[Contents]3.The Dramas and their SourcesThe derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its clearest form. In theMadhyamavyāyoga9we have a reminiscence of the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit, though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore,[96]to spare the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however, time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing, accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy, and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece ends.Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of theDūtaghaṭotkaca, which may also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general type apparently is theKarṇabhārawhich deals with Karṇa’s armour; he makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma, though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled, for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In theŪrubhan̄gathe fight between Bhīma and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them; Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.These four plays have each but one Act; thePañcarātra, on the other hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a[97]Samavakāra, in so far at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a hundred10Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter. The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less Duryodhana decides to keep faith.TheDūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from theMahābhārata, but deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces; the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz11that this[98]fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art, and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this episode to be passed over.Of far greater importance is theBālacarita,12which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage, and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child, and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to purify himself from contact with the dead, but a spring of water shoots forth and renders labour needless. He takes the boy, but his weight proves too great. Now appear in the guise of herdsmen the weapons of Kṛṣṇa and his steed, who present themselves each with a verse, ‘I am the bird, Garuḍa,’ &c., ‘I am the discus’, ‘I the bow’, ‘I the club’, ‘I the conch’, and ‘I the sword’. At the request of the discus the infant consents to become light, and Nanda bears him away. Vasudeva finds the dead child awakened[99]to life in his arms, and the weight of it is oppressive, but the Yamunā once more gives dry passage, and he returns to Mathurā and Devakī. Act II opens with an entr’acte in Kaṅsa’s palace. The curse pronounced on him by the seer Madhuka enters, guised as a Caṇḍāla in hateful form with a necklace of skulls; he and his retinue of Caṇḍālīs force their way into the heart of the palace; the royal fortune, Rājaçrī, would bar their way, but the curse announces that it is Viṣṇu’s will that he enter, and she yields; the curse seizes then hold of Kaṅsa. The Act then presents Kaṅsa uneasy and distressed by the portents of the night; he summons his astrologer and his domestic priests, who warn him that the portents presage the birth of a god. Kaṅsa has Vasudeva summoned, is told of the birth of a daughter, refuses to spare the child, and hurls it against a rock. But part only of the lifeless body falls to earth; the rest rises to heaven, and the dread figure of the goddess Kārtyāyanī appears to the king. Her retinue come also, announcing each his advent with a verse, and declare their purpose to destroy Kaṅsa. In the meantime, in herdsmen’s guise they will go to the home of the child to share in the sports of the herdsmen.The entr’acte before Act III tells us in the mouths of the herdsmen of their joys since Kṛṣṇa came to live with them, and an old man relates in a long Prākrit speech his wonderful deeds, including the destruction of the demons, Pūtanā, Çakaṭa, Yamala and Arjuna, Pralamba, Dhenuka, and Keçin. We are told then that Kṛṣṇa or Dāmodara, the name won from an adventure, has gone to the Vṛndā wood for the Hallīçaka dance; the dance is performed by Dāmodara, his friends, and the maidens, to the music of the drum and to song. The advent of the demon Ariṣṭa is announced; Dāmodara bids the maidens and herdsmen mount a hill, and watch the struggle. It proves unequal; the bull demon recognizes the superiority of his foe, and that he is Viṣṇu himself, and meets death with resignation. The victory accomplished, the news is brought of a new danger, the snake Kāliya has appeared on the Yamunā bank, menacing cows and Brahmins. Act IV shows us the maidens seeking to restrain Kṛṣṇa from the new struggle, but he persists and overcomes the demon, plunging into the waters to grapple with him. He brings him out, learns that he had entered the waters in fear of Garuḍa[100]who slays snakes at pleasure, makes him promise to spare cows and Brahmins, and puts on him a mark that Garuḍa must respect. A herald then enters to challenge Dāmodara and his brother Balarāma to the festival of the boys at Mathurā.Act V shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the play.The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in theHarivaṅça,Viṣṇu, andBhāgavata Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in later tradition, is lacking here as in theHarivaṅçaand theViṣṇu Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.The merits of theBālacaritaare not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. ThePratimānāṭakashows us the death of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest; his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue (pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news, pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata[101]learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom; all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the play are matched by the six of theAbhiṣekanāṭaka,13the drama of the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, theRāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa. Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in incident is remarkable by its absence.A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived his story from the Kathā literature,14as is doubtless the case in theAvimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja, the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who, in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly; in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of the king of Kāçi, who[102]gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with the approval of all those connected with the pair.Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known to us, theBṛhatkathāof Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from Kashmir, is the subject of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,15styled in the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted.16The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha,17on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana18cites the end of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in theArthaçāstra,19a work which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.[103]TheSvapnavāsavadattā,20or theSvapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in substance the continuation of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache, and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down, sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s ends.The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the imitation of Harṣa in theRatnāvalī; Vāmana21cites from it, and Abhinavagupta22knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise, however, in a different vein is shown in theCārudatta, of which we have only a fragment in four[104]Acts without beginning or final verses. Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love. Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk. In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana23and another,24found also in theBālacarita25and theMṛcchakaṭikā,26is quoted by Daṇḍin in theKāvyādarça.27We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in theKāvyādarçaan allusion to the dream scene of theSvapnavāsavadattāand its sequel. TheDaridracārudattamentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of theMṛcchakaṭikā.28The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special developments given by Bhāsa.Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and confusion, it is probable that he may have written[105]further plays, or he may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited with writing,29by inserting examples of his own composition. Why his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is mere conjecture.
[Contents]3.The Dramas and their SourcesThe derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its clearest form. In theMadhyamavyāyoga9we have a reminiscence of the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit, though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore,[96]to spare the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however, time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing, accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy, and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece ends.Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of theDūtaghaṭotkaca, which may also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general type apparently is theKarṇabhārawhich deals with Karṇa’s armour; he makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma, though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled, for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In theŪrubhan̄gathe fight between Bhīma and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them; Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.These four plays have each but one Act; thePañcarātra, on the other hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a[97]Samavakāra, in so far at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a hundred10Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter. The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less Duryodhana decides to keep faith.TheDūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from theMahābhārata, but deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces; the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz11that this[98]fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art, and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this episode to be passed over.Of far greater importance is theBālacarita,12which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage, and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child, and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to purify himself from contact with the dead, but a spring of water shoots forth and renders labour needless. He takes the boy, but his weight proves too great. Now appear in the guise of herdsmen the weapons of Kṛṣṇa and his steed, who present themselves each with a verse, ‘I am the bird, Garuḍa,’ &c., ‘I am the discus’, ‘I the bow’, ‘I the club’, ‘I the conch’, and ‘I the sword’. At the request of the discus the infant consents to become light, and Nanda bears him away. Vasudeva finds the dead child awakened[99]to life in his arms, and the weight of it is oppressive, but the Yamunā once more gives dry passage, and he returns to Mathurā and Devakī. Act II opens with an entr’acte in Kaṅsa’s palace. The curse pronounced on him by the seer Madhuka enters, guised as a Caṇḍāla in hateful form with a necklace of skulls; he and his retinue of Caṇḍālīs force their way into the heart of the palace; the royal fortune, Rājaçrī, would bar their way, but the curse announces that it is Viṣṇu’s will that he enter, and she yields; the curse seizes then hold of Kaṅsa. The Act then presents Kaṅsa uneasy and distressed by the portents of the night; he summons his astrologer and his domestic priests, who warn him that the portents presage the birth of a god. Kaṅsa has Vasudeva summoned, is told of the birth of a daughter, refuses to spare the child, and hurls it against a rock. But part only of the lifeless body falls to earth; the rest rises to heaven, and the dread figure of the goddess Kārtyāyanī appears to the king. Her retinue come also, announcing each his advent with a verse, and declare their purpose to destroy Kaṅsa. In the meantime, in herdsmen’s guise they will go to the home of the child to share in the sports of the herdsmen.The entr’acte before Act III tells us in the mouths of the herdsmen of their joys since Kṛṣṇa came to live with them, and an old man relates in a long Prākrit speech his wonderful deeds, including the destruction of the demons, Pūtanā, Çakaṭa, Yamala and Arjuna, Pralamba, Dhenuka, and Keçin. We are told then that Kṛṣṇa or Dāmodara, the name won from an adventure, has gone to the Vṛndā wood for the Hallīçaka dance; the dance is performed by Dāmodara, his friends, and the maidens, to the music of the drum and to song. The advent of the demon Ariṣṭa is announced; Dāmodara bids the maidens and herdsmen mount a hill, and watch the struggle. It proves unequal; the bull demon recognizes the superiority of his foe, and that he is Viṣṇu himself, and meets death with resignation. The victory accomplished, the news is brought of a new danger, the snake Kāliya has appeared on the Yamunā bank, menacing cows and Brahmins. Act IV shows us the maidens seeking to restrain Kṛṣṇa from the new struggle, but he persists and overcomes the demon, plunging into the waters to grapple with him. He brings him out, learns that he had entered the waters in fear of Garuḍa[100]who slays snakes at pleasure, makes him promise to spare cows and Brahmins, and puts on him a mark that Garuḍa must respect. A herald then enters to challenge Dāmodara and his brother Balarāma to the festival of the boys at Mathurā.Act V shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the play.The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in theHarivaṅça,Viṣṇu, andBhāgavata Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in later tradition, is lacking here as in theHarivaṅçaand theViṣṇu Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.The merits of theBālacaritaare not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. ThePratimānāṭakashows us the death of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest; his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue (pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news, pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata[101]learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom; all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the play are matched by the six of theAbhiṣekanāṭaka,13the drama of the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, theRāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa. Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in incident is remarkable by its absence.A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived his story from the Kathā literature,14as is doubtless the case in theAvimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja, the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who, in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly; in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of the king of Kāçi, who[102]gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with the approval of all those connected with the pair.Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known to us, theBṛhatkathāof Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from Kashmir, is the subject of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,15styled in the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted.16The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha,17on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana18cites the end of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in theArthaçāstra,19a work which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.[103]TheSvapnavāsavadattā,20or theSvapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in substance the continuation of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache, and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down, sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s ends.The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the imitation of Harṣa in theRatnāvalī; Vāmana21cites from it, and Abhinavagupta22knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise, however, in a different vein is shown in theCārudatta, of which we have only a fragment in four[104]Acts without beginning or final verses. Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love. Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk. In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana23and another,24found also in theBālacarita25and theMṛcchakaṭikā,26is quoted by Daṇḍin in theKāvyādarça.27We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in theKāvyādarçaan allusion to the dream scene of theSvapnavāsavadattāand its sequel. TheDaridracārudattamentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of theMṛcchakaṭikā.28The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special developments given by Bhāsa.Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and confusion, it is probable that he may have written[105]further plays, or he may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited with writing,29by inserting examples of his own composition. Why his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is mere conjecture.
[Contents]3.The Dramas and their SourcesThe derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its clearest form. In theMadhyamavyāyoga9we have a reminiscence of the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit, though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore,[96]to spare the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however, time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing, accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy, and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece ends.Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of theDūtaghaṭotkaca, which may also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general type apparently is theKarṇabhārawhich deals with Karṇa’s armour; he makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma, though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled, for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In theŪrubhan̄gathe fight between Bhīma and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them; Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.These four plays have each but one Act; thePañcarātra, on the other hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a[97]Samavakāra, in so far at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a hundred10Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter. The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less Duryodhana decides to keep faith.TheDūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from theMahābhārata, but deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces; the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz11that this[98]fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art, and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this episode to be passed over.Of far greater importance is theBālacarita,12which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage, and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child, and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to purify himself from contact with the dead, but a spring of water shoots forth and renders labour needless. He takes the boy, but his weight proves too great. Now appear in the guise of herdsmen the weapons of Kṛṣṇa and his steed, who present themselves each with a verse, ‘I am the bird, Garuḍa,’ &c., ‘I am the discus’, ‘I the bow’, ‘I the club’, ‘I the conch’, and ‘I the sword’. At the request of the discus the infant consents to become light, and Nanda bears him away. Vasudeva finds the dead child awakened[99]to life in his arms, and the weight of it is oppressive, but the Yamunā once more gives dry passage, and he returns to Mathurā and Devakī. Act II opens with an entr’acte in Kaṅsa’s palace. The curse pronounced on him by the seer Madhuka enters, guised as a Caṇḍāla in hateful form with a necklace of skulls; he and his retinue of Caṇḍālīs force their way into the heart of the palace; the royal fortune, Rājaçrī, would bar their way, but the curse announces that it is Viṣṇu’s will that he enter, and she yields; the curse seizes then hold of Kaṅsa. The Act then presents Kaṅsa uneasy and distressed by the portents of the night; he summons his astrologer and his domestic priests, who warn him that the portents presage the birth of a god. Kaṅsa has Vasudeva summoned, is told of the birth of a daughter, refuses to spare the child, and hurls it against a rock. But part only of the lifeless body falls to earth; the rest rises to heaven, and the dread figure of the goddess Kārtyāyanī appears to the king. Her retinue come also, announcing each his advent with a verse, and declare their purpose to destroy Kaṅsa. In the meantime, in herdsmen’s guise they will go to the home of the child to share in the sports of the herdsmen.The entr’acte before Act III tells us in the mouths of the herdsmen of their joys since Kṛṣṇa came to live with them, and an old man relates in a long Prākrit speech his wonderful deeds, including the destruction of the demons, Pūtanā, Çakaṭa, Yamala and Arjuna, Pralamba, Dhenuka, and Keçin. We are told then that Kṛṣṇa or Dāmodara, the name won from an adventure, has gone to the Vṛndā wood for the Hallīçaka dance; the dance is performed by Dāmodara, his friends, and the maidens, to the music of the drum and to song. The advent of the demon Ariṣṭa is announced; Dāmodara bids the maidens and herdsmen mount a hill, and watch the struggle. It proves unequal; the bull demon recognizes the superiority of his foe, and that he is Viṣṇu himself, and meets death with resignation. The victory accomplished, the news is brought of a new danger, the snake Kāliya has appeared on the Yamunā bank, menacing cows and Brahmins. Act IV shows us the maidens seeking to restrain Kṛṣṇa from the new struggle, but he persists and overcomes the demon, plunging into the waters to grapple with him. He brings him out, learns that he had entered the waters in fear of Garuḍa[100]who slays snakes at pleasure, makes him promise to spare cows and Brahmins, and puts on him a mark that Garuḍa must respect. A herald then enters to challenge Dāmodara and his brother Balarāma to the festival of the boys at Mathurā.Act V shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the play.The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in theHarivaṅça,Viṣṇu, andBhāgavata Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in later tradition, is lacking here as in theHarivaṅçaand theViṣṇu Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.The merits of theBālacaritaare not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. ThePratimānāṭakashows us the death of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest; his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue (pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news, pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata[101]learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom; all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the play are matched by the six of theAbhiṣekanāṭaka,13the drama of the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, theRāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa. Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in incident is remarkable by its absence.A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived his story from the Kathā literature,14as is doubtless the case in theAvimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja, the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who, in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly; in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of the king of Kāçi, who[102]gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with the approval of all those connected with the pair.Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known to us, theBṛhatkathāof Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from Kashmir, is the subject of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,15styled in the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted.16The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha,17on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana18cites the end of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in theArthaçāstra,19a work which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.[103]TheSvapnavāsavadattā,20or theSvapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in substance the continuation of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache, and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down, sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s ends.The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the imitation of Harṣa in theRatnāvalī; Vāmana21cites from it, and Abhinavagupta22knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise, however, in a different vein is shown in theCārudatta, of which we have only a fragment in four[104]Acts without beginning or final verses. Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love. Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk. In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana23and another,24found also in theBālacarita25and theMṛcchakaṭikā,26is quoted by Daṇḍin in theKāvyādarça.27We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in theKāvyādarçaan allusion to the dream scene of theSvapnavāsavadattāand its sequel. TheDaridracārudattamentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of theMṛcchakaṭikā.28The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special developments given by Bhāsa.Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and confusion, it is probable that he may have written[105]further plays, or he may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited with writing,29by inserting examples of his own composition. Why his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is mere conjecture.
[Contents]3.The Dramas and their SourcesThe derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its clearest form. In theMadhyamavyāyoga9we have a reminiscence of the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit, though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore,[96]to spare the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however, time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing, accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy, and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece ends.Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of theDūtaghaṭotkaca, which may also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general type apparently is theKarṇabhārawhich deals with Karṇa’s armour; he makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma, though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled, for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In theŪrubhan̄gathe fight between Bhīma and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them; Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.These four plays have each but one Act; thePañcarātra, on the other hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a[97]Samavakāra, in so far at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a hundred10Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter. The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less Duryodhana decides to keep faith.TheDūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from theMahābhārata, but deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces; the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz11that this[98]fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art, and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this episode to be passed over.Of far greater importance is theBālacarita,12which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage, and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child, and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to purify himself from contact with the dead, but a spring of water shoots forth and renders labour needless. He takes the boy, but his weight proves too great. Now appear in the guise of herdsmen the weapons of Kṛṣṇa and his steed, who present themselves each with a verse, ‘I am the bird, Garuḍa,’ &c., ‘I am the discus’, ‘I the bow’, ‘I the club’, ‘I the conch’, and ‘I the sword’. At the request of the discus the infant consents to become light, and Nanda bears him away. Vasudeva finds the dead child awakened[99]to life in his arms, and the weight of it is oppressive, but the Yamunā once more gives dry passage, and he returns to Mathurā and Devakī. Act II opens with an entr’acte in Kaṅsa’s palace. The curse pronounced on him by the seer Madhuka enters, guised as a Caṇḍāla in hateful form with a necklace of skulls; he and his retinue of Caṇḍālīs force their way into the heart of the palace; the royal fortune, Rājaçrī, would bar their way, but the curse announces that it is Viṣṇu’s will that he enter, and she yields; the curse seizes then hold of Kaṅsa. The Act then presents Kaṅsa uneasy and distressed by the portents of the night; he summons his astrologer and his domestic priests, who warn him that the portents presage the birth of a god. Kaṅsa has Vasudeva summoned, is told of the birth of a daughter, refuses to spare the child, and hurls it against a rock. But part only of the lifeless body falls to earth; the rest rises to heaven, and the dread figure of the goddess Kārtyāyanī appears to the king. Her retinue come also, announcing each his advent with a verse, and declare their purpose to destroy Kaṅsa. In the meantime, in herdsmen’s guise they will go to the home of the child to share in the sports of the herdsmen.The entr’acte before Act III tells us in the mouths of the herdsmen of their joys since Kṛṣṇa came to live with them, and an old man relates in a long Prākrit speech his wonderful deeds, including the destruction of the demons, Pūtanā, Çakaṭa, Yamala and Arjuna, Pralamba, Dhenuka, and Keçin. We are told then that Kṛṣṇa or Dāmodara, the name won from an adventure, has gone to the Vṛndā wood for the Hallīçaka dance; the dance is performed by Dāmodara, his friends, and the maidens, to the music of the drum and to song. The advent of the demon Ariṣṭa is announced; Dāmodara bids the maidens and herdsmen mount a hill, and watch the struggle. It proves unequal; the bull demon recognizes the superiority of his foe, and that he is Viṣṇu himself, and meets death with resignation. The victory accomplished, the news is brought of a new danger, the snake Kāliya has appeared on the Yamunā bank, menacing cows and Brahmins. Act IV shows us the maidens seeking to restrain Kṛṣṇa from the new struggle, but he persists and overcomes the demon, plunging into the waters to grapple with him. He brings him out, learns that he had entered the waters in fear of Garuḍa[100]who slays snakes at pleasure, makes him promise to spare cows and Brahmins, and puts on him a mark that Garuḍa must respect. A herald then enters to challenge Dāmodara and his brother Balarāma to the festival of the boys at Mathurā.Act V shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the play.The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in theHarivaṅça,Viṣṇu, andBhāgavata Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in later tradition, is lacking here as in theHarivaṅçaand theViṣṇu Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.The merits of theBālacaritaare not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. ThePratimānāṭakashows us the death of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest; his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue (pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news, pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata[101]learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom; all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the play are matched by the six of theAbhiṣekanāṭaka,13the drama of the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, theRāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa. Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in incident is remarkable by its absence.A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived his story from the Kathā literature,14as is doubtless the case in theAvimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja, the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who, in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly; in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of the king of Kāçi, who[102]gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with the approval of all those connected with the pair.Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known to us, theBṛhatkathāof Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from Kashmir, is the subject of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,15styled in the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted.16The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha,17on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana18cites the end of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in theArthaçāstra,19a work which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.[103]TheSvapnavāsavadattā,20or theSvapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in substance the continuation of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache, and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down, sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s ends.The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the imitation of Harṣa in theRatnāvalī; Vāmana21cites from it, and Abhinavagupta22knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise, however, in a different vein is shown in theCārudatta, of which we have only a fragment in four[104]Acts without beginning or final verses. Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love. Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk. In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana23and another,24found also in theBālacarita25and theMṛcchakaṭikā,26is quoted by Daṇḍin in theKāvyādarça.27We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in theKāvyādarçaan allusion to the dream scene of theSvapnavāsavadattāand its sequel. TheDaridracārudattamentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of theMṛcchakaṭikā.28The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special developments given by Bhāsa.Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and confusion, it is probable that he may have written[105]further plays, or he may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited with writing,29by inserting examples of his own composition. Why his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is mere conjecture.
[Contents]3.The Dramas and their SourcesThe derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its clearest form. In theMadhyamavyāyoga9we have a reminiscence of the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit, though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore,[96]to spare the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however, time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing, accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy, and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece ends.Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of theDūtaghaṭotkaca, which may also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general type apparently is theKarṇabhārawhich deals with Karṇa’s armour; he makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma, though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled, for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In theŪrubhan̄gathe fight between Bhīma and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them; Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.These four plays have each but one Act; thePañcarātra, on the other hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a[97]Samavakāra, in so far at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a hundred10Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter. The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less Duryodhana decides to keep faith.TheDūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from theMahābhārata, but deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces; the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz11that this[98]fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art, and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this episode to be passed over.Of far greater importance is theBālacarita,12which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage, and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child, and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to purify himself from contact with the dead, but a spring of water shoots forth and renders labour needless. He takes the boy, but his weight proves too great. Now appear in the guise of herdsmen the weapons of Kṛṣṇa and his steed, who present themselves each with a verse, ‘I am the bird, Garuḍa,’ &c., ‘I am the discus’, ‘I the bow’, ‘I the club’, ‘I the conch’, and ‘I the sword’. At the request of the discus the infant consents to become light, and Nanda bears him away. Vasudeva finds the dead child awakened[99]to life in his arms, and the weight of it is oppressive, but the Yamunā once more gives dry passage, and he returns to Mathurā and Devakī. Act II opens with an entr’acte in Kaṅsa’s palace. The curse pronounced on him by the seer Madhuka enters, guised as a Caṇḍāla in hateful form with a necklace of skulls; he and his retinue of Caṇḍālīs force their way into the heart of the palace; the royal fortune, Rājaçrī, would bar their way, but the curse announces that it is Viṣṇu’s will that he enter, and she yields; the curse seizes then hold of Kaṅsa. The Act then presents Kaṅsa uneasy and distressed by the portents of the night; he summons his astrologer and his domestic priests, who warn him that the portents presage the birth of a god. Kaṅsa has Vasudeva summoned, is told of the birth of a daughter, refuses to spare the child, and hurls it against a rock. But part only of the lifeless body falls to earth; the rest rises to heaven, and the dread figure of the goddess Kārtyāyanī appears to the king. Her retinue come also, announcing each his advent with a verse, and declare their purpose to destroy Kaṅsa. In the meantime, in herdsmen’s guise they will go to the home of the child to share in the sports of the herdsmen.The entr’acte before Act III tells us in the mouths of the herdsmen of their joys since Kṛṣṇa came to live with them, and an old man relates in a long Prākrit speech his wonderful deeds, including the destruction of the demons, Pūtanā, Çakaṭa, Yamala and Arjuna, Pralamba, Dhenuka, and Keçin. We are told then that Kṛṣṇa or Dāmodara, the name won from an adventure, has gone to the Vṛndā wood for the Hallīçaka dance; the dance is performed by Dāmodara, his friends, and the maidens, to the music of the drum and to song. The advent of the demon Ariṣṭa is announced; Dāmodara bids the maidens and herdsmen mount a hill, and watch the struggle. It proves unequal; the bull demon recognizes the superiority of his foe, and that he is Viṣṇu himself, and meets death with resignation. The victory accomplished, the news is brought of a new danger, the snake Kāliya has appeared on the Yamunā bank, menacing cows and Brahmins. Act IV shows us the maidens seeking to restrain Kṛṣṇa from the new struggle, but he persists and overcomes the demon, plunging into the waters to grapple with him. He brings him out, learns that he had entered the waters in fear of Garuḍa[100]who slays snakes at pleasure, makes him promise to spare cows and Brahmins, and puts on him a mark that Garuḍa must respect. A herald then enters to challenge Dāmodara and his brother Balarāma to the festival of the boys at Mathurā.Act V shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the play.The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in theHarivaṅça,Viṣṇu, andBhāgavata Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in later tradition, is lacking here as in theHarivaṅçaand theViṣṇu Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.The merits of theBālacaritaare not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. ThePratimānāṭakashows us the death of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest; his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue (pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news, pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata[101]learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom; all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the play are matched by the six of theAbhiṣekanāṭaka,13the drama of the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, theRāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa. Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in incident is remarkable by its absence.A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived his story from the Kathā literature,14as is doubtless the case in theAvimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja, the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who, in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly; in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of the king of Kāçi, who[102]gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with the approval of all those connected with the pair.Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known to us, theBṛhatkathāof Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from Kashmir, is the subject of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,15styled in the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted.16The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha,17on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana18cites the end of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in theArthaçāstra,19a work which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.[103]TheSvapnavāsavadattā,20or theSvapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in substance the continuation of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache, and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down, sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s ends.The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the imitation of Harṣa in theRatnāvalī; Vāmana21cites from it, and Abhinavagupta22knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise, however, in a different vein is shown in theCārudatta, of which we have only a fragment in four[104]Acts without beginning or final verses. Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love. Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk. In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana23and another,24found also in theBālacarita25and theMṛcchakaṭikā,26is quoted by Daṇḍin in theKāvyādarça.27We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in theKāvyādarçaan allusion to the dream scene of theSvapnavāsavadattāand its sequel. TheDaridracārudattamentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of theMṛcchakaṭikā.28The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special developments given by Bhāsa.Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and confusion, it is probable that he may have written[105]further plays, or he may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited with writing,29by inserting examples of his own composition. Why his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is mere conjecture.
3.The Dramas and their Sources
The derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its clearest form. In theMadhyamavyāyoga9we have a reminiscence of the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit, though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore,[96]to spare the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however, time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing, accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy, and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece ends.Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of theDūtaghaṭotkaca, which may also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general type apparently is theKarṇabhārawhich deals with Karṇa’s armour; he makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma, though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled, for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In theŪrubhan̄gathe fight between Bhīma and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them; Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.These four plays have each but one Act; thePañcarātra, on the other hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a[97]Samavakāra, in so far at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a hundred10Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter. The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less Duryodhana decides to keep faith.TheDūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from theMahābhārata, but deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces; the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz11that this[98]fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art, and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this episode to be passed over.Of far greater importance is theBālacarita,12which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage, and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child, and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to purify himself from contact with the dead, but a spring of water shoots forth and renders labour needless. He takes the boy, but his weight proves too great. Now appear in the guise of herdsmen the weapons of Kṛṣṇa and his steed, who present themselves each with a verse, ‘I am the bird, Garuḍa,’ &c., ‘I am the discus’, ‘I the bow’, ‘I the club’, ‘I the conch’, and ‘I the sword’. At the request of the discus the infant consents to become light, and Nanda bears him away. Vasudeva finds the dead child awakened[99]to life in his arms, and the weight of it is oppressive, but the Yamunā once more gives dry passage, and he returns to Mathurā and Devakī. Act II opens with an entr’acte in Kaṅsa’s palace. The curse pronounced on him by the seer Madhuka enters, guised as a Caṇḍāla in hateful form with a necklace of skulls; he and his retinue of Caṇḍālīs force their way into the heart of the palace; the royal fortune, Rājaçrī, would bar their way, but the curse announces that it is Viṣṇu’s will that he enter, and she yields; the curse seizes then hold of Kaṅsa. The Act then presents Kaṅsa uneasy and distressed by the portents of the night; he summons his astrologer and his domestic priests, who warn him that the portents presage the birth of a god. Kaṅsa has Vasudeva summoned, is told of the birth of a daughter, refuses to spare the child, and hurls it against a rock. But part only of the lifeless body falls to earth; the rest rises to heaven, and the dread figure of the goddess Kārtyāyanī appears to the king. Her retinue come also, announcing each his advent with a verse, and declare their purpose to destroy Kaṅsa. In the meantime, in herdsmen’s guise they will go to the home of the child to share in the sports of the herdsmen.The entr’acte before Act III tells us in the mouths of the herdsmen of their joys since Kṛṣṇa came to live with them, and an old man relates in a long Prākrit speech his wonderful deeds, including the destruction of the demons, Pūtanā, Çakaṭa, Yamala and Arjuna, Pralamba, Dhenuka, and Keçin. We are told then that Kṛṣṇa or Dāmodara, the name won from an adventure, has gone to the Vṛndā wood for the Hallīçaka dance; the dance is performed by Dāmodara, his friends, and the maidens, to the music of the drum and to song. The advent of the demon Ariṣṭa is announced; Dāmodara bids the maidens and herdsmen mount a hill, and watch the struggle. It proves unequal; the bull demon recognizes the superiority of his foe, and that he is Viṣṇu himself, and meets death with resignation. The victory accomplished, the news is brought of a new danger, the snake Kāliya has appeared on the Yamunā bank, menacing cows and Brahmins. Act IV shows us the maidens seeking to restrain Kṛṣṇa from the new struggle, but he persists and overcomes the demon, plunging into the waters to grapple with him. He brings him out, learns that he had entered the waters in fear of Garuḍa[100]who slays snakes at pleasure, makes him promise to spare cows and Brahmins, and puts on him a mark that Garuḍa must respect. A herald then enters to challenge Dāmodara and his brother Balarāma to the festival of the boys at Mathurā.Act V shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the play.The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in theHarivaṅça,Viṣṇu, andBhāgavata Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in later tradition, is lacking here as in theHarivaṅçaand theViṣṇu Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.The merits of theBālacaritaare not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. ThePratimānāṭakashows us the death of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest; his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue (pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news, pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata[101]learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom; all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the play are matched by the six of theAbhiṣekanāṭaka,13the drama of the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, theRāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa. Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in incident is remarkable by its absence.A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived his story from the Kathā literature,14as is doubtless the case in theAvimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja, the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who, in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly; in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of the king of Kāçi, who[102]gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with the approval of all those connected with the pair.Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known to us, theBṛhatkathāof Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from Kashmir, is the subject of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,15styled in the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted.16The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha,17on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana18cites the end of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in theArthaçāstra,19a work which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.[103]TheSvapnavāsavadattā,20or theSvapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in substance the continuation of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache, and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down, sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s ends.The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the imitation of Harṣa in theRatnāvalī; Vāmana21cites from it, and Abhinavagupta22knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise, however, in a different vein is shown in theCārudatta, of which we have only a fragment in four[104]Acts without beginning or final verses. Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love. Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk. In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana23and another,24found also in theBālacarita25and theMṛcchakaṭikā,26is quoted by Daṇḍin in theKāvyādarça.27We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in theKāvyādarçaan allusion to the dream scene of theSvapnavāsavadattāand its sequel. TheDaridracārudattamentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of theMṛcchakaṭikā.28The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special developments given by Bhāsa.Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and confusion, it is probable that he may have written[105]further plays, or he may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited with writing,29by inserting examples of his own composition. Why his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is mere conjecture.
The derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its clearest form. In theMadhyamavyāyoga9we have a reminiscence of the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit, though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore,[96]to spare the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however, time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing, accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy, and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece ends.
Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of theDūtaghaṭotkaca, which may also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general type apparently is theKarṇabhārawhich deals with Karṇa’s armour; he makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma, though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled, for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In theŪrubhan̄gathe fight between Bhīma and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them; Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.
These four plays have each but one Act; thePañcarātra, on the other hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a[97]Samavakāra, in so far at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a hundred10Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter. The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less Duryodhana decides to keep faith.
TheDūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from theMahābhārata, but deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces; the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz11that this[98]fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art, and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this episode to be passed over.
Of far greater importance is theBālacarita,12which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage, and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child, and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to purify himself from contact with the dead, but a spring of water shoots forth and renders labour needless. He takes the boy, but his weight proves too great. Now appear in the guise of herdsmen the weapons of Kṛṣṇa and his steed, who present themselves each with a verse, ‘I am the bird, Garuḍa,’ &c., ‘I am the discus’, ‘I the bow’, ‘I the club’, ‘I the conch’, and ‘I the sword’. At the request of the discus the infant consents to become light, and Nanda bears him away. Vasudeva finds the dead child awakened[99]to life in his arms, and the weight of it is oppressive, but the Yamunā once more gives dry passage, and he returns to Mathurā and Devakī. Act II opens with an entr’acte in Kaṅsa’s palace. The curse pronounced on him by the seer Madhuka enters, guised as a Caṇḍāla in hateful form with a necklace of skulls; he and his retinue of Caṇḍālīs force their way into the heart of the palace; the royal fortune, Rājaçrī, would bar their way, but the curse announces that it is Viṣṇu’s will that he enter, and she yields; the curse seizes then hold of Kaṅsa. The Act then presents Kaṅsa uneasy and distressed by the portents of the night; he summons his astrologer and his domestic priests, who warn him that the portents presage the birth of a god. Kaṅsa has Vasudeva summoned, is told of the birth of a daughter, refuses to spare the child, and hurls it against a rock. But part only of the lifeless body falls to earth; the rest rises to heaven, and the dread figure of the goddess Kārtyāyanī appears to the king. Her retinue come also, announcing each his advent with a verse, and declare their purpose to destroy Kaṅsa. In the meantime, in herdsmen’s guise they will go to the home of the child to share in the sports of the herdsmen.
The entr’acte before Act III tells us in the mouths of the herdsmen of their joys since Kṛṣṇa came to live with them, and an old man relates in a long Prākrit speech his wonderful deeds, including the destruction of the demons, Pūtanā, Çakaṭa, Yamala and Arjuna, Pralamba, Dhenuka, and Keçin. We are told then that Kṛṣṇa or Dāmodara, the name won from an adventure, has gone to the Vṛndā wood for the Hallīçaka dance; the dance is performed by Dāmodara, his friends, and the maidens, to the music of the drum and to song. The advent of the demon Ariṣṭa is announced; Dāmodara bids the maidens and herdsmen mount a hill, and watch the struggle. It proves unequal; the bull demon recognizes the superiority of his foe, and that he is Viṣṇu himself, and meets death with resignation. The victory accomplished, the news is brought of a new danger, the snake Kāliya has appeared on the Yamunā bank, menacing cows and Brahmins. Act IV shows us the maidens seeking to restrain Kṛṣṇa from the new struggle, but he persists and overcomes the demon, plunging into the waters to grapple with him. He brings him out, learns that he had entered the waters in fear of Garuḍa[100]who slays snakes at pleasure, makes him promise to spare cows and Brahmins, and puts on him a mark that Garuḍa must respect. A herald then enters to challenge Dāmodara and his brother Balarāma to the festival of the boys at Mathurā.
Act V shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the play.
The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in theHarivaṅça,Viṣṇu, andBhāgavata Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in later tradition, is lacking here as in theHarivaṅçaand theViṣṇu Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.
The merits of theBālacaritaare not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. ThePratimānāṭakashows us the death of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest; his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue (pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news, pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata[101]learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom; all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the play are matched by the six of theAbhiṣekanāṭaka,13the drama of the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, theRāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa. Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in incident is remarkable by its absence.
A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived his story from the Kathā literature,14as is doubtless the case in theAvimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja, the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who, in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly; in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of the king of Kāçi, who[102]gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with the approval of all those connected with the pair.
Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known to us, theBṛhatkathāof Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from Kashmir, is the subject of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa,15styled in the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted.16
The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha,17on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana18cites the end of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in theArthaçāstra,19a work which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.[103]
TheSvapnavāsavadattā,20or theSvapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in substance the continuation of thePratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache, and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down, sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s ends.
The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the imitation of Harṣa in theRatnāvalī; Vāmana21cites from it, and Abhinavagupta22knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise, however, in a different vein is shown in theCārudatta, of which we have only a fragment in four[104]Acts without beginning or final verses. Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love. Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk. In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.
A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana23and another,24found also in theBālacarita25and theMṛcchakaṭikā,26is quoted by Daṇḍin in theKāvyādarça.27We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in theKāvyādarçaan allusion to the dream scene of theSvapnavāsavadattāand its sequel. TheDaridracārudattamentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of theMṛcchakaṭikā.28The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special developments given by Bhāsa.
Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and confusion, it is probable that he may have written[105]further plays, or he may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited with writing,29by inserting examples of his own composition. Why his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is mere conjecture.