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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c17.s9: 9. Dramas of Irregular Type

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c17.s9

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9. Dramas of Irregular Type

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Professor Lüders² adds to the almost non-existing list of shadow dramas, the *Mahānāṭaka*. He does this on the strength of the fact that it is written mainly in verse, with little of prose; that the verse is decidedly at times of the narrative as opposed to the dramatic type; there is no Prākṛit; the number of persons appearing is large, and there is no Vidūṣaka, and these characteristics are found in the *Dūtāṅgada*, which is a Chāyānāṭaka in name. The argument is clearly inadequate in the absence of any real evidence, and the *Mahānāṭaka* can be explained in other ways.

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² *Loc. cit.*

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The history of this play is curious. It is preserved in two recensions, one in nine or ten Acts redacted by Madhusūdana and one in fourteen by Dāmodaramiçra. The stories given by the commentator Mohanadāsa and the *Bhojaprabandha*, agree in effect that the play was put together by order of Bhoja from fragments found on rocks, which were fished out of the sea; the tradition was that Hanumant himself wrote the work, which, therefore, is called *Hanumannāṭaka*, but that to please Vālmīki, who recognized that it would eclipse his great epic, the generous ape permitted his rival to cast into the sea the drama which he had inscribed on the rocks. This certainly suggests that some old matter was embodied in the play, and this view has been strengthened by the fact that Ānandavardhana cites three verses out of the play, but without giving any source, as also do Rājaçekhara in the *Kāvyamīmānsā* and Dhanika in his *Daçarūpāvaloka*, so that the evidence is not of much worth, for the work, as we have it, plagiarizes shamelessly from the dramas of Bhavabhūti, Murāri, and Rājaçekhara, and even from Jayadeva's *Prasannarāghava*, unless we are to suppose that in the latter case the borrowing is the other way. The question which is the earlier of the two recensions is unsolved; the one with fewer Acts has 730 as opposed to 581 verses, and of these about 300 are in common.¹

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¹ For the slightly different legend of Madhusūdana—current in Bengal—see SBAW. 1916, pp. 704 ff. The number of verses varies greatly in the manuscripts. The apparent citation by name in DR. comm. ii. 1 is only in some manuscripts.

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There is a brief benediction, but no prologue, and narrative follows down to the arrival of Rāma at Mithilā for the winning of Sītā by breaking the bow of Çiva; this part of the action is given in a dialogue between Sītā, Janaka, Rāma, and others. More narrative leads up to a scene with Paraçurāma, then narrative follow to Sītā's marriage. Act II is undramatic, being a highly flavoured description of Sītā's love passages with Rāma. Act III again is mainly descriptive, carrying the story down to the departure of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa in chase of Mārīca in deer shape. Act IV carries the story down to Rāma's return to the deserted hut; in Act V Rāma seeks Sītā and sends Hanumant to Laṅkā; in the next Act Hanumant consoles Sītā and returns; in Act VII the host of apes crosses the ocean; in Act VIII, which is much more dramatic than usual, we have Aṅgada's mission to Rāvaṇa; and the rest of the Acts drag out the wearisome details of the conflict, often in so imperfect a manner as to be unintelligible without knowledge of the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the earlier dramas. The two versions generally correspond, but not with any precision in detail.

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The exact purpose of such a play is not obvious, but it looks rather like a literary *tour de force*, possibly in preparation for some form of performance¹ at which the dialogue was plentifully eked out by narrative by the director and the other actors. It is incredible, however, that, as we have it, it can ever have served any practical end, and its chief value, such as it is, is to reflect possibly the form of drama of a period when the drama had not yet completely emerged from the epic condition. We should thus have the old work of the Granthikas reinforced by putting part of the dialogue in the mouths of real actors. But it would be dangerous in so late a production to lay any stress on the possibility of deriving hence evidence for the growth of the early drama. It is, however, legitimate to note that there are similarities between the type and that of the performance of a Tamil version of the *Çakuntalā*.² The curious number of Acts has been suggested as indicating that the original was otherwise divided than a normal drama, but on this it would be dangerous to lay much stress.

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¹ Lüders's attempt to read, in Madhusūdana's recension only, *saubhyāḥ*, shadow players, is clearly absurd; ZDMG. lxxiv. 142, n. 3.

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² Lévi, TI. i. 244; G. Devèze, *Çakuntalā*, Paris, 1888.

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The metre of the play exhibits the extraordinary fact of 253 Çārdūlavikrīḍita stanzas to 109 Çloka, 83 Vasantatilaka, 77 Sragdharā, 59 Mālinī, and 55 Indravajrā type. This fact, in the version of Madhusūdana, is sufficient to show how far we are removed from anything primitive.

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The type of the *Mahānāṭaka* may be compared with the *Gīta-govinda*,³ which, written by Jayadeva under Lakṣmaṇasena in the twelfth century A.D., exhibits songs sung by Kṛṣṇa, Rādhā, and her companion, intermingled with lyric stanzas of the poet, describing their position, or the emotions excited, and addressing prayer to Kṛṣṇa. The work is a poem, and can be enjoyed simply as such, but it is also capable of a quasi-dramatic presentment. It reveals a highly-developed outcome of the simple Yātrās of the Kṛṣṇa religion.

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³ Lévi, TI. i. 235 ff.; Keith, *Sansk. Lit.*, pp. 121 ff.

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In the *Gopākelicandrikā*⁴ of Rāmakṛṣṇa of Gujarāt, of unknown date, but certainly later than the *Mahānāṭaka* and the *Bhāgavata Purāṇa*, we have an irregular drama whose form has excited a large number of conjectures, including the inevitable but absurd solution of a shadow play. The nearest parallel of those suggested in this case and in that of the *Mahānāṭaka*¹ is the Swāng of North-West India, in that the actors recite the narrative parts as well as take part in the dialogue. There seems no special reason to doubt that the same thing might have taken place in this case, though it is conceivable that it was an imitation of the type of entertainment in which a Brahmin says the spoken parts, while his small pupils go through the action of the drama, possibly a far-off parallel to the Ṣaubhikas as far as the action is concerned. But it is quite possibly no more than a literary exercise, and the same judgement may apply to the *Mahānāṭaka*. The fact that both talk as if there were action is no sign of real representation. The modern written drama is full of stage directions, though it may never succeed in obtaining a performance on the stage, and we have not the slightest reason to deny the existence of the literary drama in India.² The piece is highly stylized, and could only be understood, if at all, by a cultivated audience.

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⁴ Ed. W. Caland, Amsterdam, 1917. Cf. ZDMG. lxxiv. 138 ff.; IA. xlix. 232 f.

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¹ The Swāng, unlike the play, is metrical throughout; R. C. Temple, *Legends of the Panjab*, I. viii, 121.

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² In Greece, despite the great advantages of a public representation, plays to be read only arose early; Aristotle, *Rhetoric*, iii. 12.2. Most of the dramas of the last few years seem literary.

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The connexion of the play with the *Hanumannāṭaka* is expressly admitted in the prologue; the actress, who enters with the usual inquiry in Prākṛit as to the business to be undertaken, is informed by the Sūtradhāra that this is not a case for Prākṛit, but for Sanskrit, alone worthy of an audience of Viṣṇu devotees. The actress, not unnaturally, asks how a drama is possible without Prākṛit, to be comforted by the parallel of the *Hanumannāṭaka*. This seems a clear enough indication that the work is a literary exercise rather than a genuine stage play representing a living form of dramatic representation. From an ordinary play it is distinguished by the fact that we have stanzas and prose of merely narrative character, and we learn from one passage that these parts are directed by the Sūcaka to the spectator. The Sūcaka may be equated, on the authority of Hemacandra, with the Sūtradhāra, and if we assume that the play was actually performed,¹ all we need do is to assume that the director thus intervened from time to time to help on the action of the play. We are, in any case, very far from the primitive drama, as the long compounds of the prose show, reminding us of the worst eccentricities of Bhavabhūti.

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¹ Cf. perhaps the nineteenth-century Citrayajña, described by Wilson, ii. 412 ff.

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The work begins with an act of religious devotion, the performance of the ceremony of the waving of a lamp in honour of Kṛṣṇa, who appears in the vesture of a herdsman, and thus receives in person the worship of his votaries. The play is essentially religious and mystic, despite the fact that the sports of Kṛṣṇa and his comrades, and of Rādhā and her friends, are duly introduced. In Act III we have from the mouth of Vṛndā, that is Lakṣmī, a series of verses setting out the mystic doctrine of the identity of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā; Kṛṣṇa is the highest being, descended to earth in the guise of a herdsman, and Rādhā represents his Ṣakti. In Act IV we have the usual scene of the theft by Kṛṣṇa of the clothes of the maidens when they bathe in the Yamunā, but the restoration is made a test of their faith; Kṛṣṇa demands their devotion as the price of their garments, and asserts that faith in him is superior to the Vedas, to asceticism, and to sacrifice as a means of securing knowledge of him. In the last Act we find the spirits of the night of full moon and of autumn lamenting that the maidens are not dancing the Rāsa with Kṛṣṇa, who appears, and whom they remind of this duty of his. He summons his magic power (yogamāyā) and bids her proceed to the station of the herders to summon the maidens to the dance. Then it is narrated how he himself goes there, and with his flute draws out the maidens to join him, while the gods come in multitudes to pay him honour. Many verses from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa are here borrowed. Finally the god accepts the homage of the maidens and leads them in the dance, as is described again in narrative, until the director breaks off the piece with the assertion that it is impossible to represent adequately the greatness of the god. We can see at once, even if we were not told, that the author was under the influence of Rāmānuja, and the fact that his father bears the name of Devaji² suggests a decidedly modern date.

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² Devajīti as read by the editor and Winternitz is a quaint misreading.

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A glimpse into a form of entertainment not represented by any Sanskrit drama so far published is given by the changes made in the fourth Act of the *Vikramorvaçī* at an unknown date. The Apabhrañça stanzas introduced into that Act cannot be assigned to the period of Kālidāsa, unless we are to rewrite the history of the language; Apabhrañça represents not a vernacular but a definitely literary language in which the vocabulary is based on Prākrit, and the inflexions on a vernacular with free use of Prākrit forms as well. Guhasena of Valabhī, of whom we have inscriptions of A.D. 559-69, was celebrated as a composer in Apabhrañça as well as in Sanskrit and Prākrit, and the new literary form may have arisen in the sixth century A.D. as an effort to produce something nearer the vernacular than Prākrit, but yet literary, much as the modern dialects have evolved literatures largely by reliance on Sanskrit. It can hardly be doubted that the Apabhrañça stanzas represent the libretto of a pantomime (*nṛtya*). Such pantomimes are well known as a form of the nautch at Rājput courts; the dancers perform a well-known scene, and sing verses to a musical accompaniment; the chief element, however, is the gestures and postures. In the case of the pantomime based on the *Vikramorvaçī*, the verses placed in the mouth of the king may have been sung by an actor, while those regarding the forsaken elephant and the Haṃsas may have been sung by singers, male or female, acting under him. There is an introduction in Prākrit for the libretto, which very possibly as inserted in the drama has not come down to us in full, though in any case the libretto in such instances is of only secondary importance and never adequate. It is a plausible suggestion that the introduction of the libretto into the *Vikramorvaçī* was the outcome of the difficulty felt by the ordinary audience in picking up the sense of the fourth Act of the play, which contains in overwhelming measure Sanskrit stanzas, and, therefore, must have been extremely difficult for the audience to follow. The date of the change is uncertain; on linguistic grounds it has been placed after Hemacandra and before the date of the *Prākṛta Piṅgala*.¹

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¹ See Jacobi, *Bhavisattakaha*, p. 58 n. Influence by the Yātrās is probable; Windisch, *Sansk. Phil.* p. 407.

Cites (11)