The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c7.s3.19

c7.s3.19

There is further abundant evidence of the close connexion of the drama with religion; it is attested in the legend of Kṛṣṇa whose feat of slaying Kaṃsa is carried out in the amphitheatre in the presence of the public, where he defeats the wrestlers of his uncle's court, and finally slays the tyrant. The festival of his nativity is essentially a popular spectacle; as developed later, in detail which has often evoked comparison with the Nativity,¹ the young mother, Devakī, is shown on a couch in a stable, with her infant clinging to her; Yaçodā is also there with the little girl, who in the legend meets the fate intended for Kṛṣṇa by Kaṃsa; gods and spirits surround them; Vasudeva stands sword in hand to guard them; the Apsarases sing, the Gandharvas dance, the shepherdesses celebrate the birth, and all night is spent by the audience in gazing at the gay scene. Kṛṣṇa, again, is the lover of the shepherdesses and the inventor of the ardent dance of love, the Rāsamaṇḍala. Of great importance in this regard is the persistence in popularity of the Yātrās, which have survived the decadence of the regular Sanskrit drama. They tell of the loves of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā, his favourite among the Gopīs, for cowherdesses replace in the pastoral the shepherdesses of European idyllic poetry. Kṛṣṇa is by no means a faithful lover, but the end is always the fruition of Rādhā's love for him. And in Jayadeva's *Gītagovinda* we have in literary form² the expression of the substance of the Yātrā, lyric songs, to which must be added the charms of music and the dance. A further consideration of the highest importance attests the influence of the Kṛṣṇa cult: the normal prose language of the drama is Çaurasenī Prākṛit, and we can only suppose that it is so because it was the ordinary speech of the people among whom the drama first developed into definite shape. Once this was established, we may feel assured, the usage would be continued wherever the drama spread; we have modern evidence of the persistence of the Brajbhāshā, the language of the revival of the Kṛṣṇa cult after the Mahomedan invasions in the ancient home of Çaurasenī, as the language of Kṛṣṇa devotion beyond the limits of its natural home.¹ Mathurā, the great centre of Kṛṣṇa worship, still celebrates the Holi festival with rites which resemble the May-day merriment of older England, and still more the phallic orgies of pagan Rome as described by Juvenal. It is an interesting coincidence with the comparison made by Growse² of the Holi and the May-day rites that Haraprasād Śāstrin should have found an explanation of the origin of the Indian drama in the fact that at the preliminaries of the play there is special attention devoted to the salutation of Indra's banner, which is a flagstaff decorated with colours and bunting.³ The Indian legend of the origin of drama tells that, when Bharata was bidden teach on earth the divine art invented by Brahmā, the occasion decided upon was the banner festival (dhvajamaha) of Indra. The Asuras rose in wrath, but Indra seized the staff of his banner and beat them off, whence the staff of the banner (jarjara) is used as a protection at the beginning of the drama. The drama was, therefore, once connected with the ceremonies of bringing in the Maypole from the woods at the close of the winter, but in India this rite fell at the close of the rainy season, and the ceremony was converted into a festival of thanksgiving for Indra's victory over the clouds, the Asuras. The theory in itself is inadequate, but the preliminaries of the drama are sufficient to show the extraordinary importance attached to propitiation of the gods, a relic of the old religious service, which would be quite out of place if the origin of the drama had been secular.