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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c17.s6: 6. The Prahasana and the Bhāṇa

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c17.s6

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6. The Prahasana and the Bhāṇa

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Popular as the Prahasana or farce must have been, we have in this period no example preserved certainly older than the *Laṭakamelaka*,³ written in the earlier part of the twelfth century under Govindacandra of Kanyakubja by Ṣaṅkhadhara Kavirāja. The nature of the play is characteristic; the action passes at the house of the go-between Danturā, to which come all sorts of people anxious to buy the affection of the fascinating Madana-mañjarī. Comic relief is further provided by the arrival of doctor Jantuketu to extract a fish-bone from the damsel’s throat. He is perfectly incompetent and his methods absurd, but they affect their purpose indirectly, since, through laughing at his antics, the bone is happily dislodged. The bargaining of the lovers is satirized, and the marriage which is actually arranged is one between the go-between herself and a Digambara, a type doubtless sure to raise a laugh.

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a Ed. KM. 1889. R. iii. 271, &c., cites an *Ānandakoṣa*.

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Of much later date is the well-known *Dhūrtasamāgama*¹ of Jyotirīçvara Kaviçekhara, son of Dhaneçvara, grandson of Rāmeçvara, of the family of Dhireçvara who wrote under the Vijayanagara king Narasiṅha (A.D. 1487-1507), though a Nepalese manuscript makes his father Dhirasiṅha and his patron Harasiṅha, who has been identified, implausibly, with Harisiṅha of Simraon (A.D. 1324). The first part of the play relates the contest of the religious mendicant Viçvanagara and his pupil Durācāra, whose names are significant, over the beautiful Anaṅgasenā; the pupil has every reason to complain, since it was he who saw the fair one and confided his love to his master, who meanly seeks to secure the damsel’s favour in lieu. She insists on the matter being referred to arbitration, and in the second part the Brahmin Asajjāti, Impure Race, an expert at dealing with delicate matters of casuistry, undertakes the duty, and wisely decides to impound the damsel for himself, though, while he is deliberating, his Vidūṣaka seeks to secure the prize for himself. The case over, the barber Mūlanācaka, Root Destroyer, turns up to demand payment of a debt from Anaṅgasenā. She refers him to Asajjāti, who pays him with his pupil’s purse; he then demands the barber’s care; the latter ties him up and leaves him to be rescued by the Vidūṣaka.

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¹ Ed. in Lassen’s *Anth. Sanscr.*, Bonn, 1838. Cf. Haraprasād, *Nepa Catal.*, p. xxxvii.

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Very popular is Jagadīçvara’s *Hāsyārṇava*.² The king, Anayasindhu, Ocean of Misrule, is devastated because all goes ill in his realm: Caṇḍālas make shoes, not Brahmins, wives are chaste, husbands constant, and the good respected. He asks his minister where best he can study the character of his people, and is advised to go to the house of the go-between, Bandhurā, who presents to him her daughter, Mṛgāṅkalekhā. The court chaplin enters with his pupil, and are attracted to the damsel. A comic doctor is called in for Bandhurā, who feels ill; his remedies are worse than the disease, and he has to run away. A series of other figures are introduced. Then a barber, who has cut a patient; the latter demands damages, but is nonsuited; then comes the chief of police, Sādhuhiṃsika, Terror to the Good, the comic general Raṇajambuka, the astrologer Mahāyātrika, who indicates as the time for a journey the conjunction of stars presaging death. The king disappears at the end of the first Act; the second deals with the efforts of the chaplain and his pupil to obtain the damsel; but rivals come in the form of another man of religion and his pupil; finally the two older reprobates secure the damsel, while the boys content themselves with Bandhurā, who is delighted with the turn of events. But the celebration of these double marriages is left to another holy man, Mahānindaka, who also desires to share the hetaera. The date of the piece is unknown, as is that of the *Kautukasarvasva*¹ of Gopīnātha Cakravartin, written for the autumn festival of the Durgāpūjā in Bengal. It is more amusing and less vulgar than most of these pieces; the king, Kalivatsala, who is licentious, addicted to every kind of vice, and a lover of hemp juice, ill-treats the virtuous Brahmin Satyācāra, who finds that everything is wrong in the state, even the people being valiant in oppression, skilled in falsehood, and persevering only in contempt for the pious. The general is valiant: he can cleave a roll of butter with his blade, and trembles at the approach of a mosquito. Play is made with the immoralities recounted in the Purāṇas; the objections of the Ṛṣis to vice are put down to the fact that they censured in others what they themselves were too old to enjoy. The king proclaims free love, but becomes himself involved in a dispute over a hetaera. He is summoned back to the queen, which so annoys the hetaera that every one hastens to console her, and the king, obligingly to please her, banishes all Brahmins from the realm.

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² Ed. Calcutta, 1896. Cf. Wilson, ii. 408 f.

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¹ Ed. Calcutta, 1828; Wilson, ii. 410 f.

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The *Dhūrtanartaka*² of Sāmarāja Dīkṣita is of the seventeenth century. It deals with one Mureçvara, who, though a Çaiva ascetic, is a devotee of a dancing girl whom he entrusts to his pupils on having to go away. They seek to secure the favours of the damsel and, failing in this, denounce him to the king, but Pāpācāra, Bad Conduct, is merely amused and allows the saint to keep the damsel. Rather earlier is the *Kautukaratnākara*¹ by the chaplain of Lakṣmaṇa Māṇikyadeva of Bhūluyā, which centres in the carrying off of the queen, though the chief of police sleeps beside her to guard her, and the adventures of the hetaera who is to take her place at the spring festival.

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² Wilson, ii. 407.

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¹ Cappeller, *Gurupūjākaumudī*, pp. 62 f.

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The Bhāṇa, despite its antiquity, attested by the theory, is not represented early in the history of the drama. To Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa, about A.D. 1500, we owe the *Śṛṅgārabhūṣaṇa*,² which is typical of the class. The chief Viṭa, Vilāsaçekhara, comes out to pay a visit to the hetaera Anaṅgamañjarī on the evening of the spring festival. He goes into the street of the hetaerae, and takes part in a series of imaginary conversations, giving the answers himself to his own questions, or pretending to listen to some one out of sight and then repeating the answers. He describes the hetaerae, ram-fights, cock-fights, boxing, a quarrel between two rivals, the different stages of the day, and the pleasures of the festival. Much on the same lines is the *Śṛṅgāratilaka*³ or *Ayyābhāṇa* of Rāmabhadra Dīkṣita, which was written to rival the *Vasantatilaka*⁴ or *Ammābhāṇa* of Varadācārya or Ammāl Ācārya, the Vaiṣṇava. The play was written for performance at the festival of the marriage of Mīnākṣī, the deity of Madurā. Bhujaṅgaçekhara, the hero, is vexed at the departure of his beloved Hemāṅgī, but is assured of meeting her again, despite her return to her husband. He makes the usual promenade in the hetaerae's street, has the usual imaginary conversations and describes the ordinary sights, including snake charmers and magic shows of gods and their mountains and so forth. Finally he succeeds in rejoining Hemāṅgī. We have similar lengthy descriptions in the *Cāradatilaka*⁵ of Çaṅkara, who places the scene in the feigned city of uproar, Kolāhalapura, and whose satire extends to the Jaṅgamas or Çaivas and the Vaiṣṇavas. Nallā Kavi (*c.* A.D. 1700) is responsible for the *Śṛṅgārasarvasva*,⁶ which deals with Anaṅgaçekhara, who has to part from his beloved Kanakalatā, but he is helped to meet her by the advent of an elephant which terrifies all the others in the street, but is worshipped by the lover as Gaṇeça and Çiva's answer to his prayer for help. A slight variant is presented by the *Rasasadana*¹ by a Yuvarāja from Koṭiliṅga in Kerala; the hero here is a chief Viṭa who has promised his friend Mandāraka to look after his loved one for him. He goes about with her to a temple, and then to his house; wanders out into the street, talks and describes at large, and finally, after accepting the invitation of a lady from a neighbouring town to pay her a visit, goes back home to find the lovers united again.

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² Ed. KM. 1896. R. iii. 248 gives an unknown *Śṛṅgāramañjarī* as a specimen. See p. 185, n. 3.

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³ Ed. KM. 1894.

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⁴ Ed. Madras, 1874.

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⁵ Wilson, ii. 384.

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⁶ Ed. KM. 1902.

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¹ Ed. KM. 1893; *JRAS.* 1907, p. 729.

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The Prahasanas and Bhāṇas are hopelessly coarse from any modern Europe standpoint, but they are certainly often in a sense artistic productions. The writers have not the slightest desire to be simple; in the Prahasana their tendency to run riot is checked, as verse is confined to erotic stanzas and descriptions, and some action exists. In the Bhāṇa, on the other hand, the right to describe is paramount, and the poets give themselves full rein. They exhibit in this comic monologue precisely the same defects as are seen in the contemporary Nāṭaka; all is reduced to a study of stylistic effects, especially as regards sound. They rejoice in exhibiting their large command of the Sanskrit vocabulary, as obtained from the lexica, and the last thing desired is simplicity or perspicuity. Nothing more clearly indicates the close connexion of the two styles than the fact that we find a type of mixed Bhāṇa in the *Mukundānanda*² of Kāçipati Kavirāja, who is certainly not earlier than the thirteenth century. The adventures recounted by Bhujaṅgaçekhara, the hero, allude also to the sports of Kṛṣṇa and the cowherdesses, a double allusion which explains the difficulty of the style asserted by the author.

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² *Ibid.*, 1889.

Cites (11)