Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c11.s2.54

c11.s2.54

Although it calls itself a drama, it will be seen that the *Caitanya-candrodaya* merely presents the chief incidents and episodes of Caitanya’s religious life and experience in the dramatic form without an attempt to convert the whole into a real drama. There is incredibly little action, and not much convincing characterisation, in a work which presents itself as a drama; and most of the incidents are reported instead of being represented. The treatment does not indeed lack vividness and coherence, inasmuch as much of what is described was actually felt and was still within living memory; but its dramatic inadequacy is obvious. The work, no doubt, constitutes a departure in not selecting the time-worn legendary themes, but the theme it selects, being devoid of action, presents few dramatic possibilities. There were perhaps more possibilities on the poetic side, but it cannot be said that Kavikarṇapūra was more than a mediocre poet. In fairness it must be said that in everything he writes he is facile and never ungraceful; he possesses considerable literary skill and a decided ability to handle sonorous metres; but here the praise should end. Kavikarṇapūra writes for purely literary effect with a consciously affected, but conventional, diction, and is often indifferent to the realities of life or drama; while his religious ardour is not passionate enough nor his poetic fancy enchanting enough to invest his drama with a higher poetic naturalness. The religious sentiment is real, but the usual paraphernalia of theology makes its presentation often too stagey. Obviously composed in the interest of a sect, the dogmas and doctrines often intrude, and we have long theological discourses, for instance, between Caitanya and his followers in Act i and ii, between Prema-bhakti and Maitri in Act iii and Sārvabhauma’s elaborate exposition of dualistic Vedānta, fortified by the citation of sectarian texts, in Act vi. While these do not adequately bring out the deeper spiritual significance of Caitanya’s life, they are not a gain from the literary or dramatic point of view; they certainly interrupt and impede the smooth progress of the narrative. The device of a play within a play is an interesting feature, but the inset play is not presented as an integral part of the action, while its sudden interruption is not conceived as dramatically as it is, in a different situation, in Harṣa’s Priyadarśikā or Rājaśekhara’s Bāla rāmāyaṇa. Even if Kavikarṇapūra introduces allegorical and mythical characters, and names his drama after Kṛṣṇamiśra’s Prabodha-candrodaya, it would not be correct to regard it as an allegorical play; for the action does not hinge upon the allegorical element. The allegorical figures are rather doctrinal formulas than living entities, rather abstract ideas with neat labels than actual beings of flesh and blood. They do not affect the character of the drama, but they merely furnish the concrete historical figures with a surrounding of abstract personifications. The dramatic or poetical merit of Kavikarṇapūra’s work, therefore, need not be unduly magnified; and even if it is more mature and better composed than his Kāvya, it is not a real drama but a narrative in the dramatic form, giving us merely a string of insufficiently motivated incidents and episodes, which do not grow out of one another nor create any dramatic situation. Nevertheless, Kavikarṇapūra can write elegant verse and clear prose, and his presentation of the life of Caitanya is vivid and eminently readable. Notwithstanding its deficiencies, the Caitanya-candrodaya is by no means an insignificant work, but it is difficult to agree with the appreciation of Sylvain Lévi that it is an “original and powerful drama.”[1]