya jetā*
*jayati suratalilāṇāṭikāsūtradhāraḥ.*
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‘Family preceptor of young maidens for the bestowal of the sacrament of love, the bodyless one, dearest friend of Rohiṇī’s lover, he that with his flower arrows overthrew the god of gods, he is victorious ever, the director of the comedy of the play of love’s mysteries.’
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The description of summer is also pretty if banal:
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*rajaniviramayāmeṣu ādiçantī ratecchām*
*kim api kaṭhinayantī nārikelaphalāmbhaḥ*
*api pariṇamayitrī rājarambhāphalānāṁ*
*dinapariṇatiramyā vartate grīṣmalakṣmīḥ.*
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‘This is the glorious season of summer, delightful in the length of the days, when the royal plantain fruits are ripened, and the milk in the coco-nut is hardened, and the season bids us enjoy the delight of love in the closing watches of the night.’
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The signs of a maiden distracted by unfulfilled affection are quaintly described:
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*candram candanakardamena likhitaṁ sā mārṣṭi daṣṭādharā*
*bandhyaṁ nindati yac ca manmatham asau bhaṅktvāgrahas-tāṅgurīḥ*
*kāmaḥ puṣpaçaraḥ kileti sumanovargaṁ lunīte ca yat*
*tat kāmyā subhaga tvayā varatanur vātūlatāṁ lambhitā.*
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‘Biting her lip, she wipes out the figure of the moon sketched in sandal paste; snapping her finger-tips she mocks at love as barren; to flout his darts, the flowers she gathers she tears in shreds; assuredly the fair one whom thou shouldst love hath been brought by thee to madness.’
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*antastāraṁ taralitaṭalāḥ stokam utpīḍabhājaḥ*
*pakṣmāgreṣu grathitaprṣataḥ kīrṇadhārāḥ krameṇa*
*cittātaṅkaṁ nijagarimataḥ samyag āsūtrayanto*
*niryānty asyāḥ kuvalayadṛço bāṣpavārāṁ pravāhāḥ.*
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‘Rippled on the surface of the pupil, slightly foaming, forming drops on the tips of the lashes, then slowly issuing in streams, betokening by their weight her heart’s sorrow, there pour forth from the lotus-eyed one the floods of her tears.’
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Of all the plays the *Karpūramañjarī* is undoubtedly that which contains the most substantial evidence that Rājaçekhara had some real poetic talent, despite the banality and stupidity of his conception of love in Act III. The swing scene contains really effective lines of word-painting, in harmonious metre: ¹
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¹ ii. 30. The translation of this and the next verse is taken from Lanman’s version.
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vicchaanto ṇaararamaṇīmaṇḍalassaṇaṇāiṁ
viccholanto gaaṇakuharaṁ kaṇtijoṇhājalena
pecchantiṇaṁ hiaaṇihiaṁ ṇiddalanto a dappam
dolālīlāsaralataralo dīsae se muhendū.
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‘Paling the face of every beauty here, making the sky’s vault to ripple with the liquid moonlight of her loveliness, and breaking the haughty pride in the hearts of maids that regard her, appeareth the moon-like orb of her face as she moveth straight to and fro in her sport on the swing.’ The effective alliteration and paronomasia of this stanza are surpassed by the metrical perfection of the next but one, where the Pṛthvī metre, with ‘its jingling tribrachs and bell-like, chiming cretics’, is employed in a stanza which admirably conveys by its sound the sense at which it aims:
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raṇantamaṇineuraṁ jhaṇajhaṇantahāracchadaṁ
kaṇakkaṇiakiṅkiṇīmuhalamehalādambaraṁ
vilolavalaāvalījaṇamañjusiñjāravaṁ
ṇa kassa maṇomohaṇaṁ sasimuhīa hindolaṇaṁ.
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With the tinkling jewelled With the sound of lovely
anklets, jingles
With the flashing jewelled From the rows of rolling
necklace, bangles,
With the show of girdles Pray whose heart is not be-
garrulous wildered
From their ringing, ringing While the moon-faced maiden
bells swings?’
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Excellent also is the king’s address ² to the Açoka when made to blossom by the touch of the foot of his young beloved, but more characteristic in his comment,³ inspired by the Vidūṣaka’s ungallant comparison of the fresh beauty of the maiden with the *passée* comeliness of his queen
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² ii. 47.
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³ ii. 49.
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*bālau honti kuūhaleṇa emeya cavalacittāo* *daralasiathaṇīsu puṇo ṇivasai maaraddhārahassaṃ.*
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‘Though maidens in their young zest for life are fickle of faith, yet it is with them—their breasts just budding—that the mystery of the dolphin-bannered doth abide.’
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For technique Rājaçekhara is of interest, because he uses in the *Karpūramañjarī* the old form of prologue quite openly, with the Nāndī recited doubtless by the Sūtradhāra, followed by the advent of the Sthāpaka who recites two verses. It is noteworthy that the manuscripts often alter the Sthāpaka to the Sūtradhāra despite the clear sense of the text. The late *Pārvatīpariṇaya* likewise has a Nāndī before the Sūtradhāra speaks a verse. It is probable that the older technique long persisted in the south.
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Rājaçekhara’s indebtedness to his predecessors is wholesale; the influence of Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti is obvious, and it is probably an indication of his contemporaneity with, or slight posteriority to, Murāri that he does not seem to have known his writings. Influence of the vernacular or of Prākrit is to be seen in his occasional use of rhyme, such as is found in the later *Gītagovinda* or the *Mohamudgara*
Linked texts (4)
- Gītagovinda — Jayadeva, Sanskrit
- Mohamudgara — Śaṅkara, Sanskrit
- Karpūramañjarī — Rājaśekhara, Śaurasenī Prakrit
- Pārvatīpariṇaya — Vāmanabhaṭṭa Bāṇa, Sanskrit