Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal, from Sanskrit and Bengali Sources c11.s3.19

c11.s3.19

² Rūpa Gosvāmin wrote his dramaturgic work, Nāṭaka-candrikā, chiefly to explain and illustrate the various features and elements of his own dramatic works, from which a large number of illustrative quotations are given; but he does not define Bhaṇikā. Viśvanātha explains its characteristics as an Uparūpaka in his Sāhitya-darpaṇa, vi. 308-12, to which, however, Rūpa's play does not strictly conform. On the other hand, it agrees more with the definition of Śāradātanaya in his Bhāva-prakāśana (ed. Gaekwad's Orient. Series, Baroda 1930) p. 262, in having Hari-carita as its subject-matter, the erotic as the chief sentiment in a small theme, song and dance as its elements, and creating excitement by clever turns of speech (see D. R. Mankad, Types of Sanskrit Drama, Karachi 1936, pp. 107-8).—The Nāṭaka-candrikā, however, is a work notable for the enthusiasm with which its author grafts on a compilation of commonplace definitions a long series of fervent erotic verses on Kṛṣṇa-līlā, as he also does in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu and Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi.