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The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c7.s8: 8. The Literary Antecedents of the Drama

The Sanskrit Drama in its Origin, Development, Theory & Practice c7.s8

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English

8. The Literary Antecedents of the Drama

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The drama owes in part its origin to the epics of India; from them throughout its history it derives largely its inspiration, far more truly so indeed than Greek tragedy as compared with the Greek epic.² From the epics also developed the Kāvya, the refined and polished epic, which appears at its best in the Kumārasambhava and Raghuvaṃça of Kālidāsa. The parallelism between the developed form of both is close and striking. The Sāhityadarpaṇa³ lays down that it is a composition in several cantos, the hero a god or Kṣatriya of high race, of the type noble and superior; if there are several heroes, they are persons of royal rank of one family. The sentiment which predominates is the erotic, the heroic, or occasionally that of calm; the others serve in a subsidiary rôle. The subject-matter is either taken from tradition or not, but the heroes must be virtuous. The work begins with a prayer, a benediction, or an indication of the subject-matter. The development of the story employs the same five junctures as the theory prescribes for the drama. One or other of the four aims of man, wealth, love, performance of duty, or release, is to be attained by the action. The number of cantos is not to be less than eight; each should end in a different metre, and should announce the subject of the following act. Descriptions of every kind are essential; objects of these are the different times of day, the sun, the moon, night, the dawn, twilight, darkness, morning, midday, the hunt, mountains, the seasons, forests, the ocean, the sky, a town, the pleasures of love, the misery of separation from one’s beloved, a sacrifice, a battle, the march of an army, a marriage, the birth of a son, all of which should be developed in appropriate detail.

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² Cf. Aischylos in Athen., p. 347.

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³ 559. See Daṇḍin, Kāvyādarça, i. 14 ff., and cf. the analyses of Maṅkha’s Çrikaṇṭhacarita (twelfth cent.) and Haricandra’s Dharmaçarmābhyudaya in Lévi, TI. i. 337 ff.; Keith, Sansk. Lit., pp. 38 ff.

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The essential feature of these little epics is the enormous development of the art of description, and the feature occurs in the other forms of narrative literature, the Kathā, tale, and the Ākhyāyikā, romance, types which blend with each other. Whether the subject be an imaginary theme, as is the Vāsavadattā of Subandhu, or a historical one, as in the Harṣacarita of Bāṇa, we find nothing treated as really important save the descriptions as contrasted with the narrative. The Sanskrit lyric also, in Kālidāsa’s masterpiece, the Meghadūta, is essentially descriptive, as is the Prākrit lyric preserved in the collection of Hāla, which is based on the model of an older lyric in Sanskrit, whose existence is revealed to us by the Mahābhāṣya.

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The love of description, however, is not new; it is a characteristic of the epic itself, and the Rāmāyaṇa in special shows us how the way for the court poetry was being prepared.¹ Hence the fact that the verses of the drama are overwhelmingly descriptive, when not gnomic in character, is no matter for surprise. The peculiarity is a direct inheritance from the epic.

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¹ See Jacobi, Das Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 119 ff.; Walter, Indica, III.

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This fact has one important bearing on the history of the drama. The suggestion of Pischel² that the verses alone were once preserved, and the prose left to be improvised would have been plausible only if the verses had been essentially the important elements in the dialogue, as in the supposed Vedic Ākhyāna hymns. But this is assuredly not the case; the verses do little to help on the action; as in the epic, they express descriptions of situations and emotions; when movement of the play is requisite recourse is had to prose. Or the verses serve to set out maxims, as is natural in view of the great fondness of India for gnomic poetry, seen already in the verses introduced into the legend of Śunaḥśepa in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*. In this again there is a close parallel with the epic, nor is it surprising that the epic poet, like Aṣvaghoṣa and Kālidāsa, was often devoted to the drama.

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² Such a drama as the Haragaurīvivāha of Jagajjyotirmalla of Nepal (A.D. 1617-33), which is really a sort of opera with the verses, written in dialect, as the only fixed element (Lévi, Le Népal, i. 242) is of no cogency for the early drama. The Maithilī beginnings of drama, based on the classical, give song in dialect, dialogue in Sanskrit and Prākrit (Lévi, TI. i. 393).

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A further source of literary inspiration must undoubtedly be seen in the work of the lyric poets, of whose work clear evidence, as well as some scattered fragments, is preserved to us in the *Mahābhāṣya* of Patañjali.¹ Moreover, to these lyric writers it is probable that the drama owed some of its metrical variety; in the development of the metres with a fixed number of syllables, each of determined length, from the older and freer Vedic and epic forms, it may be taken as certain that the erotic poets, who had a narrow theme to handle, and had every motive to aim at variety of form and effect, must have contributed largely, a conclusion which is also strongly suggested, if not proved, by the very names of the metres with their erotic suggestion.²

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¹ Kielhorn, IA. xiv. 326 f.; Lüders, *Bruchstücke buddhistischer Dramen*, p. 63.

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² Cf. Weber, IS. viii. 181 ff.; Jacobi, ZDMG. xxxviii. 615 f.

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The *fraternities* of the Middle Ages, which were so numerous and so varied in their objects, were not all of the same origin. Some were religious, some social, some charitable, and some industrial. The religious guilds, or *gilds*, as they were often called, were associations of laymen for the purpose of performing religious duties, such as the maintenance of a chaplain, the celebration of masses, or the support of a hospital. The social guilds were formed for the purpose of mutual aid and good fellowship, and often included in their objects the relief of the poor, the sick, and the aged. The charitable guilds were established for the purpose of supporting hospitals, almshouses, and other institutions of mercy. The industrial guilds, or *craft guilds*, were associations of men engaged in the same trade or industry, and were formed for the purpose of regulating the trade, protecting the interests of the members, and maintaining the quality of their work.

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The craft guilds, which became so powerful in the later Middle Ages, were the successors of the earlier *collegia* of the Roman Empire. The *collegia* were associations of artisans and tradesmen, which were recognized by the state and had a legal existence. When the Roman Empire fell, these associations were largely destroyed, but the idea of association for mutual protection and the regulation of trade survived. In the early Middle Ages, the *gilds* began to reappear, and by the twelfth century they were firmly established in many of the cities of Europe.

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The craft guilds were organized on a democratic basis, and every member had a voice in the management of the guild's affairs. The officers were elected by the members, and the rules and regulations were made by the guild as a whole. The guilds had the power to fix prices, to regulate the hours of labor, and to determine the conditions of apprenticeship. They also had the power to punish members who violated the rules, and to expel those who were guilty of serious offenses. The guilds were thus a powerful force in the economic life of the Middle Ages, and they played an important part in the development of the modern industrial system.

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The decline of the craft guilds began in the sixteenth century, when the rise of the factory system and the growth of international trade made it difficult for the small, local guilds to compete with the larger and more efficient industrial organizations. The guilds were also weakened by the growth of the power of the state, which began to regulate trade and industry directly, and by the rise of the capitalist class, which sought to break the power of the guilds and to establish a system of free competition. By the end of the eighteenth century, the craft guilds had largely disappeared, but their influence lived on in the trade unions and other labor organizations of the modern world.

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