The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c20.s3.1

c20.s3.1

The scene of the plot must be laid in India, and the period must be one of the three ages succeeding the Golden Age, for pleasure and pain, essential elements as we have seen in the drama, cannot be experienced elsewhere than in Bhāratavarṣa, and even there they do not exist in the age of happiness unalloyed.² Otherwise the choice is free; the poet may take an incident familiar from tradition (prakhyāta), or may invent his plot (utpādya) or may combine both forms (miśra). But, if he follows a current legend, it is necessary that he shall not ruin the effect of it by incongruous invention ; he must confine his ingenuity to episodes, for otherwise the audience will be painfully disturbed by departure from tradition. On the other hand, it is not merely legitimate but also necessary that the dramatist should ennoble his hero, if tradition assigns to him deeds incompatible with the character which he normally exhibits.¹ The epic is not encumbered with such considerations; it can represent Duḥṣanta as merely forgetful of his vows to Ҫakuntalā, but Kālidāsa must clear the character of the king from this seeming baseness by attributing his loss of memory to a curse provoked by a negligence of the heroine herself. The Rāmāyaṇa admits, and seeks to explain, if not convincingly, the death of Vālin, king of the monkeys, at the hands of the virtuous Rāma; Māyurāja in the Udāttarāghava passes over the episode in silence, while Bhavabhūti, with greater boldness, in the Mahāvīracarita perverts tradition to represent Vālin as an ally of Rāvaṇa, and as slain by Rāma in legitimate self-defence, and exonerates Kaikeyī.