The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c6.s2.22

c6.s2.22

It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel's arguments from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be inclined to admit *a priori* that the song would tend to be accompanied by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to development. But we do not know that the hymns of the *Ṛgveda* were always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that, while the verses of the *Sāmaveda* were sung (*gai*), the verses of the *Ṛgveda* were recited (*çaṅs*). True, we do not have precise information of the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns were used. We find in the *Ṛgveda* a number of philosophic hymns; why should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately following the disposal of the dead, and that during the pauses in the great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may legitimately assume that in the *Ṛgveda* we have hymns of other than directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler's hymn cannot by any reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual.¹