The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c20.s6.3

c20.s6.3

The graceful manner is appropriate to the erotic sentiment; it employs song, dance, and lovely raiment, admits both male and female rôles, and depicts love, gallantry, coquetry, and jesting. It admits of four varieties. The first is pleasantry (*narman*), which is based on what is comic in speech, dress, or movement in the actors; the pleasantry may be purely comic, or be mingled with love, or even with fear, as when Susaṃgatā makes fun of Sāgarikā and adds that she will tell the queen of the episode of the picture.² When love is mingled, it may serve to evince affection, or to ask for a response, or to impute a fault on the lover's part. A comedy of costume is seen in the Nāgānanda where the Viṭa, misled by his garments, mistakes the Vidūṣaka for a woman; a comedy of action in the *Mālavikāgnimitra* where Nipunikā punished the Vidūṣaka by dropping on him a stick which he takes, naturally enough, for a snake. The second form is the outburst of affection (*narmasphūrja*)¹ at the first meeting of lovers, which ends in a note of fear, as in the meeting of the king and Mālavikā in Act IV of the *Mālavikāgnimitra*. Thirdly, there is the manifestation of a recent love by physical signs (*narmasphoṭa*),² and, fourth, the development of affection (*narmagarbha*), illustrated by the adoption of a disguise by the hero to attain his end, as when Vatsa in the *Priyadarçikā* comes on the scene in the garb of Manoramā.³