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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c17.s2: 2. The Nāṭaka

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c17.s2

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English

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2. The Nāṭaka

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The Nāṭaka remains throughout the post-classical period of the drama the natural exponent of the higher form of the dramatic art. No change of importance appears in its character; it merely steadily develops those features which we have seen in full process of production in Murāri and Rājaśekhara, the subordination of action to description, and the degeneration of the description into a mere exercise in style and in the use of sounds.

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The character of the decline is obvious enough in the Prasannarāghava,¹ a Nāṭaka in seven Acts, in which the logician Jayadeva (c. A. D. 1200), son of Mahādeva and Sumitrā, of Kuṇḍina in Berar, endeavours to tell again the story of the Rāmāyaṇa.² In Act I a disciple of Yājñavalkya appears and repeats from the speech of two bees heard behind the scene the news they are discussing; the Asura Bāṇa is to rival Rāvaṇa for the hand of Sītā. Two heralds then appear to describe the suitors for the maiden’s hand; they are interrupted and insulted by a gross and rough arrival who casts a contemptuous eye on the bow which the suitor must bend, and would forcibly seize the prize. The heralds soothe him, but he assumes the monstrous form of Rāvaṇa with his ten heads. Bāṇa then appears, tries in vain the bow, insults Rāvaṇa and retires. In Act II we have a ludicrous scene in which Rāma watches Sītā and her friend; both he and she describe the beauties of the union of the Vāsantī creeper and the mango-tree, an allusion to their own state to be, and confronted shyly whisper love. In Act III we have an intolerable series of compliments exchanged by all the parties, Viçvāmitra, Çaṭānanda, Janaka, Daçaratha, Rāma, and Lakṣmaṇa; Viçvāmitra bids Rāma bend the bow of Çiva, though a message from Paraçurāma deprecates such an insult. The bow is broken, there is great joy, and the marriage is celebrated. In Act IV Paraçurāma himself arrives;

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his great feats are set out in a dialogue of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa; he encounters them, exchanges harangues, is dissuaded by Janaka, Çaṭānanda, and Viçvāmitra from battle, but an insult of his to Viçvāmitra breaks down Rāma’s patience; they fight, Rāma is victor, but falls at his rival’s feet and asks his blessing. In Act V we have a new and picturesque conception and one wholly aloof from drama. The river goddess Yamunā tells Gaṅgā of her grief at Vālin’s act in exiling his brother, Sugrīva. Sarayū joins them and reports the fate of Rāma until his departure for exile; her flamingo arrives to carry on the tale until Rāma’s fatal departure in pursuit of a golden deer. Anxious, the rivers hasten to the ocean, Sāgara, to learn the news; they find Godāvarī in converse with Sāgara; she tells of the rape of Sītā, the death of Jaṭāyu, the fall of Sītā’s jewels and their transport to Ṛṣyamukha. The Tuṅgabhadrā arrives with her tale; Rāma has slain Vālin and made alliance with Sugrīva and Hanumant. Suddenly a great mass flies over the ocean. Is it the Himālaya? the Vindhya? Sāgara goes out to see and the rivers follow. In Act VI we find that sorrow has all but driven Rāma mad; he asks the birds, the moon, for his beloved. Fortunately two Vidyādharas by magic art are able to show him the events in Laṅkā; Sītā appears, saddened lest Rāma suspect, or be faithless to her; Rāvaṇa seeks her love; she despises him;

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angry, he reaches out his hand for his sword to slay her, but receives in it the head of his son, Akṣa, slain by Hanumant, who it is who has leaped the ocean and attacked Laṅkā. Sītā is desperate; she seeks to burn herself on a funeral pyre, but the coal changes to pearl, and Hanumant consoles her by news of Rāma’s fidelity. In Act VII Rāvaṇa is given by Prahasta a picture sent by Mālyavant showing the details of the enemy’s attack and the bridge; he refuses to regard it as more than a painter’s fancy; Mandodarī, his wife, enters; she has received an oracular response which terrifies her and also Prahasta, but Rāvaṇa scorns it. At last, however, he realizes that the city is attacked, sends Kumbhakarṇa and Meghanāda to their death, and at last himself issues forth to die; his fate is described by a Vidyādhara and his mate. Then enter Rāma, Sītā, Lakṣmaṇa, Vibhīṣaṇa, and Sugrīva, who all describe in turn the setting of the sun and the rise of the moon; they mount the aerial car, describe a few points of interest in the country over which they pass in their journey north, and then in turn solemnly describe the rising of the sun.

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¹ Ed. Bombay, 1894; Poona, 1894; cf. Baumgartner, Das Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 129 ff.

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² Cf. Peterson, Subhāṣitāvali, pp. 38 f.; Keith, Indian Logic, pp. 33 f. The verses common to the play and the Mahānāṭaka are clearly not evidence of prior date, despite Lévi, TI. ii. 48; Konow, ID. p. 88. He is later than Murāri; Hall's (DR. p. 36 n.) suggested reference to Jayadeva in comm. on DR. ii. 10 is incorrect. He is known to R. (c. A. D. 1330); iii. 171 f., and the Śārṅgadharapaddhati.

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The play is typical of the later drama; its one merit is Act V where the spectacle of the river goddesses grouped round the ocean affords admirable scope for an effective tableau, but it is wholly out of harmony with dramatic action. As usual, the author is fond of the long metres, though the Vasantatilaka is his favourite; then comes the Cārdūlavikrīḍita, Ҫloka, Ҫikhariṇī, and Sragdharā, while he shows decided fondness for the Svāgatā, which occurs a few times in Rājaçekhara and the Mahānāṭaka, but is not employed in the earlier drama. The drama is superior in merit to the other very popular Rāma drama, the Jānakīpariṇaya¹ by Rāmabhadra Dikṣita, who flourished and wrote many bad works at the end of the seventeenth century. The number of Rāma dramas already known is enormous; any one of merit appears still to be unearthed. The commentary on the Daçarūpa knows a Chalitarāma which would probably date before A.D. 1000, but its preservation is problematical. The Adbhutadarpaṇa² of Mahādeva, son of Kṛṣṇa Sūri, a contemporary of Rāmabhadra Diksita, shows Jayadeva’s influence in that it presents the events at Laṅkā as happening by means of a magic mirror. Its ten acts cover only the period from Aṅgada’s mission to Rāvaṇa to the coronation of Rāma, and it introduces, contrary to the rule in Rāma dramas, the figure of the Viḍūṣaka.

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¹ Ed. Madras, 1892; trs. by L. V. Ramachandra Aiyar, Madras, 1906.

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² Ed. KM. 1896.

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The Kṛṣṇa legend naturally attracted not less note; the Kerala prince Ravivarman, born in A.D. 1266, is the author of a *Pradyumnābhyudaya*.¹ The minister of Husain Shāh Rūpa Gosvāmin wrote about A.D. 1532 the *Vidagdhamādhava*² and the *Lalitamādhava*³ in seven and ten Acts respectively on the theme of the loves of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, in pursuance of his eager support of the movement of Caitanya. For the son of Ṭodar Mall, Akbar’s minister, Ceṣa Kṛṣṇa wrote the *Kaṃsavadha*⁴ which in seven Acts covers the ground of Bhāsa’s *Bālacarita*, as well as other plays on the Rāma legend. The winning of Rukmiṇī by Kṛṣṇa is the theme of the *Rukmiṇīpariṇaya*⁵ by Rāmavarman of Travancore (1735–87), and Kṛṣṇa’s generosity to a poor friend, though in a surprising shape, is recounted by Sāmarāja Dīkṣita in the *Crīdāmacarita*⁶ written in A.D. 1681.

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¹ Ed. TSS. 1910.

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² Ed. KM. 1903.

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³ Ed. Murçidābād, 1880 f.

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⁴ Ed. KM. 1888.

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⁵ Ed. KM. 1894.

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⁶ Wilson, ii. 404.

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The number of dramas based on the *Mahābhārata* is decidedly smaller. We have not the *Citrabhārata* of the indefatigable Kṣemendra of Kashmir, who wrote in the middle of the eleventh century. But from that century probably are the *Subhadrādhananjaya* and *Tapatisaṃvaraṇa*⁷ of the Kerala king Kulaçekharavarman, and from about A.D. 1200 the *Pārthaparākrama*,⁸ a Vyāyoga, to be discussed hereafter, of Prahlādanadeva, a Yuvarāja, brother of Dhārāvarṣa, lord of Caṇdrāvatī.

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⁷ Ed. TSS. 1912 and 1911.

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⁸ Ed. GOS. 1917.

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Of other mythological subjects we have the *Harakelīnāṭaka*⁹ of the Cāhamāna king Visaladeva Vigraharāja, of whom we have an inscription of A.D. 1163, and whose work is partially preserved on stone. The *Pārvatīpariṇaya*¹⁰ of Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa, who wrote about A.D. 1400 under the Reḍḍi prince Vema of Koṇḍaviḍu, owes its fame to its being mistaken for a work of Bāṇa. The *Haragaurīvivāha*¹¹ of Jagajjyotirmalla of Nepal (1617–33) is interesting, because it is rather an opera than a play and the vernacular verses are its only fixed element, but this is not likely to be a primitive feature.

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⁹ Kielhorn, *Bruchstücke indischer Schauspiele*, Berlin, 1901.

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¹⁰ Ed. R. Schmidt, Leipzig, 1917; trs. K. Glaser, Trieste, 1886. Cf. GIL. iii. 248, n. 4.

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¹¹ Lévi, *Le Népal*, ii. 242.

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Of dramas with lesser personages of the saga as heroes we have the *Bhairavānanda*¹ of the Nepalese poet Maṇika from the end of the fourteenth century, and at least a century later the *Bhar-trharinirveda*² of Harihara, which is interesting, as it shows the popularity of Bhartṛhari; he is represented as desolated by his wife's death, through despair on a false rumour of his own death, but, consoled by a Yogin, he attains indifference, so that, when his wife is recalled to life, neither she nor their child has any attraction for him.

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¹ Haraprasād, *Nepal Catal.*, p. xxxvii.

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² Ed. KM. 1900; trs. L. H. Gray, JAOS. xxv. 197 ff.

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Of historical drama we have little, and that of small value. The *Lalitavigraharāja-nāṭaka*,³ preserved in part in an inscription, is a work of the latter part of the twelfth century by Somadeva in honour of Viśaladeva Vigraharāja, the Cāhamāna. The *Pratāparudrakalyāṇa*⁴ by Vidyānatha, inserted in his treatise on rhetoric as an illustration of the drama, celebrates his patron, a king of Warangal about A.D. 1300.

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³ Ed. Kielhorn, *op. cit.*

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⁴ Ed. Bombay, 1891.

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More interesting is the *Hammīramadamardana*,⁵ written between A.D. 1219 and 1229 by Jayasiṅha Sūri, the priest of the temple of Munisuvrata at Broach. It appears that Tejaḥpāla, brother of Vastupāla, minister of Vīradhavala of Gujarāt, visited the temple, and, with the assent of his brother, complied with the request of Jayasiṅha for the erection of twenty-five golden flagstaffs for Devakulikās. As a reward Jayasiṅha not merely celebrated the brothers in a panegyric, of which a copy has been preserved along with his drama, but wrote, to please Jayantasiṅha, son of Vastupāla, the play for performance at the festival of the procession of the god Bhīmeçvara at Cambay. He claims that it includes all nine sentiments, in contrast to Prakaraṇas, exploiting the sentiment of fear, with which the audience has been surfeited.

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⁵ Ed. *Gaekwad's Oriental Series*, no. x, 1920. On the merits of Vastupāla see also Arisiṅha's *Sukṛtasaṃkīrtana* and Someçvara's *Kīrtikaumudī*.

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In Act I, after the introductory dialogue between the Sūtradhāra and an actor, Vīradhavala is brought in, conversing with Tejaḥpāla, the theme being the extraordinary merits of Vastupāla as a statesman. But times are still troublous; the realm is menaced by the Turuṣka Hammīra, by the Yādava Siṃhaṇa,¹ who may hope for aid from Saṃgrāmasiṃha, nephew of Siṃha, lord of Lāṭa. Vastupāla enters, and extols the skill of Tejaḥpāla’s son Lāvaṇyasiṃha, whose spies bring in valuable information. He then with Tejaḥpāla compliments the king, who tells them of his proposed attack on Hammīra. Vastupāla warns him against excessive valour in pursuit, and counsels him to secure the aid of the Mārwār princes. In Act II we find that the advice has been followed with success, as related by Lāvaṇyasiṃha, who has an opportunity of repaying the compliments showered on him by his uncle. The spy Nipuṇaka then enters with a tale of success; he has entered Siṃhaṇa’s camp, passed himself off as a spy on Vīradhavala’s movements, reported that that king was making ready an attack on Hammīra, and persuaded Siṃhaṇa to wait in the forest of the Tapti a favourable opportunity to attack Vīradhavala, after his forces have been weakened by battle with Hammīra. In the meantime Nipuṇaka’s brother Suvega, who has been serving Devapāla of Mālava, steals the best steed of his master and presents it to Saṃgrāmasiṃha, who is leading Siṃhaṇa’s army.

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He then presents himself in the guise of a Tāpasa to Siṃhaṇa, but runs away when the king goes to pay him due honour. Suspicion is thus aroused, and Suvega is seized; from his matted locks is extracted a letter addressed to Saṃgrāmasiṃha. It refers to the horse which it treats as a present from Devapāla to Saṃgrāmasiṃha, and advises him to attack Siṃhaṇa when he has entered Gujarāt, the Mālava king engaging to assail him at that moment. Siṃhaṇa asks Nipuṇaka to ascertain the truth about the horse, and he has no difficulty through Suvega in terrifying Saṃgrāmasiṃha into flight. We then find Vastupāla on the stage; his spy Kuçalaka reports that Saṃgrāmasiṃha menaces Cambay; Vastupāla takes precautions for its defence, and summons Bhuvanapāla, Saṃgrāmasiṃha’s minister, with whom he arrives at an understanding, assuring Vīradhavala of that prince’s aid. In Act III Vīradhavala and Tejaḥpāla hear from a spy Kamalaka the fate of Mewār’s king Jayatala; attacked by the Mlecchas, the people in despair flung themselves into wells, burned themselves in their houses or hanged themselves, until he had heartened them and discouraged the foe by announcing the approach of Vīradhavala, at whose name the Turuṣkas fled in terror. Vīradhavala extols the cleverness of Vastupāla, who has enabled him to dispose of all his enemies save the Mlecchas, and Tejaḥpāla assures him of succes even against these foes.

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What Vastupāla is doing is shown by a conversation between two spies, Kuvalayaka and Ҫighraka, which forms the entr'acte to Act IV; he has induced the Kaliph of Baghdad by a false report to instruct Kharpara Khāna to send Milacchrīkāra to him in chains, and he has won over various Gūrjara princes by promising them the lands of the Turuṣkas when they are defeated. We then find Milacchrīkāra discussing his situation with his minister Gorī Īsapa; Kharpara Khāna, on the one hand, and Vīradhavala press him hard; the king declines, however, even to think of retreat, but both king and minister flee hastily before the sound of the approach of Vīradhavala's army and the voice of the king, who is disappointed not to capture his foes, but obeys loyally Vastupāla's counsel against rash pursuit. Act V shows us the triumphant return of the king, his reunion with his wife Jayataladevī, and exchange of felicitations with Vastupāla and Tejaḥpāla. We learn that Vastupāla has accomplished a further feat; he has intercepted at sea Radī and Kadī, Milacchrīkāra's preceptors, returning from Baghdad, and the king has been forced, in order to secure their safety, to enter into friendly relations. Finally the king enters Ҫiva's temple, where the god presents himself before him, and grants him a boon; the king, however, has little that is not formal to ask, so fortunate is he in his ministers.

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¹ Usually Siṃghaṇa or Siṃhaṇa. Cf. Bhandarkar, *Report* (1907), pp. 15 ff., who equates Milacchikāra with Shamsu-d-din (1210-35).

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Neither as history nor as poetry does the work claim any high merit. Its chief aim is to provide unlimited eulogy for Vastupāla and Tejaḥpāla, and secondarily for the king who is lucky enough to have in his retinue these remarkable models of intelligence and skill. It must be admitted, however, that the author does not exactly convey the impression of the real success of his objects of admiration; the impression is rather one of minor successes and a good deal of rather obvious diplomacy. Style, Prākrit, and metres are decidedly stereotyped.

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A certain number of dramas of similar type has been preserved.¹ Gaṅgādhara’s *Gaṅgadāsapratāpavilāsa*² celebrates the struggle of a Campānīr prince against Muhammed II, Shāh of Gujarāt (A. D. 1443–52). The stream, though scanty, flows continuously to the *Ḍillīsāmrājya*³ of Lakṣmaṇa Sūri of 1912.

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¹ We hear of a *Rājarāja-nāṭaka* performed annually in a temple of Çiva by order of the Cola Rājarāja I of Tanjore in the eleventh century, but of its content we know nothing; H. Krishna Sastri in Ridgeway’s *Dramas*, &c., p. 204.

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² *India Office Catal.*, no. 4194.

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³ Ed. Madras, 1912.

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The adaptation of English drama is seen in R. Kṛṣṇamachari’s adaptation in 1892 of the *Midsummer Night’s Dream* in his *Vāsantikasvapna*.⁴

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⁴ Kumbhakonam, 1892.

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