The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c20.s3.28

c20.s3.28

Two of these are the Viṣkambha or Viṣkambhaka and the Praveçaka, which are both explanatory scenes, but between which the theory draws fine distinctions. The Viṣkambhaka is performed by not more than two persons,⁴ never of chief rank; it serves to explain the past or the future, and it may be used at the beginning of a drama where it is not desired to arouse sentiment at the outset. It is pure (*çuddha*) if the performers are of middle rank and speak Sanskrit; mixed (*saṃkīrṇa*) when the characters are of middle and inferior class and use also Prākṛit. The Praveçaka cannot be used at the beginning of a drama, and is confined to inferior characters, who use Prākṛit. Thus in the *Çakuntalā* Act III is introduced by a Viṣkambhaka, in which a young disciple of the sage Kaṇva tells us in Sanskrit of the king's stay at the hermitage, while in Act VI a Praveçaka gives the episode of the fisherman and the police. An abbreviated mode of producing the same result is the Cūlikā,¹ in which a voice from behind the curtain narrates some essential event, as when in Act IV of the *Mahāvīracarita* we learn thus of the defeat of Paraçurāma by Rāma. In the Aṅkamukha, or anticipatory scene, at the close of one Act a character alludes to the subject of the following Act; thus at the end of Act II in the *Mahāvīracarita* Sumantra announces the arrival of Vasiṣṭha, Viçvāmitra, and Paraçurāma, and these three open Act III. A different view is taken by Viçvanātha, who makes it out to be a part of an Act in which allusion is made to the subject-matter of the following Acts and the whole plot, as is done in the dialogue of Avalokitā and Kāmandakī in Act I of the *Mālatīmādhava*. This is evidently an attempt to justify the treatment of this form of scene as revealing matters which cannot conveniently be depicted on the stage, as well as to distinguish it from the Aṅkāvatāra or continuation scene, in which the action is continued by the characters in the next Act without any break, other than the technical one of the departure of the actors and their return, as at the close of Act I of the *Mālavikāgnimitra*. Such a scene obviously in no way answers the purpose of explanation, and its assignment to such an end is clearly erroneous.