I

[Contents]IDRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN VEDIC LITERATURE[Contents]1.The Indian Tradition of the Origin of the DramaIndian tradition, preserved in theNāṭyaçāstra,1the oldest of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin, and a close connexion with the sacred Vedas themselves. The golden age had no need for such amusements: ignorant of all pain, the sorrow, which is as essential to the art as joy itself, was inconceivable. The creation of the new form of literature was reserved to the silver age, when the gods approached the all-father and bade him produce something to give pleasure to the ears and eyes alike, a fifth Veda which, unlike the other four, would not be the jealous preserve of the three twice-born castes, but might be shared by the Çūdras also. Brahmā gave ear to the pleading, and designed to fashion a Veda in which tradition (itihāsa) should be combined with instruction in all the ends of men. To accomplish his task he took from theṚgvedathe element of recitation, from theSāmavedasong, from theYajurvedathe mimetic art, and from theAtharvavedasentiment. Then he bade Viçvakarman, the divine architect, build a playhouse in which the sage Bharata was instructed to carry into practice the art thus created. The gods accepted with joy the new creation; Çiva contributed to it the Tāṇḍava dance, expressing violent emotion, Pārvatī, his spouse, the tender and voluptuous Lāsya, while Viṣṇu was responsible for the invention of the four dramatic styles, essential to the effect of any play. To Bharata fell the duty of transferring to earth this celestial Veda in the inferior and truncated form of theNāṭyaçāstra.The legend is interesting for its determination to secure the[13]participation of every member of the Hindu Trinity in the creation of the new art, and for its effort to claim that the fifth Veda of tradition was the Veda of the dramatic art. The older tradition, recorded and exploited by the epic,2recognizes as the fifth Veda the mass of traditions, and theNāṭyaçāstratacitly concedes this by representing theNāṭyavedaas including these traditions. The legend, therefore, is not of great antiquity, nor need we place it long before the compilation of theNāṭyaçāstraitself. The date of that text is uncertain, but we cannot with any assurance place it before the third centuryA.D.With the Indian tendency to find divine origins, it may well be that the tradition existed much earlier, but in the absence of any corroboration that must remain a mere hypothesis, for which no conclusive ground can be adduced. What is important is that none of the theorists on the drama appeal to any Vedic texts as representing dramas, whence it is natural to draw the conclusion that there was no Indian tradition extant in their time which pointed to the preservation among the sacred texts of dramas. Indeed, if it were worth while, the conclusion might legitimately be drawn that the absence of any drama in the Vedic literature was recognized, since it was necessary for the gods to ask Brahmā to create a completely new type of literature, suitable for an age posterior to that in which the Vedas already existed.[Contents]2.The Dialogues of the VedaThe silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because there do exist in theṚgvedaitself a number of hymns which are obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by early Indian tradition.3The number of such hymns is uncertain, for it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate;[14]the poet, with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply. Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā, and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28; and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi, and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108). The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii. 33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii. 33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with the assertion that[15]the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence, is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may be suspected even where it is not essential.Now it is clear that the tradition of the ritual literature did not know what to make of the dialogues of theṚgveda. The genre of composition was one which died out in the later Vedic age; it is significant that theAtharvavedaknows but one hymn of that type (v. 11) in which the priest, Atharvan, begs the god for the payment due, a cow; the god is little inclined to accord his prayer, but finally is induced to relent and to add to the guerdon due the promise of eternal friendship. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, if we find that Yāska and Çaunaka in the fifth centuryB.C.were at variance as to whether the hymn x. 95 was a dialogue, as the former held, or a mere legend, as the latter believed.4In the commentary of Sāyaṇa we find that the tradition was unable to ascribe any ritual use for nearly all the hymns; the case of x. 86 is an exception, but it is significant that that hymn has little of a true dialogue, the three speakers rather uttering enigmas than conversing, and it was therefore easier to fit it into the inconspicuous part it occupies in the later ritual. We must, therefore, admit that we have in these dialogues the remnant of a style of poetry which died out in the later Vedic period.Its original purpose is obscure, but a very interesting suggestion was made in 1869 by Max Müller in connexion with his version ofṚgvedai. 165.5He conjectured that the ‘dialogue was repeated at sacrifices in honour of the Maruts or that possibly it was acted by two parties, one representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers’. In 1890 the suggestion was repeated with approval by Professor Lévi,6who added to it the argument that theSāmavedashows that the art of music had been fully developed by the Vedic age. Moreover theṚgveda7already knows maidens who, decked in splendid raiment, dance and attract lovers, and theAtharvaveda8tells[16]how men dance and sing to music. There is, therefore,a priorino fatal objection to assuming that the period of theṚgvedaknew dramatic spectacles, religious in character, in which the priests assumed the rôles of gods and sages in order to imitate on earth the events of the heavens.The logical consequence of this doctrine is seen in Professor von Schroeder’s elaborate theory9that the dialogue hymns, and also certain monologues, for instance x. 119, in which Indra appears as glorifying himself in the intoxication of his favourite Soma drink, are relics of Vedic mysteries, an inheritance in germ from Indo-European times. Ethnology shows us the close relation of music, dance, and drama among many peoples, and the curious phenomenon that Vedic religion knows of gods as dancers cannot be explained satisfactorily save on the assumption that the priests were used to see performed ritual dances, in themselves imitations of the cosmic dance in which the world was, on one view, created. Such dances partake of the nature of sympathetic magic, and they have an obvious parallel in the great sacrificial rites, which in the Brāhmaṇa period are undertaken in order to represent on earth the cosmic creation. It is true that we do not find in theṚgvedathe phallic dances which in Greece and Mexico alike are held to be closely connected with the origin of drama, but that was because the priests of theṚgvedawere in many respects austere, and disapproved of phallic deities of any kind. The dramas of the ritual, therefore, are in a sense somewhat out of the main line of the development of the drama; the popular side has survived through the ages in a rough way in the Yātrās well known in the literature of Bengal, while the refined and sacerdotalized Vedic drama passed away without a direct descendant.Independent support for the view of the dialogues as mystery playsin nuceis given by Dr. Hertel,10whose argument is largely based on the doctrine that the Vedic hymns were always sung, and that in singing it would have been impossible for a single singer to make the necessary distinction between the different speakers, which would have been possible if the hymns had not[17]been sung. The hymns, therefore, represent the beginnings of a dramatic art, which may be compared with the form of theGītagovinda.11But, what is more important, he seeks to find an actual drama on an extended scale in theSuparṇādhyāya,12a curious and comparatively late Vedic text. In his view, accordingly, the Vedic drama does not stand isolated; it is seen in theṚgvedaonly in its beginnings; theSuparṇādhyāyadisplays it en route to further development, and in the Yātrās we can see a continuation of the old type, which aids us in following the growth from the Vedic drama of the classical drama of India. In this regard there is a distinct divergence of view between the two supporters of the dramatic theory, for Professor von Schroeder regards the Yātrās as genuinely connected with the later drama, being developed in close connexion with the cult of Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa and Rudra-Çiva, but as representing a different development from the same root as the Vedic dialogues. Of this other side of the drama he finds hints in the traditional connexion of the Gandharvas and Apsarases with the drama, for these in his view are essentially phallic deities.There is, of course, no doubt of the possibility of the dialogues really representing portions of the old ritual in which the priests assumed the character of gods or demons, for there are abundant parallels for such a supposition. But there is no sufficient ground to compel us to seek for such an explanation of these hymns; that theṚgvedacontains nothing save what is connected with ritual is a postulate which is not made by the Indians themselves, and has no justification save in the desire for symmetry. On the contrary, it is perfectly legitimate and much more natural to regard theṚgvedaas a collection of hymns, in the vast majority of cases of ritual origin, but including some more secular poetry, to which genus alone can we reasonably attribute the battle hymns of Viçvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha. The fact that such hymns disappear in the later Vedic literature is then natural, for that literature represents unquestionably hymns collected definitely for ritual uses, and therefore nothing was admitted which could not be employed therein. To assume, therefore, that a ritual explanation must[18]be found, and to find it in ritual drama is illegitimate, and the only justification for accepting the view in any case must lie in the fact that it affords a better explanation of the hymn than any which can be given otherwise.It is impossible to feel any certainty that the necessary proof has been brought in any case. The hymn ix. 112, which describes in four stanzas in a rather humorous style the various ends of men, ending with the refrain in each case, ‘O Soma, flow for Indra’, is transformed into the marching song of a popular festival at which mummers represent vegetation deities and symbols of fertility are carried. The tradition knows nothing of these happenings, and the hymn certainly suggests none to the average intelligence. On the contrary, it seems a very natural piece of witty sarcasm, to which point is lent by the use of the refrain, and to deny the possibility of sarcasm to the thinkers who produce the advanced and sceptical views expressed in theṚgvedais certainly unwise.13To explain the Vṛṣākapi hymn (x. 86) as a piece of fertility magic in dramatic form is ingenious, but unluckily it in no way contributes towards the explanation of the hymn, and, therefore, is as valueless as the other possible explanations which have been offered. The same condemnation must be passed on the effort to find a mimic race at a festival described in the strange Mudgala hymn (x. 102) which if it is intelligible at all, seems to have a mythological reference, and not to refer either to actual or mimic races.An ingenious effort is that made to adduce ethnological parallels to prove that the hymn x. 119, which is a straightforward monologue, placed in the mouth of Indra, celebrating the effect of drinking the Soma, must be regarded as part of a ritual in which at the close of the drinking of the Soma in the rite, a priest comes forward, assuming the rôle of Indra, and celebrates in monologue the strength of the juice of the holy plant.Among the Cora Indians, after a wine festival, a god is introduced showing the effects of the drink, while a singer celebrates its potent merits. There is, however, a fatal hiatus in the proof; the poem by itself is perfectly clear, and to seek[19]for an explanation so far-fetched is idle expenditure of energy. The same condemnation must be expressed of the effort to find in the frog hymn (vii. 103) a song sung by men masked as frogs, dancing as a spell to secure rain. If we grant that the hymn is really intended as a rain spell, which is moderately probable though not proved, it needs no further explanation whatever, and, if we do not accept this suggestion but adopt the older view that it satyrizes in an amusing way the antics of certain performers of the ritual, the character of the hymn as a fertility spell vanishes at once. The errors of method are seen excellently in the fantastic conclusion that the gambler’s hymn (x. 34), in which a gambler deplores the fatal love for the dice which has led to his reducing even his beloved wife to ruin, is a dramatic monologue in which dancers represent the leaping and falling dice. The dialogue of Yama and Yamī reduces itself to a fertility drama, from which the prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by two different parties, and thus was a ritual dramain nuce; what is certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x. 86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative14of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are to hold that we[20]have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel’s arguments from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be inclined to admita priorithat the song would tend to be accompanied by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to development. But we do not know that the hymns of theṚgvedawere always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that, while the verses of theSāmavedawere sung (gai), the verses of theṚgvedawere recited (çaṅs). True, we do not have precise information of the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns were used. We find in theṚgvedaa number of philosophic hymns; why should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately following the disposal of the dead, and[21]that during the pauses in the great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may legitimately assume that in theṚgvedawe have hymns of other than directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler’s hymn cannot by any reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual.15It is also impossible to accept the view that the Vedic drama died out under the chilling effect of the disapproval of the priests of fertility ritual. We find, on the contrary, that fertility ritual is fully recognized later in the Mahāvrata ceremonial, and also in the horse sacrifice, which are both known to the other Vedic Saṁhitās, though this feature of the rite is not referred to, directly at least, in theṚgveda. Moreover, even if the disapproval of fertility rites had been real, why should it have brought to a close the drama? The dialogues of Agni and the gods, of Saramā and the Paṇis, of Varuṇa and Indra, of Indra and the singer—and perhaps Vāyu also (viii. 100), have no connexion with fertility, and this aspect of drama need not have perished. Dr. Hertel is certainly right in demanding traces of development, not of decadence, but his great effort to find a full drama in theSuparṇādhyāyamust definitely be pronounced a failure. It involves an elaborate invention of stage directions, the preparation of a list ofdramatis personaelargely on the basis of imagination, and a translation of the piece based on this theory, which can be shown in detail to be open to the certainty of error. Add to this the fact that there is no hint in Indian tradition that theSuparṇādhyāya, on the face of it a late imitation of Vedic work proper, had ever any dramatic intention or use.A very different theory of the purpose of these hymns is that which we owe to Professors Windisch,16Oldenberg,17and Pischel.18They represent an old type, Indo-European in antiquity, of composition of epic character, in which the verses, representing the points of highest emotion, were preserved, and the connecting links were in prose which was not stereotyped, and therefore[22]has not come down to us. The theory is capable of combination with the suggestion that these hymns in dialogue were dramatic; thus Prof. Pischel explained the combination of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama as a relic of this early form of literature, which thus might serve both epic and dramatic ends.19Despite the considerable vogue which the theory has at one time or other attained, and the energetic defence of it by Professor Oldenberg, who has based upon it an elaborate theory of the development of Indian prose, it is doubtful whether we can accept the view.20It is a very real difficulty here also that the tradition shows no trace of knowledge of this characteristic of the hymns, and we do not find any work actually in this form in the whole of the Vedic literature. The alleged instances of this type, such as those of the tale of Çunaḥçepa in theAitareya Brāhmaṇa, or the working up in theÇatapatha Brāhmaṇaof the legend of Purūravas and Urvaçī cannot possibly be made to fit the theory. In the latter case we have a tale, which manifestly does not agree with the verses of theṚgveda, and which is openly and obviously an attempt to work that hymn into the explanation of the ritual; in the former we have the use of gnomic verses to illustrate a theme, a form of literature which is preserved through the history of Sanskrit prose, and portions of a verse narrative. The true type, verses used at the point of emotion, especially, therefore, to give the vital speeches and replies, is thus not represented by any text of the Vedic literature. Whether it ever existed at all in the sense postulated by the theory, whether there are traces of it in thePāliJātakas, or whether its existence even there is a misunderstanding, are questions which are not in vital connexion with the origin of Sanskrit drama, and may, therefore, here be left undiscussed. One consideration, however, is germane; if it were necessary to explain the Vedic dialogues by this theory, it would certainly be possible to do so far more effectively and simply than by the theory of their being the remains of ritual dramas. The most serious objection to both theories is that they are not really necessary. Professor Geldner21who formerly patronized[23]the theory of Oldenberg has sought to explain the hymns in question as ballads.22Nor of course is it necessary to make any use of this theory in order to explain the mixture of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama. The use of prose needs no defence or explanation; that of verse is what was essentially to be expected, in view of the importance of song as a form of amusement as well as in worship both in Vedic times and later, and of the fact that our extant dramas draw so largely on epic tradition, preserved in versified texts. Nothing indeed is more noteworthy in Sanskrit literature than the determination to turn everything, law, astronomy, architecture, rhetoric, even philosophy into a metrical form. The theorists on the drama give no suggestion that the prose was regarded as any less fixed in character than the verses, or that it was not the duty of the author of the drama to be as careful in preparing the one as the other, and the manuscript tradition of the drama does not hint at any distinction of the two elements as regards source.[Contents]3.Dramatic Elements in Vedic RitualWhen we leave out of account the enigmatic dialogues of theṚgvedawe can see that the Vedic ritual contained within itself the germs of drama, as is the case with practically every primitive form of worship. The ritual did not consist merely of the singing of songs or recitations in honour of the gods; it involved a complex round of ceremonies in some of which there was undoubtedly present the element of dramatic representation; that is the performers of the rites assumed for the time being personalities other than their own. There is an interesting instance of this in the ritual of the Soma purchase for the Soma sacrifice. The seller is in some versions at the close of the ceremony deprived of his price, and beaten or pelted with clods. Now there can be no doubt that we have here, not a reflex of a disapproval of trafficking in Soma, but a mimic account of the obtaining of Soma from its guardians the Gandharvas, and there is some truth in the comparison drawn[24]between the Çūdra who plays therôleof the mishandled seller and the much misused Devil of the mediaeval mystery plays.23But we must not exaggerate the amount of representation; it falls very far short of an approach to drama, a point which is overlooked by Professor von Schroeder throughout his discussions. A drama proper can only be said to come into being when the actors perform parts deliberately for the sake of the performance, to give pleasure to themselves and others, if not profit also; if a ritual includes elements of representation, the aim is not the representation, but the actors are seeking a direct religious or magic result. It would be absurd, for instance, to treat the identification in the marriage ritual of the husband and wife with the sky and the earth as in any sense dramatic or to see any drama in the performance of the royal consecration, which is based carefully on the divine consecration of Indra, doubtless in the view that thus the king was for the time being identified with the great god, and so acquired some measure of his prowess.In the Mahāvrata24we find elements which are of importance as indicating the materials from which the drama might develop. The Mahāvrata is plainly a rite intended to strengthen at the winter solstice the sun, so that it may resume its vigour and make fruitful the earth. Now an essential part of the rite is a struggle between a Vaiçya, whose colour is to be white, and a Çūdra, black in colour, over a round white skin, which ultimately falls to the victorious Vaiçya. It is impossible, without ignoring the obvious nature of this rite, not to see in it a mimic contest to gain the sun, the power of light, the Aryan, striving against that of darkness, the Çūdra. In the face of the ethnological parallels it is impossible also to sever this episode from the numerous forms of the contest of summer and winter, the first represented by the white Aryan, the second by the dark Çūdra. We have in fact a primitive dramatic ritual, and one which it may be added was popular throughout the Vedic age. The same ceremony is also marked by a curious episode; a Brahmin student and a hetaera are introduced as engaged in coarse abuse of each other, and in the older form of the ritual[25]we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable. The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at producing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse, in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated.25There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable certainty that no drama was known. In theYajurvedawe have long lists of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation, and the term Naṭa, which is normally the designation of the actor in the later literature is unknown. We find but one term26which later ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity.Professor Hillebrandt,27on the other hand, is satisfied that we have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow28insists that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have known dialogue, abusive conversation and blows, but of which the chief parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in theKauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa29as the arts, but of which thePāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra30disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Naṭa,31whose activity belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the Puruṣamedha sections of the[26]Yajurveda, where in the imaginary sacrifice of men the imagination of the Brahmins appears to have laboured to enumerate every form of human activity. But in the absence of any proof that secular pantomime is older than religious throughout the world, and in the absence of anything to indicate that it was so in the case of India, it seems quite impossible to accept Professor Konow’s suggested origin of drama.Of other elements which enter into drama we find the songs of theSāmaveda, and the use of ceremonial dances. Thus at the Mahāvrata maidens dance round the fire as a spell to bring down rain for the crops, and to secure the prosperity of the herds. Before the marriage ceremony is completed32there is a dance of matrons whose husbands are still alive, obviously to secure that the marriage shall endure and be fruitful. When a death takes place, and the ashes of the deceased are collected, to be laid away, the mourners move round the vase which contains the last relics of the dead, and dancers are present who dance to the sound of the lute and the flute; dance, music, and song fill the whole day of mourning.33Dancing is closely associated throughout the history of the Indian theatre with the drama, and in the ritual of Çiva and Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa it has an important part. Hence the doctrine which has the approval of Professor Oldenberg34and which finds the origin of drama in the sacred dance, a dance, of course, accompanied by gesture ofpantomimiccharacter; combined with song, and later enriched by dialogue, this would give rise to the drama. If we further accept the view that the dialogue in prose was added from the ritual element seen in the abuse at the horse sacrifice and the Mahāvrata, then within the Vedic ritual we may discern all the elements for the growth of drama present.In this sense we may speak of the drama as having its origin in the Vedic period, but it may be doubted whether anything is gained by such a proposition. Unless the hymns of theṚgvedapresent us with real drama, which is most implausible, we have not the slightest evidence that the essential synthesis of elements and development of plot, which constitute a true[27]drama, were made in the Vedic age. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it was through the use of epic recitations that the latent possibilities of drama were evoked, and the literary form created. One very important point in this regard has certainly often been neglected. The Sanskrit drama does not consist, as the theory suggests, of song and prose as its vital elements; the vast majority of the stanzas, which are one of its chief features, were recited, not sung, and it was doubtless from the epic that the practice of recitation was in the main derived. Professor Oldenberg35admits in fact the great importance of the epic on the development of drama, but it may be more accurate to say that without epic recitation there would and could have been no drama at all. Assuredly we have no clear proof of such a thing as drama existing until later than we have assurance of the recitation of epic passages by Granthikas, as will be seen below.[28]1i. 2 ff.↑2Hopkins,Great Epic of India, pp. 7, 10, 53.↑3Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.↑4Sieg,Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, p. 27.↑5SBE. xxxii. 182 f.↑6TI. i. 307 f.↑7i. 92. 4.↑8xii. 1. 41.↑9Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda(1908); VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.; xxiii. 1 ff., 270 f.↑10VOJ. xviii. 59 ff., 137 ff.; xxiii. 273 ff.; xxiv. 117 ff. Cf. Charpentier, VOJ. xxiii. 33 ff.;Die Suparṇasage(1922) is somewhat confused and uncritical.↑11See ch. xi., § 9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 130 f.↑12See also Jarl Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage(Uppsala, 1922).↑13This is quite consistent with the ritual use in a Soma ‘wish’ offering suggested by Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, pp. 79 ff. Cf. his remarks on vii. 103 inṚgveda-Noten, ii. 67.↑14Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4.↑15Keith, JRAS. 1911, p. 1006.↑16Cf.Sansk. Phil. pp. 404 ff.↑17ZDMG. xxxvii. 54 ff.; xxxix. 52 ff.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 ff.; GN. 1911, pp. 441 ff.;Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa(1917), pp. 53 ff.;Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.↑18VS. ii. 42 ff. GGA. 1891, pp. 351 ff.↑19Compare Oldenberg,Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241.↑20See Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.; 1912, pp. 429 ff.;Rigveda Brāhmaṇas, pp. 68 ff.↑21Die indische Balladendichtung(1913). Cf. G. M. Miller,The Popular Ballad(1905).↑22The existence of this type in the Epic is certainly most improbable, and in the Jātakas it is not frequent; cf. Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage, and Winternitz’s admissions, GIL. ii. 368 with Oldenberg, GN. 1918, pp. 429 ff.; 1919, pp. 61 ff.↑23Hillebrandt,Ved. Myth., i. 69 ff.↑24Keith,Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, pp. 72 ff.↑25Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv.↑26VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2.↑27AID. pp. 22 f.↑28ID. pp. 42 ff.↑29xxix. 5.↑30ii. 7. 3.↑31The Prākritic form of the term as opposed to Vedicnṛtuandnṛttais legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious dancing gave a factor to drama.↑32Çān̄khāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, i. 11. 5.↑33Caland,Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, pp. 138 ff.↑34Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 237; Macdonell,Sanskrit Literature, p. 347.↑35Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241. In Mexico we have the material of a ritual drama (K. Th. Preuss,Archiv für Anthropologie, 1904, pp. 158 ff.), but not the epic element.↑

[Contents]IDRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN VEDIC LITERATURE[Contents]1.The Indian Tradition of the Origin of the DramaIndian tradition, preserved in theNāṭyaçāstra,1the oldest of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin, and a close connexion with the sacred Vedas themselves. The golden age had no need for such amusements: ignorant of all pain, the sorrow, which is as essential to the art as joy itself, was inconceivable. The creation of the new form of literature was reserved to the silver age, when the gods approached the all-father and bade him produce something to give pleasure to the ears and eyes alike, a fifth Veda which, unlike the other four, would not be the jealous preserve of the three twice-born castes, but might be shared by the Çūdras also. Brahmā gave ear to the pleading, and designed to fashion a Veda in which tradition (itihāsa) should be combined with instruction in all the ends of men. To accomplish his task he took from theṚgvedathe element of recitation, from theSāmavedasong, from theYajurvedathe mimetic art, and from theAtharvavedasentiment. Then he bade Viçvakarman, the divine architect, build a playhouse in which the sage Bharata was instructed to carry into practice the art thus created. The gods accepted with joy the new creation; Çiva contributed to it the Tāṇḍava dance, expressing violent emotion, Pārvatī, his spouse, the tender and voluptuous Lāsya, while Viṣṇu was responsible for the invention of the four dramatic styles, essential to the effect of any play. To Bharata fell the duty of transferring to earth this celestial Veda in the inferior and truncated form of theNāṭyaçāstra.The legend is interesting for its determination to secure the[13]participation of every member of the Hindu Trinity in the creation of the new art, and for its effort to claim that the fifth Veda of tradition was the Veda of the dramatic art. The older tradition, recorded and exploited by the epic,2recognizes as the fifth Veda the mass of traditions, and theNāṭyaçāstratacitly concedes this by representing theNāṭyavedaas including these traditions. The legend, therefore, is not of great antiquity, nor need we place it long before the compilation of theNāṭyaçāstraitself. The date of that text is uncertain, but we cannot with any assurance place it before the third centuryA.D.With the Indian tendency to find divine origins, it may well be that the tradition existed much earlier, but in the absence of any corroboration that must remain a mere hypothesis, for which no conclusive ground can be adduced. What is important is that none of the theorists on the drama appeal to any Vedic texts as representing dramas, whence it is natural to draw the conclusion that there was no Indian tradition extant in their time which pointed to the preservation among the sacred texts of dramas. Indeed, if it were worth while, the conclusion might legitimately be drawn that the absence of any drama in the Vedic literature was recognized, since it was necessary for the gods to ask Brahmā to create a completely new type of literature, suitable for an age posterior to that in which the Vedas already existed.[Contents]2.The Dialogues of the VedaThe silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because there do exist in theṚgvedaitself a number of hymns which are obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by early Indian tradition.3The number of such hymns is uncertain, for it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate;[14]the poet, with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply. Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā, and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28; and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi, and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108). The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii. 33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii. 33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with the assertion that[15]the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence, is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may be suspected even where it is not essential.Now it is clear that the tradition of the ritual literature did not know what to make of the dialogues of theṚgveda. The genre of composition was one which died out in the later Vedic age; it is significant that theAtharvavedaknows but one hymn of that type (v. 11) in which the priest, Atharvan, begs the god for the payment due, a cow; the god is little inclined to accord his prayer, but finally is induced to relent and to add to the guerdon due the promise of eternal friendship. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, if we find that Yāska and Çaunaka in the fifth centuryB.C.were at variance as to whether the hymn x. 95 was a dialogue, as the former held, or a mere legend, as the latter believed.4In the commentary of Sāyaṇa we find that the tradition was unable to ascribe any ritual use for nearly all the hymns; the case of x. 86 is an exception, but it is significant that that hymn has little of a true dialogue, the three speakers rather uttering enigmas than conversing, and it was therefore easier to fit it into the inconspicuous part it occupies in the later ritual. We must, therefore, admit that we have in these dialogues the remnant of a style of poetry which died out in the later Vedic period.Its original purpose is obscure, but a very interesting suggestion was made in 1869 by Max Müller in connexion with his version ofṚgvedai. 165.5He conjectured that the ‘dialogue was repeated at sacrifices in honour of the Maruts or that possibly it was acted by two parties, one representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers’. In 1890 the suggestion was repeated with approval by Professor Lévi,6who added to it the argument that theSāmavedashows that the art of music had been fully developed by the Vedic age. Moreover theṚgveda7already knows maidens who, decked in splendid raiment, dance and attract lovers, and theAtharvaveda8tells[16]how men dance and sing to music. There is, therefore,a priorino fatal objection to assuming that the period of theṚgvedaknew dramatic spectacles, religious in character, in which the priests assumed the rôles of gods and sages in order to imitate on earth the events of the heavens.The logical consequence of this doctrine is seen in Professor von Schroeder’s elaborate theory9that the dialogue hymns, and also certain monologues, for instance x. 119, in which Indra appears as glorifying himself in the intoxication of his favourite Soma drink, are relics of Vedic mysteries, an inheritance in germ from Indo-European times. Ethnology shows us the close relation of music, dance, and drama among many peoples, and the curious phenomenon that Vedic religion knows of gods as dancers cannot be explained satisfactorily save on the assumption that the priests were used to see performed ritual dances, in themselves imitations of the cosmic dance in which the world was, on one view, created. Such dances partake of the nature of sympathetic magic, and they have an obvious parallel in the great sacrificial rites, which in the Brāhmaṇa period are undertaken in order to represent on earth the cosmic creation. It is true that we do not find in theṚgvedathe phallic dances which in Greece and Mexico alike are held to be closely connected with the origin of drama, but that was because the priests of theṚgvedawere in many respects austere, and disapproved of phallic deities of any kind. The dramas of the ritual, therefore, are in a sense somewhat out of the main line of the development of the drama; the popular side has survived through the ages in a rough way in the Yātrās well known in the literature of Bengal, while the refined and sacerdotalized Vedic drama passed away without a direct descendant.Independent support for the view of the dialogues as mystery playsin nuceis given by Dr. Hertel,10whose argument is largely based on the doctrine that the Vedic hymns were always sung, and that in singing it would have been impossible for a single singer to make the necessary distinction between the different speakers, which would have been possible if the hymns had not[17]been sung. The hymns, therefore, represent the beginnings of a dramatic art, which may be compared with the form of theGītagovinda.11But, what is more important, he seeks to find an actual drama on an extended scale in theSuparṇādhyāya,12a curious and comparatively late Vedic text. In his view, accordingly, the Vedic drama does not stand isolated; it is seen in theṚgvedaonly in its beginnings; theSuparṇādhyāyadisplays it en route to further development, and in the Yātrās we can see a continuation of the old type, which aids us in following the growth from the Vedic drama of the classical drama of India. In this regard there is a distinct divergence of view between the two supporters of the dramatic theory, for Professor von Schroeder regards the Yātrās as genuinely connected with the later drama, being developed in close connexion with the cult of Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa and Rudra-Çiva, but as representing a different development from the same root as the Vedic dialogues. Of this other side of the drama he finds hints in the traditional connexion of the Gandharvas and Apsarases with the drama, for these in his view are essentially phallic deities.There is, of course, no doubt of the possibility of the dialogues really representing portions of the old ritual in which the priests assumed the character of gods or demons, for there are abundant parallels for such a supposition. But there is no sufficient ground to compel us to seek for such an explanation of these hymns; that theṚgvedacontains nothing save what is connected with ritual is a postulate which is not made by the Indians themselves, and has no justification save in the desire for symmetry. On the contrary, it is perfectly legitimate and much more natural to regard theṚgvedaas a collection of hymns, in the vast majority of cases of ritual origin, but including some more secular poetry, to which genus alone can we reasonably attribute the battle hymns of Viçvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha. The fact that such hymns disappear in the later Vedic literature is then natural, for that literature represents unquestionably hymns collected definitely for ritual uses, and therefore nothing was admitted which could not be employed therein. To assume, therefore, that a ritual explanation must[18]be found, and to find it in ritual drama is illegitimate, and the only justification for accepting the view in any case must lie in the fact that it affords a better explanation of the hymn than any which can be given otherwise.It is impossible to feel any certainty that the necessary proof has been brought in any case. The hymn ix. 112, which describes in four stanzas in a rather humorous style the various ends of men, ending with the refrain in each case, ‘O Soma, flow for Indra’, is transformed into the marching song of a popular festival at which mummers represent vegetation deities and symbols of fertility are carried. The tradition knows nothing of these happenings, and the hymn certainly suggests none to the average intelligence. On the contrary, it seems a very natural piece of witty sarcasm, to which point is lent by the use of the refrain, and to deny the possibility of sarcasm to the thinkers who produce the advanced and sceptical views expressed in theṚgvedais certainly unwise.13To explain the Vṛṣākapi hymn (x. 86) as a piece of fertility magic in dramatic form is ingenious, but unluckily it in no way contributes towards the explanation of the hymn, and, therefore, is as valueless as the other possible explanations which have been offered. The same condemnation must be passed on the effort to find a mimic race at a festival described in the strange Mudgala hymn (x. 102) which if it is intelligible at all, seems to have a mythological reference, and not to refer either to actual or mimic races.An ingenious effort is that made to adduce ethnological parallels to prove that the hymn x. 119, which is a straightforward monologue, placed in the mouth of Indra, celebrating the effect of drinking the Soma, must be regarded as part of a ritual in which at the close of the drinking of the Soma in the rite, a priest comes forward, assuming the rôle of Indra, and celebrates in monologue the strength of the juice of the holy plant.Among the Cora Indians, after a wine festival, a god is introduced showing the effects of the drink, while a singer celebrates its potent merits. There is, however, a fatal hiatus in the proof; the poem by itself is perfectly clear, and to seek[19]for an explanation so far-fetched is idle expenditure of energy. The same condemnation must be expressed of the effort to find in the frog hymn (vii. 103) a song sung by men masked as frogs, dancing as a spell to secure rain. If we grant that the hymn is really intended as a rain spell, which is moderately probable though not proved, it needs no further explanation whatever, and, if we do not accept this suggestion but adopt the older view that it satyrizes in an amusing way the antics of certain performers of the ritual, the character of the hymn as a fertility spell vanishes at once. The errors of method are seen excellently in the fantastic conclusion that the gambler’s hymn (x. 34), in which a gambler deplores the fatal love for the dice which has led to his reducing even his beloved wife to ruin, is a dramatic monologue in which dancers represent the leaping and falling dice. The dialogue of Yama and Yamī reduces itself to a fertility drama, from which the prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by two different parties, and thus was a ritual dramain nuce; what is certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x. 86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative14of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are to hold that we[20]have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel’s arguments from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be inclined to admita priorithat the song would tend to be accompanied by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to development. But we do not know that the hymns of theṚgvedawere always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that, while the verses of theSāmavedawere sung (gai), the verses of theṚgvedawere recited (çaṅs). True, we do not have precise information of the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns were used. We find in theṚgvedaa number of philosophic hymns; why should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately following the disposal of the dead, and[21]that during the pauses in the great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may legitimately assume that in theṚgvedawe have hymns of other than directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler’s hymn cannot by any reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual.15It is also impossible to accept the view that the Vedic drama died out under the chilling effect of the disapproval of the priests of fertility ritual. We find, on the contrary, that fertility ritual is fully recognized later in the Mahāvrata ceremonial, and also in the horse sacrifice, which are both known to the other Vedic Saṁhitās, though this feature of the rite is not referred to, directly at least, in theṚgveda. Moreover, even if the disapproval of fertility rites had been real, why should it have brought to a close the drama? The dialogues of Agni and the gods, of Saramā and the Paṇis, of Varuṇa and Indra, of Indra and the singer—and perhaps Vāyu also (viii. 100), have no connexion with fertility, and this aspect of drama need not have perished. Dr. Hertel is certainly right in demanding traces of development, not of decadence, but his great effort to find a full drama in theSuparṇādhyāyamust definitely be pronounced a failure. It involves an elaborate invention of stage directions, the preparation of a list ofdramatis personaelargely on the basis of imagination, and a translation of the piece based on this theory, which can be shown in detail to be open to the certainty of error. Add to this the fact that there is no hint in Indian tradition that theSuparṇādhyāya, on the face of it a late imitation of Vedic work proper, had ever any dramatic intention or use.A very different theory of the purpose of these hymns is that which we owe to Professors Windisch,16Oldenberg,17and Pischel.18They represent an old type, Indo-European in antiquity, of composition of epic character, in which the verses, representing the points of highest emotion, were preserved, and the connecting links were in prose which was not stereotyped, and therefore[22]has not come down to us. The theory is capable of combination with the suggestion that these hymns in dialogue were dramatic; thus Prof. Pischel explained the combination of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama as a relic of this early form of literature, which thus might serve both epic and dramatic ends.19Despite the considerable vogue which the theory has at one time or other attained, and the energetic defence of it by Professor Oldenberg, who has based upon it an elaborate theory of the development of Indian prose, it is doubtful whether we can accept the view.20It is a very real difficulty here also that the tradition shows no trace of knowledge of this characteristic of the hymns, and we do not find any work actually in this form in the whole of the Vedic literature. The alleged instances of this type, such as those of the tale of Çunaḥçepa in theAitareya Brāhmaṇa, or the working up in theÇatapatha Brāhmaṇaof the legend of Purūravas and Urvaçī cannot possibly be made to fit the theory. In the latter case we have a tale, which manifestly does not agree with the verses of theṚgveda, and which is openly and obviously an attempt to work that hymn into the explanation of the ritual; in the former we have the use of gnomic verses to illustrate a theme, a form of literature which is preserved through the history of Sanskrit prose, and portions of a verse narrative. The true type, verses used at the point of emotion, especially, therefore, to give the vital speeches and replies, is thus not represented by any text of the Vedic literature. Whether it ever existed at all in the sense postulated by the theory, whether there are traces of it in thePāliJātakas, or whether its existence even there is a misunderstanding, are questions which are not in vital connexion with the origin of Sanskrit drama, and may, therefore, here be left undiscussed. One consideration, however, is germane; if it were necessary to explain the Vedic dialogues by this theory, it would certainly be possible to do so far more effectively and simply than by the theory of their being the remains of ritual dramas. The most serious objection to both theories is that they are not really necessary. Professor Geldner21who formerly patronized[23]the theory of Oldenberg has sought to explain the hymns in question as ballads.22Nor of course is it necessary to make any use of this theory in order to explain the mixture of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama. The use of prose needs no defence or explanation; that of verse is what was essentially to be expected, in view of the importance of song as a form of amusement as well as in worship both in Vedic times and later, and of the fact that our extant dramas draw so largely on epic tradition, preserved in versified texts. Nothing indeed is more noteworthy in Sanskrit literature than the determination to turn everything, law, astronomy, architecture, rhetoric, even philosophy into a metrical form. The theorists on the drama give no suggestion that the prose was regarded as any less fixed in character than the verses, or that it was not the duty of the author of the drama to be as careful in preparing the one as the other, and the manuscript tradition of the drama does not hint at any distinction of the two elements as regards source.[Contents]3.Dramatic Elements in Vedic RitualWhen we leave out of account the enigmatic dialogues of theṚgvedawe can see that the Vedic ritual contained within itself the germs of drama, as is the case with practically every primitive form of worship. The ritual did not consist merely of the singing of songs or recitations in honour of the gods; it involved a complex round of ceremonies in some of which there was undoubtedly present the element of dramatic representation; that is the performers of the rites assumed for the time being personalities other than their own. There is an interesting instance of this in the ritual of the Soma purchase for the Soma sacrifice. The seller is in some versions at the close of the ceremony deprived of his price, and beaten or pelted with clods. Now there can be no doubt that we have here, not a reflex of a disapproval of trafficking in Soma, but a mimic account of the obtaining of Soma from its guardians the Gandharvas, and there is some truth in the comparison drawn[24]between the Çūdra who plays therôleof the mishandled seller and the much misused Devil of the mediaeval mystery plays.23But we must not exaggerate the amount of representation; it falls very far short of an approach to drama, a point which is overlooked by Professor von Schroeder throughout his discussions. A drama proper can only be said to come into being when the actors perform parts deliberately for the sake of the performance, to give pleasure to themselves and others, if not profit also; if a ritual includes elements of representation, the aim is not the representation, but the actors are seeking a direct religious or magic result. It would be absurd, for instance, to treat the identification in the marriage ritual of the husband and wife with the sky and the earth as in any sense dramatic or to see any drama in the performance of the royal consecration, which is based carefully on the divine consecration of Indra, doubtless in the view that thus the king was for the time being identified with the great god, and so acquired some measure of his prowess.In the Mahāvrata24we find elements which are of importance as indicating the materials from which the drama might develop. The Mahāvrata is plainly a rite intended to strengthen at the winter solstice the sun, so that it may resume its vigour and make fruitful the earth. Now an essential part of the rite is a struggle between a Vaiçya, whose colour is to be white, and a Çūdra, black in colour, over a round white skin, which ultimately falls to the victorious Vaiçya. It is impossible, without ignoring the obvious nature of this rite, not to see in it a mimic contest to gain the sun, the power of light, the Aryan, striving against that of darkness, the Çūdra. In the face of the ethnological parallels it is impossible also to sever this episode from the numerous forms of the contest of summer and winter, the first represented by the white Aryan, the second by the dark Çūdra. We have in fact a primitive dramatic ritual, and one which it may be added was popular throughout the Vedic age. The same ceremony is also marked by a curious episode; a Brahmin student and a hetaera are introduced as engaged in coarse abuse of each other, and in the older form of the ritual[25]we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable. The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at producing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse, in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated.25There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable certainty that no drama was known. In theYajurvedawe have long lists of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation, and the term Naṭa, which is normally the designation of the actor in the later literature is unknown. We find but one term26which later ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity.Professor Hillebrandt,27on the other hand, is satisfied that we have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow28insists that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have known dialogue, abusive conversation and blows, but of which the chief parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in theKauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa29as the arts, but of which thePāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra30disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Naṭa,31whose activity belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the Puruṣamedha sections of the[26]Yajurveda, where in the imaginary sacrifice of men the imagination of the Brahmins appears to have laboured to enumerate every form of human activity. But in the absence of any proof that secular pantomime is older than religious throughout the world, and in the absence of anything to indicate that it was so in the case of India, it seems quite impossible to accept Professor Konow’s suggested origin of drama.Of other elements which enter into drama we find the songs of theSāmaveda, and the use of ceremonial dances. Thus at the Mahāvrata maidens dance round the fire as a spell to bring down rain for the crops, and to secure the prosperity of the herds. Before the marriage ceremony is completed32there is a dance of matrons whose husbands are still alive, obviously to secure that the marriage shall endure and be fruitful. When a death takes place, and the ashes of the deceased are collected, to be laid away, the mourners move round the vase which contains the last relics of the dead, and dancers are present who dance to the sound of the lute and the flute; dance, music, and song fill the whole day of mourning.33Dancing is closely associated throughout the history of the Indian theatre with the drama, and in the ritual of Çiva and Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa it has an important part. Hence the doctrine which has the approval of Professor Oldenberg34and which finds the origin of drama in the sacred dance, a dance, of course, accompanied by gesture ofpantomimiccharacter; combined with song, and later enriched by dialogue, this would give rise to the drama. If we further accept the view that the dialogue in prose was added from the ritual element seen in the abuse at the horse sacrifice and the Mahāvrata, then within the Vedic ritual we may discern all the elements for the growth of drama present.In this sense we may speak of the drama as having its origin in the Vedic period, but it may be doubted whether anything is gained by such a proposition. Unless the hymns of theṚgvedapresent us with real drama, which is most implausible, we have not the slightest evidence that the essential synthesis of elements and development of plot, which constitute a true[27]drama, were made in the Vedic age. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it was through the use of epic recitations that the latent possibilities of drama were evoked, and the literary form created. One very important point in this regard has certainly often been neglected. The Sanskrit drama does not consist, as the theory suggests, of song and prose as its vital elements; the vast majority of the stanzas, which are one of its chief features, were recited, not sung, and it was doubtless from the epic that the practice of recitation was in the main derived. Professor Oldenberg35admits in fact the great importance of the epic on the development of drama, but it may be more accurate to say that without epic recitation there would and could have been no drama at all. Assuredly we have no clear proof of such a thing as drama existing until later than we have assurance of the recitation of epic passages by Granthikas, as will be seen below.[28]1i. 2 ff.↑2Hopkins,Great Epic of India, pp. 7, 10, 53.↑3Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.↑4Sieg,Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, p. 27.↑5SBE. xxxii. 182 f.↑6TI. i. 307 f.↑7i. 92. 4.↑8xii. 1. 41.↑9Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda(1908); VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.; xxiii. 1 ff., 270 f.↑10VOJ. xviii. 59 ff., 137 ff.; xxiii. 273 ff.; xxiv. 117 ff. Cf. Charpentier, VOJ. xxiii. 33 ff.;Die Suparṇasage(1922) is somewhat confused and uncritical.↑11See ch. xi., § 9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 130 f.↑12See also Jarl Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage(Uppsala, 1922).↑13This is quite consistent with the ritual use in a Soma ‘wish’ offering suggested by Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, pp. 79 ff. Cf. his remarks on vii. 103 inṚgveda-Noten, ii. 67.↑14Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4.↑15Keith, JRAS. 1911, p. 1006.↑16Cf.Sansk. Phil. pp. 404 ff.↑17ZDMG. xxxvii. 54 ff.; xxxix. 52 ff.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 ff.; GN. 1911, pp. 441 ff.;Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa(1917), pp. 53 ff.;Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.↑18VS. ii. 42 ff. GGA. 1891, pp. 351 ff.↑19Compare Oldenberg,Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241.↑20See Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.; 1912, pp. 429 ff.;Rigveda Brāhmaṇas, pp. 68 ff.↑21Die indische Balladendichtung(1913). Cf. G. M. Miller,The Popular Ballad(1905).↑22The existence of this type in the Epic is certainly most improbable, and in the Jātakas it is not frequent; cf. Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage, and Winternitz’s admissions, GIL. ii. 368 with Oldenberg, GN. 1918, pp. 429 ff.; 1919, pp. 61 ff.↑23Hillebrandt,Ved. Myth., i. 69 ff.↑24Keith,Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, pp. 72 ff.↑25Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv.↑26VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2.↑27AID. pp. 22 f.↑28ID. pp. 42 ff.↑29xxix. 5.↑30ii. 7. 3.↑31The Prākritic form of the term as opposed to Vedicnṛtuandnṛttais legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious dancing gave a factor to drama.↑32Çān̄khāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, i. 11. 5.↑33Caland,Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, pp. 138 ff.↑34Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 237; Macdonell,Sanskrit Literature, p. 347.↑35Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241. In Mexico we have the material of a ritual drama (K. Th. Preuss,Archiv für Anthropologie, 1904, pp. 158 ff.), but not the epic element.↑

[Contents]IDRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN VEDIC LITERATURE[Contents]1.The Indian Tradition of the Origin of the DramaIndian tradition, preserved in theNāṭyaçāstra,1the oldest of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin, and a close connexion with the sacred Vedas themselves. The golden age had no need for such amusements: ignorant of all pain, the sorrow, which is as essential to the art as joy itself, was inconceivable. The creation of the new form of literature was reserved to the silver age, when the gods approached the all-father and bade him produce something to give pleasure to the ears and eyes alike, a fifth Veda which, unlike the other four, would not be the jealous preserve of the three twice-born castes, but might be shared by the Çūdras also. Brahmā gave ear to the pleading, and designed to fashion a Veda in which tradition (itihāsa) should be combined with instruction in all the ends of men. To accomplish his task he took from theṚgvedathe element of recitation, from theSāmavedasong, from theYajurvedathe mimetic art, and from theAtharvavedasentiment. Then he bade Viçvakarman, the divine architect, build a playhouse in which the sage Bharata was instructed to carry into practice the art thus created. The gods accepted with joy the new creation; Çiva contributed to it the Tāṇḍava dance, expressing violent emotion, Pārvatī, his spouse, the tender and voluptuous Lāsya, while Viṣṇu was responsible for the invention of the four dramatic styles, essential to the effect of any play. To Bharata fell the duty of transferring to earth this celestial Veda in the inferior and truncated form of theNāṭyaçāstra.The legend is interesting for its determination to secure the[13]participation of every member of the Hindu Trinity in the creation of the new art, and for its effort to claim that the fifth Veda of tradition was the Veda of the dramatic art. The older tradition, recorded and exploited by the epic,2recognizes as the fifth Veda the mass of traditions, and theNāṭyaçāstratacitly concedes this by representing theNāṭyavedaas including these traditions. The legend, therefore, is not of great antiquity, nor need we place it long before the compilation of theNāṭyaçāstraitself. The date of that text is uncertain, but we cannot with any assurance place it before the third centuryA.D.With the Indian tendency to find divine origins, it may well be that the tradition existed much earlier, but in the absence of any corroboration that must remain a mere hypothesis, for which no conclusive ground can be adduced. What is important is that none of the theorists on the drama appeal to any Vedic texts as representing dramas, whence it is natural to draw the conclusion that there was no Indian tradition extant in their time which pointed to the preservation among the sacred texts of dramas. Indeed, if it were worth while, the conclusion might legitimately be drawn that the absence of any drama in the Vedic literature was recognized, since it was necessary for the gods to ask Brahmā to create a completely new type of literature, suitable for an age posterior to that in which the Vedas already existed.[Contents]2.The Dialogues of the VedaThe silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because there do exist in theṚgvedaitself a number of hymns which are obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by early Indian tradition.3The number of such hymns is uncertain, for it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate;[14]the poet, with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply. Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā, and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28; and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi, and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108). The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii. 33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii. 33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with the assertion that[15]the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence, is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may be suspected even where it is not essential.Now it is clear that the tradition of the ritual literature did not know what to make of the dialogues of theṚgveda. The genre of composition was one which died out in the later Vedic age; it is significant that theAtharvavedaknows but one hymn of that type (v. 11) in which the priest, Atharvan, begs the god for the payment due, a cow; the god is little inclined to accord his prayer, but finally is induced to relent and to add to the guerdon due the promise of eternal friendship. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, if we find that Yāska and Çaunaka in the fifth centuryB.C.were at variance as to whether the hymn x. 95 was a dialogue, as the former held, or a mere legend, as the latter believed.4In the commentary of Sāyaṇa we find that the tradition was unable to ascribe any ritual use for nearly all the hymns; the case of x. 86 is an exception, but it is significant that that hymn has little of a true dialogue, the three speakers rather uttering enigmas than conversing, and it was therefore easier to fit it into the inconspicuous part it occupies in the later ritual. We must, therefore, admit that we have in these dialogues the remnant of a style of poetry which died out in the later Vedic period.Its original purpose is obscure, but a very interesting suggestion was made in 1869 by Max Müller in connexion with his version ofṚgvedai. 165.5He conjectured that the ‘dialogue was repeated at sacrifices in honour of the Maruts or that possibly it was acted by two parties, one representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers’. In 1890 the suggestion was repeated with approval by Professor Lévi,6who added to it the argument that theSāmavedashows that the art of music had been fully developed by the Vedic age. Moreover theṚgveda7already knows maidens who, decked in splendid raiment, dance and attract lovers, and theAtharvaveda8tells[16]how men dance and sing to music. There is, therefore,a priorino fatal objection to assuming that the period of theṚgvedaknew dramatic spectacles, religious in character, in which the priests assumed the rôles of gods and sages in order to imitate on earth the events of the heavens.The logical consequence of this doctrine is seen in Professor von Schroeder’s elaborate theory9that the dialogue hymns, and also certain monologues, for instance x. 119, in which Indra appears as glorifying himself in the intoxication of his favourite Soma drink, are relics of Vedic mysteries, an inheritance in germ from Indo-European times. Ethnology shows us the close relation of music, dance, and drama among many peoples, and the curious phenomenon that Vedic religion knows of gods as dancers cannot be explained satisfactorily save on the assumption that the priests were used to see performed ritual dances, in themselves imitations of the cosmic dance in which the world was, on one view, created. Such dances partake of the nature of sympathetic magic, and they have an obvious parallel in the great sacrificial rites, which in the Brāhmaṇa period are undertaken in order to represent on earth the cosmic creation. It is true that we do not find in theṚgvedathe phallic dances which in Greece and Mexico alike are held to be closely connected with the origin of drama, but that was because the priests of theṚgvedawere in many respects austere, and disapproved of phallic deities of any kind. The dramas of the ritual, therefore, are in a sense somewhat out of the main line of the development of the drama; the popular side has survived through the ages in a rough way in the Yātrās well known in the literature of Bengal, while the refined and sacerdotalized Vedic drama passed away without a direct descendant.Independent support for the view of the dialogues as mystery playsin nuceis given by Dr. Hertel,10whose argument is largely based on the doctrine that the Vedic hymns were always sung, and that in singing it would have been impossible for a single singer to make the necessary distinction between the different speakers, which would have been possible if the hymns had not[17]been sung. The hymns, therefore, represent the beginnings of a dramatic art, which may be compared with the form of theGītagovinda.11But, what is more important, he seeks to find an actual drama on an extended scale in theSuparṇādhyāya,12a curious and comparatively late Vedic text. In his view, accordingly, the Vedic drama does not stand isolated; it is seen in theṚgvedaonly in its beginnings; theSuparṇādhyāyadisplays it en route to further development, and in the Yātrās we can see a continuation of the old type, which aids us in following the growth from the Vedic drama of the classical drama of India. In this regard there is a distinct divergence of view between the two supporters of the dramatic theory, for Professor von Schroeder regards the Yātrās as genuinely connected with the later drama, being developed in close connexion with the cult of Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa and Rudra-Çiva, but as representing a different development from the same root as the Vedic dialogues. Of this other side of the drama he finds hints in the traditional connexion of the Gandharvas and Apsarases with the drama, for these in his view are essentially phallic deities.There is, of course, no doubt of the possibility of the dialogues really representing portions of the old ritual in which the priests assumed the character of gods or demons, for there are abundant parallels for such a supposition. But there is no sufficient ground to compel us to seek for such an explanation of these hymns; that theṚgvedacontains nothing save what is connected with ritual is a postulate which is not made by the Indians themselves, and has no justification save in the desire for symmetry. On the contrary, it is perfectly legitimate and much more natural to regard theṚgvedaas a collection of hymns, in the vast majority of cases of ritual origin, but including some more secular poetry, to which genus alone can we reasonably attribute the battle hymns of Viçvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha. The fact that such hymns disappear in the later Vedic literature is then natural, for that literature represents unquestionably hymns collected definitely for ritual uses, and therefore nothing was admitted which could not be employed therein. To assume, therefore, that a ritual explanation must[18]be found, and to find it in ritual drama is illegitimate, and the only justification for accepting the view in any case must lie in the fact that it affords a better explanation of the hymn than any which can be given otherwise.It is impossible to feel any certainty that the necessary proof has been brought in any case. The hymn ix. 112, which describes in four stanzas in a rather humorous style the various ends of men, ending with the refrain in each case, ‘O Soma, flow for Indra’, is transformed into the marching song of a popular festival at which mummers represent vegetation deities and symbols of fertility are carried. The tradition knows nothing of these happenings, and the hymn certainly suggests none to the average intelligence. On the contrary, it seems a very natural piece of witty sarcasm, to which point is lent by the use of the refrain, and to deny the possibility of sarcasm to the thinkers who produce the advanced and sceptical views expressed in theṚgvedais certainly unwise.13To explain the Vṛṣākapi hymn (x. 86) as a piece of fertility magic in dramatic form is ingenious, but unluckily it in no way contributes towards the explanation of the hymn, and, therefore, is as valueless as the other possible explanations which have been offered. The same condemnation must be passed on the effort to find a mimic race at a festival described in the strange Mudgala hymn (x. 102) which if it is intelligible at all, seems to have a mythological reference, and not to refer either to actual or mimic races.An ingenious effort is that made to adduce ethnological parallels to prove that the hymn x. 119, which is a straightforward monologue, placed in the mouth of Indra, celebrating the effect of drinking the Soma, must be regarded as part of a ritual in which at the close of the drinking of the Soma in the rite, a priest comes forward, assuming the rôle of Indra, and celebrates in monologue the strength of the juice of the holy plant.Among the Cora Indians, after a wine festival, a god is introduced showing the effects of the drink, while a singer celebrates its potent merits. There is, however, a fatal hiatus in the proof; the poem by itself is perfectly clear, and to seek[19]for an explanation so far-fetched is idle expenditure of energy. The same condemnation must be expressed of the effort to find in the frog hymn (vii. 103) a song sung by men masked as frogs, dancing as a spell to secure rain. If we grant that the hymn is really intended as a rain spell, which is moderately probable though not proved, it needs no further explanation whatever, and, if we do not accept this suggestion but adopt the older view that it satyrizes in an amusing way the antics of certain performers of the ritual, the character of the hymn as a fertility spell vanishes at once. The errors of method are seen excellently in the fantastic conclusion that the gambler’s hymn (x. 34), in which a gambler deplores the fatal love for the dice which has led to his reducing even his beloved wife to ruin, is a dramatic monologue in which dancers represent the leaping and falling dice. The dialogue of Yama and Yamī reduces itself to a fertility drama, from which the prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by two different parties, and thus was a ritual dramain nuce; what is certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x. 86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative14of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are to hold that we[20]have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel’s arguments from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be inclined to admita priorithat the song would tend to be accompanied by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to development. But we do not know that the hymns of theṚgvedawere always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that, while the verses of theSāmavedawere sung (gai), the verses of theṚgvedawere recited (çaṅs). True, we do not have precise information of the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns were used. We find in theṚgvedaa number of philosophic hymns; why should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately following the disposal of the dead, and[21]that during the pauses in the great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may legitimately assume that in theṚgvedawe have hymns of other than directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler’s hymn cannot by any reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual.15It is also impossible to accept the view that the Vedic drama died out under the chilling effect of the disapproval of the priests of fertility ritual. We find, on the contrary, that fertility ritual is fully recognized later in the Mahāvrata ceremonial, and also in the horse sacrifice, which are both known to the other Vedic Saṁhitās, though this feature of the rite is not referred to, directly at least, in theṚgveda. Moreover, even if the disapproval of fertility rites had been real, why should it have brought to a close the drama? The dialogues of Agni and the gods, of Saramā and the Paṇis, of Varuṇa and Indra, of Indra and the singer—and perhaps Vāyu also (viii. 100), have no connexion with fertility, and this aspect of drama need not have perished. Dr. Hertel is certainly right in demanding traces of development, not of decadence, but his great effort to find a full drama in theSuparṇādhyāyamust definitely be pronounced a failure. It involves an elaborate invention of stage directions, the preparation of a list ofdramatis personaelargely on the basis of imagination, and a translation of the piece based on this theory, which can be shown in detail to be open to the certainty of error. Add to this the fact that there is no hint in Indian tradition that theSuparṇādhyāya, on the face of it a late imitation of Vedic work proper, had ever any dramatic intention or use.A very different theory of the purpose of these hymns is that which we owe to Professors Windisch,16Oldenberg,17and Pischel.18They represent an old type, Indo-European in antiquity, of composition of epic character, in which the verses, representing the points of highest emotion, were preserved, and the connecting links were in prose which was not stereotyped, and therefore[22]has not come down to us. The theory is capable of combination with the suggestion that these hymns in dialogue were dramatic; thus Prof. Pischel explained the combination of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama as a relic of this early form of literature, which thus might serve both epic and dramatic ends.19Despite the considerable vogue which the theory has at one time or other attained, and the energetic defence of it by Professor Oldenberg, who has based upon it an elaborate theory of the development of Indian prose, it is doubtful whether we can accept the view.20It is a very real difficulty here also that the tradition shows no trace of knowledge of this characteristic of the hymns, and we do not find any work actually in this form in the whole of the Vedic literature. The alleged instances of this type, such as those of the tale of Çunaḥçepa in theAitareya Brāhmaṇa, or the working up in theÇatapatha Brāhmaṇaof the legend of Purūravas and Urvaçī cannot possibly be made to fit the theory. In the latter case we have a tale, which manifestly does not agree with the verses of theṚgveda, and which is openly and obviously an attempt to work that hymn into the explanation of the ritual; in the former we have the use of gnomic verses to illustrate a theme, a form of literature which is preserved through the history of Sanskrit prose, and portions of a verse narrative. The true type, verses used at the point of emotion, especially, therefore, to give the vital speeches and replies, is thus not represented by any text of the Vedic literature. Whether it ever existed at all in the sense postulated by the theory, whether there are traces of it in thePāliJātakas, or whether its existence even there is a misunderstanding, are questions which are not in vital connexion with the origin of Sanskrit drama, and may, therefore, here be left undiscussed. One consideration, however, is germane; if it were necessary to explain the Vedic dialogues by this theory, it would certainly be possible to do so far more effectively and simply than by the theory of their being the remains of ritual dramas. The most serious objection to both theories is that they are not really necessary. Professor Geldner21who formerly patronized[23]the theory of Oldenberg has sought to explain the hymns in question as ballads.22Nor of course is it necessary to make any use of this theory in order to explain the mixture of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama. The use of prose needs no defence or explanation; that of verse is what was essentially to be expected, in view of the importance of song as a form of amusement as well as in worship both in Vedic times and later, and of the fact that our extant dramas draw so largely on epic tradition, preserved in versified texts. Nothing indeed is more noteworthy in Sanskrit literature than the determination to turn everything, law, astronomy, architecture, rhetoric, even philosophy into a metrical form. The theorists on the drama give no suggestion that the prose was regarded as any less fixed in character than the verses, or that it was not the duty of the author of the drama to be as careful in preparing the one as the other, and the manuscript tradition of the drama does not hint at any distinction of the two elements as regards source.[Contents]3.Dramatic Elements in Vedic RitualWhen we leave out of account the enigmatic dialogues of theṚgvedawe can see that the Vedic ritual contained within itself the germs of drama, as is the case with practically every primitive form of worship. The ritual did not consist merely of the singing of songs or recitations in honour of the gods; it involved a complex round of ceremonies in some of which there was undoubtedly present the element of dramatic representation; that is the performers of the rites assumed for the time being personalities other than their own. There is an interesting instance of this in the ritual of the Soma purchase for the Soma sacrifice. The seller is in some versions at the close of the ceremony deprived of his price, and beaten or pelted with clods. Now there can be no doubt that we have here, not a reflex of a disapproval of trafficking in Soma, but a mimic account of the obtaining of Soma from its guardians the Gandharvas, and there is some truth in the comparison drawn[24]between the Çūdra who plays therôleof the mishandled seller and the much misused Devil of the mediaeval mystery plays.23But we must not exaggerate the amount of representation; it falls very far short of an approach to drama, a point which is overlooked by Professor von Schroeder throughout his discussions. A drama proper can only be said to come into being when the actors perform parts deliberately for the sake of the performance, to give pleasure to themselves and others, if not profit also; if a ritual includes elements of representation, the aim is not the representation, but the actors are seeking a direct religious or magic result. It would be absurd, for instance, to treat the identification in the marriage ritual of the husband and wife with the sky and the earth as in any sense dramatic or to see any drama in the performance of the royal consecration, which is based carefully on the divine consecration of Indra, doubtless in the view that thus the king was for the time being identified with the great god, and so acquired some measure of his prowess.In the Mahāvrata24we find elements which are of importance as indicating the materials from which the drama might develop. The Mahāvrata is plainly a rite intended to strengthen at the winter solstice the sun, so that it may resume its vigour and make fruitful the earth. Now an essential part of the rite is a struggle between a Vaiçya, whose colour is to be white, and a Çūdra, black in colour, over a round white skin, which ultimately falls to the victorious Vaiçya. It is impossible, without ignoring the obvious nature of this rite, not to see in it a mimic contest to gain the sun, the power of light, the Aryan, striving against that of darkness, the Çūdra. In the face of the ethnological parallels it is impossible also to sever this episode from the numerous forms of the contest of summer and winter, the first represented by the white Aryan, the second by the dark Çūdra. We have in fact a primitive dramatic ritual, and one which it may be added was popular throughout the Vedic age. The same ceremony is also marked by a curious episode; a Brahmin student and a hetaera are introduced as engaged in coarse abuse of each other, and in the older form of the ritual[25]we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable. The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at producing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse, in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated.25There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable certainty that no drama was known. In theYajurvedawe have long lists of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation, and the term Naṭa, which is normally the designation of the actor in the later literature is unknown. We find but one term26which later ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity.Professor Hillebrandt,27on the other hand, is satisfied that we have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow28insists that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have known dialogue, abusive conversation and blows, but of which the chief parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in theKauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa29as the arts, but of which thePāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra30disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Naṭa,31whose activity belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the Puruṣamedha sections of the[26]Yajurveda, where in the imaginary sacrifice of men the imagination of the Brahmins appears to have laboured to enumerate every form of human activity. But in the absence of any proof that secular pantomime is older than religious throughout the world, and in the absence of anything to indicate that it was so in the case of India, it seems quite impossible to accept Professor Konow’s suggested origin of drama.Of other elements which enter into drama we find the songs of theSāmaveda, and the use of ceremonial dances. Thus at the Mahāvrata maidens dance round the fire as a spell to bring down rain for the crops, and to secure the prosperity of the herds. Before the marriage ceremony is completed32there is a dance of matrons whose husbands are still alive, obviously to secure that the marriage shall endure and be fruitful. When a death takes place, and the ashes of the deceased are collected, to be laid away, the mourners move round the vase which contains the last relics of the dead, and dancers are present who dance to the sound of the lute and the flute; dance, music, and song fill the whole day of mourning.33Dancing is closely associated throughout the history of the Indian theatre with the drama, and in the ritual of Çiva and Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa it has an important part. Hence the doctrine which has the approval of Professor Oldenberg34and which finds the origin of drama in the sacred dance, a dance, of course, accompanied by gesture ofpantomimiccharacter; combined with song, and later enriched by dialogue, this would give rise to the drama. If we further accept the view that the dialogue in prose was added from the ritual element seen in the abuse at the horse sacrifice and the Mahāvrata, then within the Vedic ritual we may discern all the elements for the growth of drama present.In this sense we may speak of the drama as having its origin in the Vedic period, but it may be doubted whether anything is gained by such a proposition. Unless the hymns of theṚgvedapresent us with real drama, which is most implausible, we have not the slightest evidence that the essential synthesis of elements and development of plot, which constitute a true[27]drama, were made in the Vedic age. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it was through the use of epic recitations that the latent possibilities of drama were evoked, and the literary form created. One very important point in this regard has certainly often been neglected. The Sanskrit drama does not consist, as the theory suggests, of song and prose as its vital elements; the vast majority of the stanzas, which are one of its chief features, were recited, not sung, and it was doubtless from the epic that the practice of recitation was in the main derived. Professor Oldenberg35admits in fact the great importance of the epic on the development of drama, but it may be more accurate to say that without epic recitation there would and could have been no drama at all. Assuredly we have no clear proof of such a thing as drama existing until later than we have assurance of the recitation of epic passages by Granthikas, as will be seen below.[28]1i. 2 ff.↑2Hopkins,Great Epic of India, pp. 7, 10, 53.↑3Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.↑4Sieg,Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, p. 27.↑5SBE. xxxii. 182 f.↑6TI. i. 307 f.↑7i. 92. 4.↑8xii. 1. 41.↑9Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda(1908); VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.; xxiii. 1 ff., 270 f.↑10VOJ. xviii. 59 ff., 137 ff.; xxiii. 273 ff.; xxiv. 117 ff. Cf. Charpentier, VOJ. xxiii. 33 ff.;Die Suparṇasage(1922) is somewhat confused and uncritical.↑11See ch. xi., § 9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 130 f.↑12See also Jarl Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage(Uppsala, 1922).↑13This is quite consistent with the ritual use in a Soma ‘wish’ offering suggested by Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, pp. 79 ff. Cf. his remarks on vii. 103 inṚgveda-Noten, ii. 67.↑14Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4.↑15Keith, JRAS. 1911, p. 1006.↑16Cf.Sansk. Phil. pp. 404 ff.↑17ZDMG. xxxvii. 54 ff.; xxxix. 52 ff.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 ff.; GN. 1911, pp. 441 ff.;Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa(1917), pp. 53 ff.;Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.↑18VS. ii. 42 ff. GGA. 1891, pp. 351 ff.↑19Compare Oldenberg,Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241.↑20See Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.; 1912, pp. 429 ff.;Rigveda Brāhmaṇas, pp. 68 ff.↑21Die indische Balladendichtung(1913). Cf. G. M. Miller,The Popular Ballad(1905).↑22The existence of this type in the Epic is certainly most improbable, and in the Jātakas it is not frequent; cf. Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage, and Winternitz’s admissions, GIL. ii. 368 with Oldenberg, GN. 1918, pp. 429 ff.; 1919, pp. 61 ff.↑23Hillebrandt,Ved. Myth., i. 69 ff.↑24Keith,Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, pp. 72 ff.↑25Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv.↑26VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2.↑27AID. pp. 22 f.↑28ID. pp. 42 ff.↑29xxix. 5.↑30ii. 7. 3.↑31The Prākritic form of the term as opposed to Vedicnṛtuandnṛttais legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious dancing gave a factor to drama.↑32Çān̄khāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, i. 11. 5.↑33Caland,Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, pp. 138 ff.↑34Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 237; Macdonell,Sanskrit Literature, p. 347.↑35Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241. In Mexico we have the material of a ritual drama (K. Th. Preuss,Archiv für Anthropologie, 1904, pp. 158 ff.), but not the epic element.↑

IDRAMATIC ELEMENTS IN VEDIC LITERATURE

[Contents]1.The Indian Tradition of the Origin of the DramaIndian tradition, preserved in theNāṭyaçāstra,1the oldest of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin, and a close connexion with the sacred Vedas themselves. The golden age had no need for such amusements: ignorant of all pain, the sorrow, which is as essential to the art as joy itself, was inconceivable. The creation of the new form of literature was reserved to the silver age, when the gods approached the all-father and bade him produce something to give pleasure to the ears and eyes alike, a fifth Veda which, unlike the other four, would not be the jealous preserve of the three twice-born castes, but might be shared by the Çūdras also. Brahmā gave ear to the pleading, and designed to fashion a Veda in which tradition (itihāsa) should be combined with instruction in all the ends of men. To accomplish his task he took from theṚgvedathe element of recitation, from theSāmavedasong, from theYajurvedathe mimetic art, and from theAtharvavedasentiment. Then he bade Viçvakarman, the divine architect, build a playhouse in which the sage Bharata was instructed to carry into practice the art thus created. The gods accepted with joy the new creation; Çiva contributed to it the Tāṇḍava dance, expressing violent emotion, Pārvatī, his spouse, the tender and voluptuous Lāsya, while Viṣṇu was responsible for the invention of the four dramatic styles, essential to the effect of any play. To Bharata fell the duty of transferring to earth this celestial Veda in the inferior and truncated form of theNāṭyaçāstra.The legend is interesting for its determination to secure the[13]participation of every member of the Hindu Trinity in the creation of the new art, and for its effort to claim that the fifth Veda of tradition was the Veda of the dramatic art. The older tradition, recorded and exploited by the epic,2recognizes as the fifth Veda the mass of traditions, and theNāṭyaçāstratacitly concedes this by representing theNāṭyavedaas including these traditions. The legend, therefore, is not of great antiquity, nor need we place it long before the compilation of theNāṭyaçāstraitself. The date of that text is uncertain, but we cannot with any assurance place it before the third centuryA.D.With the Indian tendency to find divine origins, it may well be that the tradition existed much earlier, but in the absence of any corroboration that must remain a mere hypothesis, for which no conclusive ground can be adduced. What is important is that none of the theorists on the drama appeal to any Vedic texts as representing dramas, whence it is natural to draw the conclusion that there was no Indian tradition extant in their time which pointed to the preservation among the sacred texts of dramas. Indeed, if it were worth while, the conclusion might legitimately be drawn that the absence of any drama in the Vedic literature was recognized, since it was necessary for the gods to ask Brahmā to create a completely new type of literature, suitable for an age posterior to that in which the Vedas already existed.[Contents]2.The Dialogues of the VedaThe silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because there do exist in theṚgvedaitself a number of hymns which are obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by early Indian tradition.3The number of such hymns is uncertain, for it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate;[14]the poet, with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply. Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā, and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28; and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi, and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108). The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii. 33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii. 33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with the assertion that[15]the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence, is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may be suspected even where it is not essential.Now it is clear that the tradition of the ritual literature did not know what to make of the dialogues of theṚgveda. The genre of composition was one which died out in the later Vedic age; it is significant that theAtharvavedaknows but one hymn of that type (v. 11) in which the priest, Atharvan, begs the god for the payment due, a cow; the god is little inclined to accord his prayer, but finally is induced to relent and to add to the guerdon due the promise of eternal friendship. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, if we find that Yāska and Çaunaka in the fifth centuryB.C.were at variance as to whether the hymn x. 95 was a dialogue, as the former held, or a mere legend, as the latter believed.4In the commentary of Sāyaṇa we find that the tradition was unable to ascribe any ritual use for nearly all the hymns; the case of x. 86 is an exception, but it is significant that that hymn has little of a true dialogue, the three speakers rather uttering enigmas than conversing, and it was therefore easier to fit it into the inconspicuous part it occupies in the later ritual. We must, therefore, admit that we have in these dialogues the remnant of a style of poetry which died out in the later Vedic period.Its original purpose is obscure, but a very interesting suggestion was made in 1869 by Max Müller in connexion with his version ofṚgvedai. 165.5He conjectured that the ‘dialogue was repeated at sacrifices in honour of the Maruts or that possibly it was acted by two parties, one representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers’. In 1890 the suggestion was repeated with approval by Professor Lévi,6who added to it the argument that theSāmavedashows that the art of music had been fully developed by the Vedic age. Moreover theṚgveda7already knows maidens who, decked in splendid raiment, dance and attract lovers, and theAtharvaveda8tells[16]how men dance and sing to music. There is, therefore,a priorino fatal objection to assuming that the period of theṚgvedaknew dramatic spectacles, religious in character, in which the priests assumed the rôles of gods and sages in order to imitate on earth the events of the heavens.The logical consequence of this doctrine is seen in Professor von Schroeder’s elaborate theory9that the dialogue hymns, and also certain monologues, for instance x. 119, in which Indra appears as glorifying himself in the intoxication of his favourite Soma drink, are relics of Vedic mysteries, an inheritance in germ from Indo-European times. Ethnology shows us the close relation of music, dance, and drama among many peoples, and the curious phenomenon that Vedic religion knows of gods as dancers cannot be explained satisfactorily save on the assumption that the priests were used to see performed ritual dances, in themselves imitations of the cosmic dance in which the world was, on one view, created. Such dances partake of the nature of sympathetic magic, and they have an obvious parallel in the great sacrificial rites, which in the Brāhmaṇa period are undertaken in order to represent on earth the cosmic creation. It is true that we do not find in theṚgvedathe phallic dances which in Greece and Mexico alike are held to be closely connected with the origin of drama, but that was because the priests of theṚgvedawere in many respects austere, and disapproved of phallic deities of any kind. The dramas of the ritual, therefore, are in a sense somewhat out of the main line of the development of the drama; the popular side has survived through the ages in a rough way in the Yātrās well known in the literature of Bengal, while the refined and sacerdotalized Vedic drama passed away without a direct descendant.Independent support for the view of the dialogues as mystery playsin nuceis given by Dr. Hertel,10whose argument is largely based on the doctrine that the Vedic hymns were always sung, and that in singing it would have been impossible for a single singer to make the necessary distinction between the different speakers, which would have been possible if the hymns had not[17]been sung. The hymns, therefore, represent the beginnings of a dramatic art, which may be compared with the form of theGītagovinda.11But, what is more important, he seeks to find an actual drama on an extended scale in theSuparṇādhyāya,12a curious and comparatively late Vedic text. In his view, accordingly, the Vedic drama does not stand isolated; it is seen in theṚgvedaonly in its beginnings; theSuparṇādhyāyadisplays it en route to further development, and in the Yātrās we can see a continuation of the old type, which aids us in following the growth from the Vedic drama of the classical drama of India. In this regard there is a distinct divergence of view between the two supporters of the dramatic theory, for Professor von Schroeder regards the Yātrās as genuinely connected with the later drama, being developed in close connexion with the cult of Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa and Rudra-Çiva, but as representing a different development from the same root as the Vedic dialogues. Of this other side of the drama he finds hints in the traditional connexion of the Gandharvas and Apsarases with the drama, for these in his view are essentially phallic deities.There is, of course, no doubt of the possibility of the dialogues really representing portions of the old ritual in which the priests assumed the character of gods or demons, for there are abundant parallels for such a supposition. But there is no sufficient ground to compel us to seek for such an explanation of these hymns; that theṚgvedacontains nothing save what is connected with ritual is a postulate which is not made by the Indians themselves, and has no justification save in the desire for symmetry. On the contrary, it is perfectly legitimate and much more natural to regard theṚgvedaas a collection of hymns, in the vast majority of cases of ritual origin, but including some more secular poetry, to which genus alone can we reasonably attribute the battle hymns of Viçvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha. The fact that such hymns disappear in the later Vedic literature is then natural, for that literature represents unquestionably hymns collected definitely for ritual uses, and therefore nothing was admitted which could not be employed therein. To assume, therefore, that a ritual explanation must[18]be found, and to find it in ritual drama is illegitimate, and the only justification for accepting the view in any case must lie in the fact that it affords a better explanation of the hymn than any which can be given otherwise.It is impossible to feel any certainty that the necessary proof has been brought in any case. The hymn ix. 112, which describes in four stanzas in a rather humorous style the various ends of men, ending with the refrain in each case, ‘O Soma, flow for Indra’, is transformed into the marching song of a popular festival at which mummers represent vegetation deities and symbols of fertility are carried. The tradition knows nothing of these happenings, and the hymn certainly suggests none to the average intelligence. On the contrary, it seems a very natural piece of witty sarcasm, to which point is lent by the use of the refrain, and to deny the possibility of sarcasm to the thinkers who produce the advanced and sceptical views expressed in theṚgvedais certainly unwise.13To explain the Vṛṣākapi hymn (x. 86) as a piece of fertility magic in dramatic form is ingenious, but unluckily it in no way contributes towards the explanation of the hymn, and, therefore, is as valueless as the other possible explanations which have been offered. The same condemnation must be passed on the effort to find a mimic race at a festival described in the strange Mudgala hymn (x. 102) which if it is intelligible at all, seems to have a mythological reference, and not to refer either to actual or mimic races.An ingenious effort is that made to adduce ethnological parallels to prove that the hymn x. 119, which is a straightforward monologue, placed in the mouth of Indra, celebrating the effect of drinking the Soma, must be regarded as part of a ritual in which at the close of the drinking of the Soma in the rite, a priest comes forward, assuming the rôle of Indra, and celebrates in monologue the strength of the juice of the holy plant.Among the Cora Indians, after a wine festival, a god is introduced showing the effects of the drink, while a singer celebrates its potent merits. There is, however, a fatal hiatus in the proof; the poem by itself is perfectly clear, and to seek[19]for an explanation so far-fetched is idle expenditure of energy. The same condemnation must be expressed of the effort to find in the frog hymn (vii. 103) a song sung by men masked as frogs, dancing as a spell to secure rain. If we grant that the hymn is really intended as a rain spell, which is moderately probable though not proved, it needs no further explanation whatever, and, if we do not accept this suggestion but adopt the older view that it satyrizes in an amusing way the antics of certain performers of the ritual, the character of the hymn as a fertility spell vanishes at once. The errors of method are seen excellently in the fantastic conclusion that the gambler’s hymn (x. 34), in which a gambler deplores the fatal love for the dice which has led to his reducing even his beloved wife to ruin, is a dramatic monologue in which dancers represent the leaping and falling dice. The dialogue of Yama and Yamī reduces itself to a fertility drama, from which the prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by two different parties, and thus was a ritual dramain nuce; what is certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x. 86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative14of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are to hold that we[20]have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel’s arguments from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be inclined to admita priorithat the song would tend to be accompanied by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to development. But we do not know that the hymns of theṚgvedawere always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that, while the verses of theSāmavedawere sung (gai), the verses of theṚgvedawere recited (çaṅs). True, we do not have precise information of the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns were used. We find in theṚgvedaa number of philosophic hymns; why should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately following the disposal of the dead, and[21]that during the pauses in the great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may legitimately assume that in theṚgvedawe have hymns of other than directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler’s hymn cannot by any reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual.15It is also impossible to accept the view that the Vedic drama died out under the chilling effect of the disapproval of the priests of fertility ritual. We find, on the contrary, that fertility ritual is fully recognized later in the Mahāvrata ceremonial, and also in the horse sacrifice, which are both known to the other Vedic Saṁhitās, though this feature of the rite is not referred to, directly at least, in theṚgveda. Moreover, even if the disapproval of fertility rites had been real, why should it have brought to a close the drama? The dialogues of Agni and the gods, of Saramā and the Paṇis, of Varuṇa and Indra, of Indra and the singer—and perhaps Vāyu also (viii. 100), have no connexion with fertility, and this aspect of drama need not have perished. Dr. Hertel is certainly right in demanding traces of development, not of decadence, but his great effort to find a full drama in theSuparṇādhyāyamust definitely be pronounced a failure. It involves an elaborate invention of stage directions, the preparation of a list ofdramatis personaelargely on the basis of imagination, and a translation of the piece based on this theory, which can be shown in detail to be open to the certainty of error. Add to this the fact that there is no hint in Indian tradition that theSuparṇādhyāya, on the face of it a late imitation of Vedic work proper, had ever any dramatic intention or use.A very different theory of the purpose of these hymns is that which we owe to Professors Windisch,16Oldenberg,17and Pischel.18They represent an old type, Indo-European in antiquity, of composition of epic character, in which the verses, representing the points of highest emotion, were preserved, and the connecting links were in prose which was not stereotyped, and therefore[22]has not come down to us. The theory is capable of combination with the suggestion that these hymns in dialogue were dramatic; thus Prof. Pischel explained the combination of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama as a relic of this early form of literature, which thus might serve both epic and dramatic ends.19Despite the considerable vogue which the theory has at one time or other attained, and the energetic defence of it by Professor Oldenberg, who has based upon it an elaborate theory of the development of Indian prose, it is doubtful whether we can accept the view.20It is a very real difficulty here also that the tradition shows no trace of knowledge of this characteristic of the hymns, and we do not find any work actually in this form in the whole of the Vedic literature. The alleged instances of this type, such as those of the tale of Çunaḥçepa in theAitareya Brāhmaṇa, or the working up in theÇatapatha Brāhmaṇaof the legend of Purūravas and Urvaçī cannot possibly be made to fit the theory. In the latter case we have a tale, which manifestly does not agree with the verses of theṚgveda, and which is openly and obviously an attempt to work that hymn into the explanation of the ritual; in the former we have the use of gnomic verses to illustrate a theme, a form of literature which is preserved through the history of Sanskrit prose, and portions of a verse narrative. The true type, verses used at the point of emotion, especially, therefore, to give the vital speeches and replies, is thus not represented by any text of the Vedic literature. Whether it ever existed at all in the sense postulated by the theory, whether there are traces of it in thePāliJātakas, or whether its existence even there is a misunderstanding, are questions which are not in vital connexion with the origin of Sanskrit drama, and may, therefore, here be left undiscussed. One consideration, however, is germane; if it were necessary to explain the Vedic dialogues by this theory, it would certainly be possible to do so far more effectively and simply than by the theory of their being the remains of ritual dramas. The most serious objection to both theories is that they are not really necessary. Professor Geldner21who formerly patronized[23]the theory of Oldenberg has sought to explain the hymns in question as ballads.22Nor of course is it necessary to make any use of this theory in order to explain the mixture of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama. The use of prose needs no defence or explanation; that of verse is what was essentially to be expected, in view of the importance of song as a form of amusement as well as in worship both in Vedic times and later, and of the fact that our extant dramas draw so largely on epic tradition, preserved in versified texts. Nothing indeed is more noteworthy in Sanskrit literature than the determination to turn everything, law, astronomy, architecture, rhetoric, even philosophy into a metrical form. The theorists on the drama give no suggestion that the prose was regarded as any less fixed in character than the verses, or that it was not the duty of the author of the drama to be as careful in preparing the one as the other, and the manuscript tradition of the drama does not hint at any distinction of the two elements as regards source.[Contents]3.Dramatic Elements in Vedic RitualWhen we leave out of account the enigmatic dialogues of theṚgvedawe can see that the Vedic ritual contained within itself the germs of drama, as is the case with practically every primitive form of worship. The ritual did not consist merely of the singing of songs or recitations in honour of the gods; it involved a complex round of ceremonies in some of which there was undoubtedly present the element of dramatic representation; that is the performers of the rites assumed for the time being personalities other than their own. There is an interesting instance of this in the ritual of the Soma purchase for the Soma sacrifice. The seller is in some versions at the close of the ceremony deprived of his price, and beaten or pelted with clods. Now there can be no doubt that we have here, not a reflex of a disapproval of trafficking in Soma, but a mimic account of the obtaining of Soma from its guardians the Gandharvas, and there is some truth in the comparison drawn[24]between the Çūdra who plays therôleof the mishandled seller and the much misused Devil of the mediaeval mystery plays.23But we must not exaggerate the amount of representation; it falls very far short of an approach to drama, a point which is overlooked by Professor von Schroeder throughout his discussions. A drama proper can only be said to come into being when the actors perform parts deliberately for the sake of the performance, to give pleasure to themselves and others, if not profit also; if a ritual includes elements of representation, the aim is not the representation, but the actors are seeking a direct religious or magic result. It would be absurd, for instance, to treat the identification in the marriage ritual of the husband and wife with the sky and the earth as in any sense dramatic or to see any drama in the performance of the royal consecration, which is based carefully on the divine consecration of Indra, doubtless in the view that thus the king was for the time being identified with the great god, and so acquired some measure of his prowess.In the Mahāvrata24we find elements which are of importance as indicating the materials from which the drama might develop. The Mahāvrata is plainly a rite intended to strengthen at the winter solstice the sun, so that it may resume its vigour and make fruitful the earth. Now an essential part of the rite is a struggle between a Vaiçya, whose colour is to be white, and a Çūdra, black in colour, over a round white skin, which ultimately falls to the victorious Vaiçya. It is impossible, without ignoring the obvious nature of this rite, not to see in it a mimic contest to gain the sun, the power of light, the Aryan, striving against that of darkness, the Çūdra. In the face of the ethnological parallels it is impossible also to sever this episode from the numerous forms of the contest of summer and winter, the first represented by the white Aryan, the second by the dark Çūdra. We have in fact a primitive dramatic ritual, and one which it may be added was popular throughout the Vedic age. The same ceremony is also marked by a curious episode; a Brahmin student and a hetaera are introduced as engaged in coarse abuse of each other, and in the older form of the ritual[25]we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable. The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at producing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse, in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated.25There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable certainty that no drama was known. In theYajurvedawe have long lists of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation, and the term Naṭa, which is normally the designation of the actor in the later literature is unknown. We find but one term26which later ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity.Professor Hillebrandt,27on the other hand, is satisfied that we have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow28insists that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have known dialogue, abusive conversation and blows, but of which the chief parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in theKauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa29as the arts, but of which thePāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra30disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Naṭa,31whose activity belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the Puruṣamedha sections of the[26]Yajurveda, where in the imaginary sacrifice of men the imagination of the Brahmins appears to have laboured to enumerate every form of human activity. But in the absence of any proof that secular pantomime is older than religious throughout the world, and in the absence of anything to indicate that it was so in the case of India, it seems quite impossible to accept Professor Konow’s suggested origin of drama.Of other elements which enter into drama we find the songs of theSāmaveda, and the use of ceremonial dances. Thus at the Mahāvrata maidens dance round the fire as a spell to bring down rain for the crops, and to secure the prosperity of the herds. Before the marriage ceremony is completed32there is a dance of matrons whose husbands are still alive, obviously to secure that the marriage shall endure and be fruitful. When a death takes place, and the ashes of the deceased are collected, to be laid away, the mourners move round the vase which contains the last relics of the dead, and dancers are present who dance to the sound of the lute and the flute; dance, music, and song fill the whole day of mourning.33Dancing is closely associated throughout the history of the Indian theatre with the drama, and in the ritual of Çiva and Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa it has an important part. Hence the doctrine which has the approval of Professor Oldenberg34and which finds the origin of drama in the sacred dance, a dance, of course, accompanied by gesture ofpantomimiccharacter; combined with song, and later enriched by dialogue, this would give rise to the drama. If we further accept the view that the dialogue in prose was added from the ritual element seen in the abuse at the horse sacrifice and the Mahāvrata, then within the Vedic ritual we may discern all the elements for the growth of drama present.In this sense we may speak of the drama as having its origin in the Vedic period, but it may be doubted whether anything is gained by such a proposition. Unless the hymns of theṚgvedapresent us with real drama, which is most implausible, we have not the slightest evidence that the essential synthesis of elements and development of plot, which constitute a true[27]drama, were made in the Vedic age. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it was through the use of epic recitations that the latent possibilities of drama were evoked, and the literary form created. One very important point in this regard has certainly often been neglected. The Sanskrit drama does not consist, as the theory suggests, of song and prose as its vital elements; the vast majority of the stanzas, which are one of its chief features, were recited, not sung, and it was doubtless from the epic that the practice of recitation was in the main derived. Professor Oldenberg35admits in fact the great importance of the epic on the development of drama, but it may be more accurate to say that without epic recitation there would and could have been no drama at all. Assuredly we have no clear proof of such a thing as drama existing until later than we have assurance of the recitation of epic passages by Granthikas, as will be seen below.[28]

[Contents]1.The Indian Tradition of the Origin of the DramaIndian tradition, preserved in theNāṭyaçāstra,1the oldest of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin, and a close connexion with the sacred Vedas themselves. The golden age had no need for such amusements: ignorant of all pain, the sorrow, which is as essential to the art as joy itself, was inconceivable. The creation of the new form of literature was reserved to the silver age, when the gods approached the all-father and bade him produce something to give pleasure to the ears and eyes alike, a fifth Veda which, unlike the other four, would not be the jealous preserve of the three twice-born castes, but might be shared by the Çūdras also. Brahmā gave ear to the pleading, and designed to fashion a Veda in which tradition (itihāsa) should be combined with instruction in all the ends of men. To accomplish his task he took from theṚgvedathe element of recitation, from theSāmavedasong, from theYajurvedathe mimetic art, and from theAtharvavedasentiment. Then he bade Viçvakarman, the divine architect, build a playhouse in which the sage Bharata was instructed to carry into practice the art thus created. The gods accepted with joy the new creation; Çiva contributed to it the Tāṇḍava dance, expressing violent emotion, Pārvatī, his spouse, the tender and voluptuous Lāsya, while Viṣṇu was responsible for the invention of the four dramatic styles, essential to the effect of any play. To Bharata fell the duty of transferring to earth this celestial Veda in the inferior and truncated form of theNāṭyaçāstra.The legend is interesting for its determination to secure the[13]participation of every member of the Hindu Trinity in the creation of the new art, and for its effort to claim that the fifth Veda of tradition was the Veda of the dramatic art. The older tradition, recorded and exploited by the epic,2recognizes as the fifth Veda the mass of traditions, and theNāṭyaçāstratacitly concedes this by representing theNāṭyavedaas including these traditions. The legend, therefore, is not of great antiquity, nor need we place it long before the compilation of theNāṭyaçāstraitself. The date of that text is uncertain, but we cannot with any assurance place it before the third centuryA.D.With the Indian tendency to find divine origins, it may well be that the tradition existed much earlier, but in the absence of any corroboration that must remain a mere hypothesis, for which no conclusive ground can be adduced. What is important is that none of the theorists on the drama appeal to any Vedic texts as representing dramas, whence it is natural to draw the conclusion that there was no Indian tradition extant in their time which pointed to the preservation among the sacred texts of dramas. Indeed, if it were worth while, the conclusion might legitimately be drawn that the absence of any drama in the Vedic literature was recognized, since it was necessary for the gods to ask Brahmā to create a completely new type of literature, suitable for an age posterior to that in which the Vedas already existed.

1.The Indian Tradition of the Origin of the Drama

Indian tradition, preserved in theNāṭyaçāstra,1the oldest of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin, and a close connexion with the sacred Vedas themselves. The golden age had no need for such amusements: ignorant of all pain, the sorrow, which is as essential to the art as joy itself, was inconceivable. The creation of the new form of literature was reserved to the silver age, when the gods approached the all-father and bade him produce something to give pleasure to the ears and eyes alike, a fifth Veda which, unlike the other four, would not be the jealous preserve of the three twice-born castes, but might be shared by the Çūdras also. Brahmā gave ear to the pleading, and designed to fashion a Veda in which tradition (itihāsa) should be combined with instruction in all the ends of men. To accomplish his task he took from theṚgvedathe element of recitation, from theSāmavedasong, from theYajurvedathe mimetic art, and from theAtharvavedasentiment. Then he bade Viçvakarman, the divine architect, build a playhouse in which the sage Bharata was instructed to carry into practice the art thus created. The gods accepted with joy the new creation; Çiva contributed to it the Tāṇḍava dance, expressing violent emotion, Pārvatī, his spouse, the tender and voluptuous Lāsya, while Viṣṇu was responsible for the invention of the four dramatic styles, essential to the effect of any play. To Bharata fell the duty of transferring to earth this celestial Veda in the inferior and truncated form of theNāṭyaçāstra.The legend is interesting for its determination to secure the[13]participation of every member of the Hindu Trinity in the creation of the new art, and for its effort to claim that the fifth Veda of tradition was the Veda of the dramatic art. The older tradition, recorded and exploited by the epic,2recognizes as the fifth Veda the mass of traditions, and theNāṭyaçāstratacitly concedes this by representing theNāṭyavedaas including these traditions. The legend, therefore, is not of great antiquity, nor need we place it long before the compilation of theNāṭyaçāstraitself. The date of that text is uncertain, but we cannot with any assurance place it before the third centuryA.D.With the Indian tendency to find divine origins, it may well be that the tradition existed much earlier, but in the absence of any corroboration that must remain a mere hypothesis, for which no conclusive ground can be adduced. What is important is that none of the theorists on the drama appeal to any Vedic texts as representing dramas, whence it is natural to draw the conclusion that there was no Indian tradition extant in their time which pointed to the preservation among the sacred texts of dramas. Indeed, if it were worth while, the conclusion might legitimately be drawn that the absence of any drama in the Vedic literature was recognized, since it was necessary for the gods to ask Brahmā to create a completely new type of literature, suitable for an age posterior to that in which the Vedas already existed.

Indian tradition, preserved in theNāṭyaçāstra,1the oldest of the texts of the theory of the drama, claims for the drama divine origin, and a close connexion with the sacred Vedas themselves. The golden age had no need for such amusements: ignorant of all pain, the sorrow, which is as essential to the art as joy itself, was inconceivable. The creation of the new form of literature was reserved to the silver age, when the gods approached the all-father and bade him produce something to give pleasure to the ears and eyes alike, a fifth Veda which, unlike the other four, would not be the jealous preserve of the three twice-born castes, but might be shared by the Çūdras also. Brahmā gave ear to the pleading, and designed to fashion a Veda in which tradition (itihāsa) should be combined with instruction in all the ends of men. To accomplish his task he took from theṚgvedathe element of recitation, from theSāmavedasong, from theYajurvedathe mimetic art, and from theAtharvavedasentiment. Then he bade Viçvakarman, the divine architect, build a playhouse in which the sage Bharata was instructed to carry into practice the art thus created. The gods accepted with joy the new creation; Çiva contributed to it the Tāṇḍava dance, expressing violent emotion, Pārvatī, his spouse, the tender and voluptuous Lāsya, while Viṣṇu was responsible for the invention of the four dramatic styles, essential to the effect of any play. To Bharata fell the duty of transferring to earth this celestial Veda in the inferior and truncated form of theNāṭyaçāstra.

The legend is interesting for its determination to secure the[13]participation of every member of the Hindu Trinity in the creation of the new art, and for its effort to claim that the fifth Veda of tradition was the Veda of the dramatic art. The older tradition, recorded and exploited by the epic,2recognizes as the fifth Veda the mass of traditions, and theNāṭyaçāstratacitly concedes this by representing theNāṭyavedaas including these traditions. The legend, therefore, is not of great antiquity, nor need we place it long before the compilation of theNāṭyaçāstraitself. The date of that text is uncertain, but we cannot with any assurance place it before the third centuryA.D.With the Indian tendency to find divine origins, it may well be that the tradition existed much earlier, but in the absence of any corroboration that must remain a mere hypothesis, for which no conclusive ground can be adduced. What is important is that none of the theorists on the drama appeal to any Vedic texts as representing dramas, whence it is natural to draw the conclusion that there was no Indian tradition extant in their time which pointed to the preservation among the sacred texts of dramas. Indeed, if it were worth while, the conclusion might legitimately be drawn that the absence of any drama in the Vedic literature was recognized, since it was necessary for the gods to ask Brahmā to create a completely new type of literature, suitable for an age posterior to that in which the Vedas already existed.

[Contents]2.The Dialogues of the VedaThe silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because there do exist in theṚgvedaitself a number of hymns which are obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by early Indian tradition.3The number of such hymns is uncertain, for it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate;[14]the poet, with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply. Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā, and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28; and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi, and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108). The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii. 33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii. 33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with the assertion that[15]the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence, is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may be suspected even where it is not essential.Now it is clear that the tradition of the ritual literature did not know what to make of the dialogues of theṚgveda. The genre of composition was one which died out in the later Vedic age; it is significant that theAtharvavedaknows but one hymn of that type (v. 11) in which the priest, Atharvan, begs the god for the payment due, a cow; the god is little inclined to accord his prayer, but finally is induced to relent and to add to the guerdon due the promise of eternal friendship. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, if we find that Yāska and Çaunaka in the fifth centuryB.C.were at variance as to whether the hymn x. 95 was a dialogue, as the former held, or a mere legend, as the latter believed.4In the commentary of Sāyaṇa we find that the tradition was unable to ascribe any ritual use for nearly all the hymns; the case of x. 86 is an exception, but it is significant that that hymn has little of a true dialogue, the three speakers rather uttering enigmas than conversing, and it was therefore easier to fit it into the inconspicuous part it occupies in the later ritual. We must, therefore, admit that we have in these dialogues the remnant of a style of poetry which died out in the later Vedic period.Its original purpose is obscure, but a very interesting suggestion was made in 1869 by Max Müller in connexion with his version ofṚgvedai. 165.5He conjectured that the ‘dialogue was repeated at sacrifices in honour of the Maruts or that possibly it was acted by two parties, one representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers’. In 1890 the suggestion was repeated with approval by Professor Lévi,6who added to it the argument that theSāmavedashows that the art of music had been fully developed by the Vedic age. Moreover theṚgveda7already knows maidens who, decked in splendid raiment, dance and attract lovers, and theAtharvaveda8tells[16]how men dance and sing to music. There is, therefore,a priorino fatal objection to assuming that the period of theṚgvedaknew dramatic spectacles, religious in character, in which the priests assumed the rôles of gods and sages in order to imitate on earth the events of the heavens.The logical consequence of this doctrine is seen in Professor von Schroeder’s elaborate theory9that the dialogue hymns, and also certain monologues, for instance x. 119, in which Indra appears as glorifying himself in the intoxication of his favourite Soma drink, are relics of Vedic mysteries, an inheritance in germ from Indo-European times. Ethnology shows us the close relation of music, dance, and drama among many peoples, and the curious phenomenon that Vedic religion knows of gods as dancers cannot be explained satisfactorily save on the assumption that the priests were used to see performed ritual dances, in themselves imitations of the cosmic dance in which the world was, on one view, created. Such dances partake of the nature of sympathetic magic, and they have an obvious parallel in the great sacrificial rites, which in the Brāhmaṇa period are undertaken in order to represent on earth the cosmic creation. It is true that we do not find in theṚgvedathe phallic dances which in Greece and Mexico alike are held to be closely connected with the origin of drama, but that was because the priests of theṚgvedawere in many respects austere, and disapproved of phallic deities of any kind. The dramas of the ritual, therefore, are in a sense somewhat out of the main line of the development of the drama; the popular side has survived through the ages in a rough way in the Yātrās well known in the literature of Bengal, while the refined and sacerdotalized Vedic drama passed away without a direct descendant.Independent support for the view of the dialogues as mystery playsin nuceis given by Dr. Hertel,10whose argument is largely based on the doctrine that the Vedic hymns were always sung, and that in singing it would have been impossible for a single singer to make the necessary distinction between the different speakers, which would have been possible if the hymns had not[17]been sung. The hymns, therefore, represent the beginnings of a dramatic art, which may be compared with the form of theGītagovinda.11But, what is more important, he seeks to find an actual drama on an extended scale in theSuparṇādhyāya,12a curious and comparatively late Vedic text. In his view, accordingly, the Vedic drama does not stand isolated; it is seen in theṚgvedaonly in its beginnings; theSuparṇādhyāyadisplays it en route to further development, and in the Yātrās we can see a continuation of the old type, which aids us in following the growth from the Vedic drama of the classical drama of India. In this regard there is a distinct divergence of view between the two supporters of the dramatic theory, for Professor von Schroeder regards the Yātrās as genuinely connected with the later drama, being developed in close connexion with the cult of Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa and Rudra-Çiva, but as representing a different development from the same root as the Vedic dialogues. Of this other side of the drama he finds hints in the traditional connexion of the Gandharvas and Apsarases with the drama, for these in his view are essentially phallic deities.There is, of course, no doubt of the possibility of the dialogues really representing portions of the old ritual in which the priests assumed the character of gods or demons, for there are abundant parallels for such a supposition. But there is no sufficient ground to compel us to seek for such an explanation of these hymns; that theṚgvedacontains nothing save what is connected with ritual is a postulate which is not made by the Indians themselves, and has no justification save in the desire for symmetry. On the contrary, it is perfectly legitimate and much more natural to regard theṚgvedaas a collection of hymns, in the vast majority of cases of ritual origin, but including some more secular poetry, to which genus alone can we reasonably attribute the battle hymns of Viçvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha. The fact that such hymns disappear in the later Vedic literature is then natural, for that literature represents unquestionably hymns collected definitely for ritual uses, and therefore nothing was admitted which could not be employed therein. To assume, therefore, that a ritual explanation must[18]be found, and to find it in ritual drama is illegitimate, and the only justification for accepting the view in any case must lie in the fact that it affords a better explanation of the hymn than any which can be given otherwise.It is impossible to feel any certainty that the necessary proof has been brought in any case. The hymn ix. 112, which describes in four stanzas in a rather humorous style the various ends of men, ending with the refrain in each case, ‘O Soma, flow for Indra’, is transformed into the marching song of a popular festival at which mummers represent vegetation deities and symbols of fertility are carried. The tradition knows nothing of these happenings, and the hymn certainly suggests none to the average intelligence. On the contrary, it seems a very natural piece of witty sarcasm, to which point is lent by the use of the refrain, and to deny the possibility of sarcasm to the thinkers who produce the advanced and sceptical views expressed in theṚgvedais certainly unwise.13To explain the Vṛṣākapi hymn (x. 86) as a piece of fertility magic in dramatic form is ingenious, but unluckily it in no way contributes towards the explanation of the hymn, and, therefore, is as valueless as the other possible explanations which have been offered. The same condemnation must be passed on the effort to find a mimic race at a festival described in the strange Mudgala hymn (x. 102) which if it is intelligible at all, seems to have a mythological reference, and not to refer either to actual or mimic races.An ingenious effort is that made to adduce ethnological parallels to prove that the hymn x. 119, which is a straightforward monologue, placed in the mouth of Indra, celebrating the effect of drinking the Soma, must be regarded as part of a ritual in which at the close of the drinking of the Soma in the rite, a priest comes forward, assuming the rôle of Indra, and celebrates in monologue the strength of the juice of the holy plant.Among the Cora Indians, after a wine festival, a god is introduced showing the effects of the drink, while a singer celebrates its potent merits. There is, however, a fatal hiatus in the proof; the poem by itself is perfectly clear, and to seek[19]for an explanation so far-fetched is idle expenditure of energy. The same condemnation must be expressed of the effort to find in the frog hymn (vii. 103) a song sung by men masked as frogs, dancing as a spell to secure rain. If we grant that the hymn is really intended as a rain spell, which is moderately probable though not proved, it needs no further explanation whatever, and, if we do not accept this suggestion but adopt the older view that it satyrizes in an amusing way the antics of certain performers of the ritual, the character of the hymn as a fertility spell vanishes at once. The errors of method are seen excellently in the fantastic conclusion that the gambler’s hymn (x. 34), in which a gambler deplores the fatal love for the dice which has led to his reducing even his beloved wife to ruin, is a dramatic monologue in which dancers represent the leaping and falling dice. The dialogue of Yama and Yamī reduces itself to a fertility drama, from which the prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by two different parties, and thus was a ritual dramain nuce; what is certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x. 86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative14of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are to hold that we[20]have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel’s arguments from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be inclined to admita priorithat the song would tend to be accompanied by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to development. But we do not know that the hymns of theṚgvedawere always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that, while the verses of theSāmavedawere sung (gai), the verses of theṚgvedawere recited (çaṅs). True, we do not have precise information of the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns were used. We find in theṚgvedaa number of philosophic hymns; why should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately following the disposal of the dead, and[21]that during the pauses in the great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may legitimately assume that in theṚgvedawe have hymns of other than directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler’s hymn cannot by any reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual.15It is also impossible to accept the view that the Vedic drama died out under the chilling effect of the disapproval of the priests of fertility ritual. We find, on the contrary, that fertility ritual is fully recognized later in the Mahāvrata ceremonial, and also in the horse sacrifice, which are both known to the other Vedic Saṁhitās, though this feature of the rite is not referred to, directly at least, in theṚgveda. Moreover, even if the disapproval of fertility rites had been real, why should it have brought to a close the drama? The dialogues of Agni and the gods, of Saramā and the Paṇis, of Varuṇa and Indra, of Indra and the singer—and perhaps Vāyu also (viii. 100), have no connexion with fertility, and this aspect of drama need not have perished. Dr. Hertel is certainly right in demanding traces of development, not of decadence, but his great effort to find a full drama in theSuparṇādhyāyamust definitely be pronounced a failure. It involves an elaborate invention of stage directions, the preparation of a list ofdramatis personaelargely on the basis of imagination, and a translation of the piece based on this theory, which can be shown in detail to be open to the certainty of error. Add to this the fact that there is no hint in Indian tradition that theSuparṇādhyāya, on the face of it a late imitation of Vedic work proper, had ever any dramatic intention or use.A very different theory of the purpose of these hymns is that which we owe to Professors Windisch,16Oldenberg,17and Pischel.18They represent an old type, Indo-European in antiquity, of composition of epic character, in which the verses, representing the points of highest emotion, were preserved, and the connecting links were in prose which was not stereotyped, and therefore[22]has not come down to us. The theory is capable of combination with the suggestion that these hymns in dialogue were dramatic; thus Prof. Pischel explained the combination of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama as a relic of this early form of literature, which thus might serve both epic and dramatic ends.19Despite the considerable vogue which the theory has at one time or other attained, and the energetic defence of it by Professor Oldenberg, who has based upon it an elaborate theory of the development of Indian prose, it is doubtful whether we can accept the view.20It is a very real difficulty here also that the tradition shows no trace of knowledge of this characteristic of the hymns, and we do not find any work actually in this form in the whole of the Vedic literature. The alleged instances of this type, such as those of the tale of Çunaḥçepa in theAitareya Brāhmaṇa, or the working up in theÇatapatha Brāhmaṇaof the legend of Purūravas and Urvaçī cannot possibly be made to fit the theory. In the latter case we have a tale, which manifestly does not agree with the verses of theṚgveda, and which is openly and obviously an attempt to work that hymn into the explanation of the ritual; in the former we have the use of gnomic verses to illustrate a theme, a form of literature which is preserved through the history of Sanskrit prose, and portions of a verse narrative. The true type, verses used at the point of emotion, especially, therefore, to give the vital speeches and replies, is thus not represented by any text of the Vedic literature. Whether it ever existed at all in the sense postulated by the theory, whether there are traces of it in thePāliJātakas, or whether its existence even there is a misunderstanding, are questions which are not in vital connexion with the origin of Sanskrit drama, and may, therefore, here be left undiscussed. One consideration, however, is germane; if it were necessary to explain the Vedic dialogues by this theory, it would certainly be possible to do so far more effectively and simply than by the theory of their being the remains of ritual dramas. The most serious objection to both theories is that they are not really necessary. Professor Geldner21who formerly patronized[23]the theory of Oldenberg has sought to explain the hymns in question as ballads.22Nor of course is it necessary to make any use of this theory in order to explain the mixture of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama. The use of prose needs no defence or explanation; that of verse is what was essentially to be expected, in view of the importance of song as a form of amusement as well as in worship both in Vedic times and later, and of the fact that our extant dramas draw so largely on epic tradition, preserved in versified texts. Nothing indeed is more noteworthy in Sanskrit literature than the determination to turn everything, law, astronomy, architecture, rhetoric, even philosophy into a metrical form. The theorists on the drama give no suggestion that the prose was regarded as any less fixed in character than the verses, or that it was not the duty of the author of the drama to be as careful in preparing the one as the other, and the manuscript tradition of the drama does not hint at any distinction of the two elements as regards source.

2.The Dialogues of the Veda

The silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because there do exist in theṚgvedaitself a number of hymns which are obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by early Indian tradition.3The number of such hymns is uncertain, for it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate;[14]the poet, with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply. Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā, and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28; and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi, and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108). The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii. 33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii. 33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with the assertion that[15]the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence, is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may be suspected even where it is not essential.Now it is clear that the tradition of the ritual literature did not know what to make of the dialogues of theṚgveda. The genre of composition was one which died out in the later Vedic age; it is significant that theAtharvavedaknows but one hymn of that type (v. 11) in which the priest, Atharvan, begs the god for the payment due, a cow; the god is little inclined to accord his prayer, but finally is induced to relent and to add to the guerdon due the promise of eternal friendship. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, if we find that Yāska and Çaunaka in the fifth centuryB.C.were at variance as to whether the hymn x. 95 was a dialogue, as the former held, or a mere legend, as the latter believed.4In the commentary of Sāyaṇa we find that the tradition was unable to ascribe any ritual use for nearly all the hymns; the case of x. 86 is an exception, but it is significant that that hymn has little of a true dialogue, the three speakers rather uttering enigmas than conversing, and it was therefore easier to fit it into the inconspicuous part it occupies in the later ritual. We must, therefore, admit that we have in these dialogues the remnant of a style of poetry which died out in the later Vedic period.Its original purpose is obscure, but a very interesting suggestion was made in 1869 by Max Müller in connexion with his version ofṚgvedai. 165.5He conjectured that the ‘dialogue was repeated at sacrifices in honour of the Maruts or that possibly it was acted by two parties, one representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers’. In 1890 the suggestion was repeated with approval by Professor Lévi,6who added to it the argument that theSāmavedashows that the art of music had been fully developed by the Vedic age. Moreover theṚgveda7already knows maidens who, decked in splendid raiment, dance and attract lovers, and theAtharvaveda8tells[16]how men dance and sing to music. There is, therefore,a priorino fatal objection to assuming that the period of theṚgvedaknew dramatic spectacles, religious in character, in which the priests assumed the rôles of gods and sages in order to imitate on earth the events of the heavens.The logical consequence of this doctrine is seen in Professor von Schroeder’s elaborate theory9that the dialogue hymns, and also certain monologues, for instance x. 119, in which Indra appears as glorifying himself in the intoxication of his favourite Soma drink, are relics of Vedic mysteries, an inheritance in germ from Indo-European times. Ethnology shows us the close relation of music, dance, and drama among many peoples, and the curious phenomenon that Vedic religion knows of gods as dancers cannot be explained satisfactorily save on the assumption that the priests were used to see performed ritual dances, in themselves imitations of the cosmic dance in which the world was, on one view, created. Such dances partake of the nature of sympathetic magic, and they have an obvious parallel in the great sacrificial rites, which in the Brāhmaṇa period are undertaken in order to represent on earth the cosmic creation. It is true that we do not find in theṚgvedathe phallic dances which in Greece and Mexico alike are held to be closely connected with the origin of drama, but that was because the priests of theṚgvedawere in many respects austere, and disapproved of phallic deities of any kind. The dramas of the ritual, therefore, are in a sense somewhat out of the main line of the development of the drama; the popular side has survived through the ages in a rough way in the Yātrās well known in the literature of Bengal, while the refined and sacerdotalized Vedic drama passed away without a direct descendant.Independent support for the view of the dialogues as mystery playsin nuceis given by Dr. Hertel,10whose argument is largely based on the doctrine that the Vedic hymns were always sung, and that in singing it would have been impossible for a single singer to make the necessary distinction between the different speakers, which would have been possible if the hymns had not[17]been sung. The hymns, therefore, represent the beginnings of a dramatic art, which may be compared with the form of theGītagovinda.11But, what is more important, he seeks to find an actual drama on an extended scale in theSuparṇādhyāya,12a curious and comparatively late Vedic text. In his view, accordingly, the Vedic drama does not stand isolated; it is seen in theṚgvedaonly in its beginnings; theSuparṇādhyāyadisplays it en route to further development, and in the Yātrās we can see a continuation of the old type, which aids us in following the growth from the Vedic drama of the classical drama of India. In this regard there is a distinct divergence of view between the two supporters of the dramatic theory, for Professor von Schroeder regards the Yātrās as genuinely connected with the later drama, being developed in close connexion with the cult of Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa and Rudra-Çiva, but as representing a different development from the same root as the Vedic dialogues. Of this other side of the drama he finds hints in the traditional connexion of the Gandharvas and Apsarases with the drama, for these in his view are essentially phallic deities.There is, of course, no doubt of the possibility of the dialogues really representing portions of the old ritual in which the priests assumed the character of gods or demons, for there are abundant parallels for such a supposition. But there is no sufficient ground to compel us to seek for such an explanation of these hymns; that theṚgvedacontains nothing save what is connected with ritual is a postulate which is not made by the Indians themselves, and has no justification save in the desire for symmetry. On the contrary, it is perfectly legitimate and much more natural to regard theṚgvedaas a collection of hymns, in the vast majority of cases of ritual origin, but including some more secular poetry, to which genus alone can we reasonably attribute the battle hymns of Viçvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha. The fact that such hymns disappear in the later Vedic literature is then natural, for that literature represents unquestionably hymns collected definitely for ritual uses, and therefore nothing was admitted which could not be employed therein. To assume, therefore, that a ritual explanation must[18]be found, and to find it in ritual drama is illegitimate, and the only justification for accepting the view in any case must lie in the fact that it affords a better explanation of the hymn than any which can be given otherwise.It is impossible to feel any certainty that the necessary proof has been brought in any case. The hymn ix. 112, which describes in four stanzas in a rather humorous style the various ends of men, ending with the refrain in each case, ‘O Soma, flow for Indra’, is transformed into the marching song of a popular festival at which mummers represent vegetation deities and symbols of fertility are carried. The tradition knows nothing of these happenings, and the hymn certainly suggests none to the average intelligence. On the contrary, it seems a very natural piece of witty sarcasm, to which point is lent by the use of the refrain, and to deny the possibility of sarcasm to the thinkers who produce the advanced and sceptical views expressed in theṚgvedais certainly unwise.13To explain the Vṛṣākapi hymn (x. 86) as a piece of fertility magic in dramatic form is ingenious, but unluckily it in no way contributes towards the explanation of the hymn, and, therefore, is as valueless as the other possible explanations which have been offered. The same condemnation must be passed on the effort to find a mimic race at a festival described in the strange Mudgala hymn (x. 102) which if it is intelligible at all, seems to have a mythological reference, and not to refer either to actual or mimic races.An ingenious effort is that made to adduce ethnological parallels to prove that the hymn x. 119, which is a straightforward monologue, placed in the mouth of Indra, celebrating the effect of drinking the Soma, must be regarded as part of a ritual in which at the close of the drinking of the Soma in the rite, a priest comes forward, assuming the rôle of Indra, and celebrates in monologue the strength of the juice of the holy plant.Among the Cora Indians, after a wine festival, a god is introduced showing the effects of the drink, while a singer celebrates its potent merits. There is, however, a fatal hiatus in the proof; the poem by itself is perfectly clear, and to seek[19]for an explanation so far-fetched is idle expenditure of energy. The same condemnation must be expressed of the effort to find in the frog hymn (vii. 103) a song sung by men masked as frogs, dancing as a spell to secure rain. If we grant that the hymn is really intended as a rain spell, which is moderately probable though not proved, it needs no further explanation whatever, and, if we do not accept this suggestion but adopt the older view that it satyrizes in an amusing way the antics of certain performers of the ritual, the character of the hymn as a fertility spell vanishes at once. The errors of method are seen excellently in the fantastic conclusion that the gambler’s hymn (x. 34), in which a gambler deplores the fatal love for the dice which has led to his reducing even his beloved wife to ruin, is a dramatic monologue in which dancers represent the leaping and falling dice. The dialogue of Yama and Yamī reduces itself to a fertility drama, from which the prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by two different parties, and thus was a ritual dramain nuce; what is certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x. 86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative14of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are to hold that we[20]have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel’s arguments from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be inclined to admita priorithat the song would tend to be accompanied by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to development. But we do not know that the hymns of theṚgvedawere always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that, while the verses of theSāmavedawere sung (gai), the verses of theṚgvedawere recited (çaṅs). True, we do not have precise information of the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns were used. We find in theṚgvedaa number of philosophic hymns; why should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately following the disposal of the dead, and[21]that during the pauses in the great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may legitimately assume that in theṚgvedawe have hymns of other than directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler’s hymn cannot by any reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual.15It is also impossible to accept the view that the Vedic drama died out under the chilling effect of the disapproval of the priests of fertility ritual. We find, on the contrary, that fertility ritual is fully recognized later in the Mahāvrata ceremonial, and also in the horse sacrifice, which are both known to the other Vedic Saṁhitās, though this feature of the rite is not referred to, directly at least, in theṚgveda. Moreover, even if the disapproval of fertility rites had been real, why should it have brought to a close the drama? The dialogues of Agni and the gods, of Saramā and the Paṇis, of Varuṇa and Indra, of Indra and the singer—and perhaps Vāyu also (viii. 100), have no connexion with fertility, and this aspect of drama need not have perished. Dr. Hertel is certainly right in demanding traces of development, not of decadence, but his great effort to find a full drama in theSuparṇādhyāyamust definitely be pronounced a failure. It involves an elaborate invention of stage directions, the preparation of a list ofdramatis personaelargely on the basis of imagination, and a translation of the piece based on this theory, which can be shown in detail to be open to the certainty of error. Add to this the fact that there is no hint in Indian tradition that theSuparṇādhyāya, on the face of it a late imitation of Vedic work proper, had ever any dramatic intention or use.A very different theory of the purpose of these hymns is that which we owe to Professors Windisch,16Oldenberg,17and Pischel.18They represent an old type, Indo-European in antiquity, of composition of epic character, in which the verses, representing the points of highest emotion, were preserved, and the connecting links were in prose which was not stereotyped, and therefore[22]has not come down to us. The theory is capable of combination with the suggestion that these hymns in dialogue were dramatic; thus Prof. Pischel explained the combination of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama as a relic of this early form of literature, which thus might serve both epic and dramatic ends.19Despite the considerable vogue which the theory has at one time or other attained, and the energetic defence of it by Professor Oldenberg, who has based upon it an elaborate theory of the development of Indian prose, it is doubtful whether we can accept the view.20It is a very real difficulty here also that the tradition shows no trace of knowledge of this characteristic of the hymns, and we do not find any work actually in this form in the whole of the Vedic literature. The alleged instances of this type, such as those of the tale of Çunaḥçepa in theAitareya Brāhmaṇa, or the working up in theÇatapatha Brāhmaṇaof the legend of Purūravas and Urvaçī cannot possibly be made to fit the theory. In the latter case we have a tale, which manifestly does not agree with the verses of theṚgveda, and which is openly and obviously an attempt to work that hymn into the explanation of the ritual; in the former we have the use of gnomic verses to illustrate a theme, a form of literature which is preserved through the history of Sanskrit prose, and portions of a verse narrative. The true type, verses used at the point of emotion, especially, therefore, to give the vital speeches and replies, is thus not represented by any text of the Vedic literature. Whether it ever existed at all in the sense postulated by the theory, whether there are traces of it in thePāliJātakas, or whether its existence even there is a misunderstanding, are questions which are not in vital connexion with the origin of Sanskrit drama, and may, therefore, here be left undiscussed. One consideration, however, is germane; if it were necessary to explain the Vedic dialogues by this theory, it would certainly be possible to do so far more effectively and simply than by the theory of their being the remains of ritual dramas. The most serious objection to both theories is that they are not really necessary. Professor Geldner21who formerly patronized[23]the theory of Oldenberg has sought to explain the hymns in question as ballads.22Nor of course is it necessary to make any use of this theory in order to explain the mixture of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama. The use of prose needs no defence or explanation; that of verse is what was essentially to be expected, in view of the importance of song as a form of amusement as well as in worship both in Vedic times and later, and of the fact that our extant dramas draw so largely on epic tradition, preserved in versified texts. Nothing indeed is more noteworthy in Sanskrit literature than the determination to turn everything, law, astronomy, architecture, rhetoric, even philosophy into a metrical form. The theorists on the drama give no suggestion that the prose was regarded as any less fixed in character than the verses, or that it was not the duty of the author of the drama to be as careful in preparing the one as the other, and the manuscript tradition of the drama does not hint at any distinction of the two elements as regards source.

The silence of Indian tradition is all the more remarkable because there do exist in theṚgvedaitself a number of hymns which are obviously dialogues, and which are expressly recognized as such by early Indian tradition.3The number of such hymns is uncertain, for it is possible to add to those which clearly bear that character others whose interpretation might be improved by assuming a division of persons. There are, however, at least fifteen whose character as dialogues is quite undeniable, and most of these hymns are of marked interest. Thus in x. 10 Yama and Yamī, the primeval twins, whence in the legend are derived the races of men, engage in debate;[14]the poet, with a more refined sentiment than the legend, is uneasy regarding this primitive incest, and represents Yamī as intent on an effort, fruitless so far as the hymn goes, to induce Yama to accept and make fruitful her proffered love. A tantalizing, but certainly interesting, hymn in the same book (x. 95) gives a dialogue between Purūravas, and the nymph Urvaçī; he rebukes her inconstancy, but does not succeed in making her refrain from withdrawing from his gaze. In viii. 100 Nema Bhārgava utters an appeal to Indra, to which the god is pleased to give a reply. Sometimes there are three interlocutors; thus Agastya, the sage, has a conversation (i. 179) of an enigmatic type with his wife, Lopāmudrā, and their son; not less obscure is the dialogue between Indra and Vasukra, in which the wife of the latter plays a small part, in x. 28; and in iv. 18 we have a most confused dialogue between Indra, Aditi, and Vāmadeva. Even less intelligible is the famous debate between Indra, his wife, Indrāṇī, and Vṛṣākapi (x. 86), each interpreter of which is able to show the absurdity of the versions of his predecessors but seems incapable of recognizing the defects of his own. Or one of the interlocutors may be a troop, not an individual. Thus Saramā, the messenger of Indra, seeking the kine which have been taken away, goes to the demons, the Paṇis, and holds with them lively debate (x. 108). The gods also have a hard business (x. 51–3) to persuade Agni, the living fire, to persevere in the tedious occupation of bearing to them the oblations of mortals, and the dialogue in which they engage is vivid in the extreme, extending even to the breaking of a stanza into portions for two interlocutors. Two dialogues are of interest for their historical allusions, the converse of Viçvāmitra and the rivers (iii. 33) which he seeks to cross, and that of Vasiṣṭha with his sons (vii. 33), if indeed that is the correct interpretation of the speakers of the hymn. Indra again disputes with the Maruts (i. 165 and 170), who had disgraced themselves in his eyes by deserting him in the thick of his contest with the demon Vṛtra, but who succeed at last in placating his anger; in the former hymn Agastya seems also to intervene, by summing up the result at the close, and invoking the favour of the gods for himself. Similarly the account of Viçvāmitra’s dialogue ends with the assertion that[15]the Bharatas successfully crossed the rivers in search of booty, having won a passage by the intercession of their priest. The interesting, but obscure, hymn (iv. 42), in which Indra and Varuṇa seem to engage in a dispute as to their relative pre-eminence, is clearly commented on by the poet himself, and his intervention may be suspected even where it is not essential.

Now it is clear that the tradition of the ritual literature did not know what to make of the dialogues of theṚgveda. The genre of composition was one which died out in the later Vedic age; it is significant that theAtharvavedaknows but one hymn of that type (v. 11) in which the priest, Atharvan, begs the god for the payment due, a cow; the god is little inclined to accord his prayer, but finally is induced to relent and to add to the guerdon due the promise of eternal friendship. It is not in the least surprising, therefore, if we find that Yāska and Çaunaka in the fifth centuryB.C.were at variance as to whether the hymn x. 95 was a dialogue, as the former held, or a mere legend, as the latter believed.4In the commentary of Sāyaṇa we find that the tradition was unable to ascribe any ritual use for nearly all the hymns; the case of x. 86 is an exception, but it is significant that that hymn has little of a true dialogue, the three speakers rather uttering enigmas than conversing, and it was therefore easier to fit it into the inconspicuous part it occupies in the later ritual. We must, therefore, admit that we have in these dialogues the remnant of a style of poetry which died out in the later Vedic period.

Its original purpose is obscure, but a very interesting suggestion was made in 1869 by Max Müller in connexion with his version ofṚgvedai. 165.5He conjectured that the ‘dialogue was repeated at sacrifices in honour of the Maruts or that possibly it was acted by two parties, one representing Indra, the other the Maruts and their followers’. In 1890 the suggestion was repeated with approval by Professor Lévi,6who added to it the argument that theSāmavedashows that the art of music had been fully developed by the Vedic age. Moreover theṚgveda7already knows maidens who, decked in splendid raiment, dance and attract lovers, and theAtharvaveda8tells[16]how men dance and sing to music. There is, therefore,a priorino fatal objection to assuming that the period of theṚgvedaknew dramatic spectacles, religious in character, in which the priests assumed the rôles of gods and sages in order to imitate on earth the events of the heavens.

The logical consequence of this doctrine is seen in Professor von Schroeder’s elaborate theory9that the dialogue hymns, and also certain monologues, for instance x. 119, in which Indra appears as glorifying himself in the intoxication of his favourite Soma drink, are relics of Vedic mysteries, an inheritance in germ from Indo-European times. Ethnology shows us the close relation of music, dance, and drama among many peoples, and the curious phenomenon that Vedic religion knows of gods as dancers cannot be explained satisfactorily save on the assumption that the priests were used to see performed ritual dances, in themselves imitations of the cosmic dance in which the world was, on one view, created. Such dances partake of the nature of sympathetic magic, and they have an obvious parallel in the great sacrificial rites, which in the Brāhmaṇa period are undertaken in order to represent on earth the cosmic creation. It is true that we do not find in theṚgvedathe phallic dances which in Greece and Mexico alike are held to be closely connected with the origin of drama, but that was because the priests of theṚgvedawere in many respects austere, and disapproved of phallic deities of any kind. The dramas of the ritual, therefore, are in a sense somewhat out of the main line of the development of the drama; the popular side has survived through the ages in a rough way in the Yātrās well known in the literature of Bengal, while the refined and sacerdotalized Vedic drama passed away without a direct descendant.

Independent support for the view of the dialogues as mystery playsin nuceis given by Dr. Hertel,10whose argument is largely based on the doctrine that the Vedic hymns were always sung, and that in singing it would have been impossible for a single singer to make the necessary distinction between the different speakers, which would have been possible if the hymns had not[17]been sung. The hymns, therefore, represent the beginnings of a dramatic art, which may be compared with the form of theGītagovinda.11But, what is more important, he seeks to find an actual drama on an extended scale in theSuparṇādhyāya,12a curious and comparatively late Vedic text. In his view, accordingly, the Vedic drama does not stand isolated; it is seen in theṚgvedaonly in its beginnings; theSuparṇādhyāyadisplays it en route to further development, and in the Yātrās we can see a continuation of the old type, which aids us in following the growth from the Vedic drama of the classical drama of India. In this regard there is a distinct divergence of view between the two supporters of the dramatic theory, for Professor von Schroeder regards the Yātrās as genuinely connected with the later drama, being developed in close connexion with the cult of Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa and Rudra-Çiva, but as representing a different development from the same root as the Vedic dialogues. Of this other side of the drama he finds hints in the traditional connexion of the Gandharvas and Apsarases with the drama, for these in his view are essentially phallic deities.

There is, of course, no doubt of the possibility of the dialogues really representing portions of the old ritual in which the priests assumed the character of gods or demons, for there are abundant parallels for such a supposition. But there is no sufficient ground to compel us to seek for such an explanation of these hymns; that theṚgvedacontains nothing save what is connected with ritual is a postulate which is not made by the Indians themselves, and has no justification save in the desire for symmetry. On the contrary, it is perfectly legitimate and much more natural to regard theṚgvedaas a collection of hymns, in the vast majority of cases of ritual origin, but including some more secular poetry, to which genus alone can we reasonably attribute the battle hymns of Viçvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha. The fact that such hymns disappear in the later Vedic literature is then natural, for that literature represents unquestionably hymns collected definitely for ritual uses, and therefore nothing was admitted which could not be employed therein. To assume, therefore, that a ritual explanation must[18]be found, and to find it in ritual drama is illegitimate, and the only justification for accepting the view in any case must lie in the fact that it affords a better explanation of the hymn than any which can be given otherwise.

It is impossible to feel any certainty that the necessary proof has been brought in any case. The hymn ix. 112, which describes in four stanzas in a rather humorous style the various ends of men, ending with the refrain in each case, ‘O Soma, flow for Indra’, is transformed into the marching song of a popular festival at which mummers represent vegetation deities and symbols of fertility are carried. The tradition knows nothing of these happenings, and the hymn certainly suggests none to the average intelligence. On the contrary, it seems a very natural piece of witty sarcasm, to which point is lent by the use of the refrain, and to deny the possibility of sarcasm to the thinkers who produce the advanced and sceptical views expressed in theṚgvedais certainly unwise.13To explain the Vṛṣākapi hymn (x. 86) as a piece of fertility magic in dramatic form is ingenious, but unluckily it in no way contributes towards the explanation of the hymn, and, therefore, is as valueless as the other possible explanations which have been offered. The same condemnation must be passed on the effort to find a mimic race at a festival described in the strange Mudgala hymn (x. 102) which if it is intelligible at all, seems to have a mythological reference, and not to refer either to actual or mimic races.

An ingenious effort is that made to adduce ethnological parallels to prove that the hymn x. 119, which is a straightforward monologue, placed in the mouth of Indra, celebrating the effect of drinking the Soma, must be regarded as part of a ritual in which at the close of the drinking of the Soma in the rite, a priest comes forward, assuming the rôle of Indra, and celebrates in monologue the strength of the juice of the holy plant.Among the Cora Indians, after a wine festival, a god is introduced showing the effects of the drink, while a singer celebrates its potent merits. There is, however, a fatal hiatus in the proof; the poem by itself is perfectly clear, and to seek[19]for an explanation so far-fetched is idle expenditure of energy. The same condemnation must be expressed of the effort to find in the frog hymn (vii. 103) a song sung by men masked as frogs, dancing as a spell to secure rain. If we grant that the hymn is really intended as a rain spell, which is moderately probable though not proved, it needs no further explanation whatever, and, if we do not accept this suggestion but adopt the older view that it satyrizes in an amusing way the antics of certain performers of the ritual, the character of the hymn as a fertility spell vanishes at once. The errors of method are seen excellently in the fantastic conclusion that the gambler’s hymn (x. 34), in which a gambler deplores the fatal love for the dice which has led to his reducing even his beloved wife to ruin, is a dramatic monologue in which dancers represent the leaping and falling dice. The dialogue of Yama and Yamī reduces itself to a fertility drama, from which the prudishness of the Vedic age has omitted the vital part of the union of the pair. The curious hymn, iv. 18, which tells of Indra’s unnatural birth becomes a drama by the assumption that of thirteen verses seven are ascribed to the poet himself. We are in fact in every case presented with a bare possibility, which sometimes involves absurdities, and in all cases does nothing whatever to help us in interpreting the hymns. There is nothing, it is true, inconceivable in the view that the hymn of Saramā and the Paṇis was actually recited by two different parties, and thus was a ritual dramain nuce; what is certain is that the later Vedic period knew nothing whatever of such a practice; the only hymn in dialogue form for which it finds a use (x. 86) is assigned an employment in which there is nothing dramatic whatever. The absurdity of the whole process reaches perhaps its fullest exhibition in the dissertation on the hymn regarding Agastya and Lopāmudrā (i. 179), for it becomes a fertility rite performed after the corn has been cut; Lopāmudrā becomes ‘that which has the seal of disappearance upon it’, a feat which is impossible in the Vedic language; the hymn itself suits far better the obvious alternative14of ‘one who enjoys love at the cost of breaking her marital vows’. To explain the hymns of Indra and the Maruts (i. 170, 171, and 165) we are to hold that we[20]have three scenes of a dramatic performance, which takes place at a Soma sacrifice to celebrate the victory of Indra over the serpent Vṛtra, ending with a dance of the Maruts, represented by youths fully armed. This weapon dance is a relic of old vegetation ritual, the driving out of the old year, winter, or death, which is the foundation of the dances of the Roman Salii, the Greek Kouretes, the Phrygian Korybantes, and the German sword dancers. How can it be justifiable to spin theories thus in order to explain hymns which are taken by themselves without serious difficulty save in detail?

It is equally impossible to find any cogency in Dr. Hertel’s arguments from the necessity of assuming two sets of performers, since the hymns were sung and a single voice in singing could not distinguish the interlocutors. Doubtless, if we accepted this necessity, we would be inclined to admita priorithat the song would tend to be accompanied by action and by the dance, so that drama would be on the way to development. But we do not know that the hymns of theṚgvedawere always sung; on the contrary we do know with absolute certainty that, while the verses of theSāmavedawere sung (gai), the verses of theṚgvedawere recited (çaṅs). True, we do not have precise information of the exact character of the recitation, but there is not the slightest ground to suppose that a reciter could not have conveyed by differences in his mode of recitation the distinction between two different interlocutors, and the fact that this point is ignored in the argument is fatal to it. Moreover, we must admit that we are wholly ignorant as to the degree in which it was desired by the authors or reciters of these hymns to convey these differences of person. We do not know, and the ritual text-books did not know, exactly in what way these hymns were used. We find in theṚgvedaa number of philosophic hymns; why should we not admit that a philosophic dialogue such as that of Yama and Yamī is possible without demanding that it should be a fragment of ritual? We have historical hymns in Maṇḍala vii; why should we turn the dialogue of Viçvāmitra and the rivers into a drama? Why should we insist that all hymns were composed for ritual use, when we know that ancient tales were among the things used to pass the period immediately following the disposal of the dead, and[21]that during the pauses in the great horse sacrifice, performed to assert the wide sovereignty of the king, both Brahmins and warriors sang songs to fill up the time? We may legitimately assume that in theṚgvedawe have hymns of other than directly ritual or magic purpose; the gambler’s hymn cannot by any reasonable stretch of the imagination be taken as ritual.15

It is also impossible to accept the view that the Vedic drama died out under the chilling effect of the disapproval of the priests of fertility ritual. We find, on the contrary, that fertility ritual is fully recognized later in the Mahāvrata ceremonial, and also in the horse sacrifice, which are both known to the other Vedic Saṁhitās, though this feature of the rite is not referred to, directly at least, in theṚgveda. Moreover, even if the disapproval of fertility rites had been real, why should it have brought to a close the drama? The dialogues of Agni and the gods, of Saramā and the Paṇis, of Varuṇa and Indra, of Indra and the singer—and perhaps Vāyu also (viii. 100), have no connexion with fertility, and this aspect of drama need not have perished. Dr. Hertel is certainly right in demanding traces of development, not of decadence, but his great effort to find a full drama in theSuparṇādhyāyamust definitely be pronounced a failure. It involves an elaborate invention of stage directions, the preparation of a list ofdramatis personaelargely on the basis of imagination, and a translation of the piece based on this theory, which can be shown in detail to be open to the certainty of error. Add to this the fact that there is no hint in Indian tradition that theSuparṇādhyāya, on the face of it a late imitation of Vedic work proper, had ever any dramatic intention or use.

A very different theory of the purpose of these hymns is that which we owe to Professors Windisch,16Oldenberg,17and Pischel.18They represent an old type, Indo-European in antiquity, of composition of epic character, in which the verses, representing the points of highest emotion, were preserved, and the connecting links were in prose which was not stereotyped, and therefore[22]has not come down to us. The theory is capable of combination with the suggestion that these hymns in dialogue were dramatic; thus Prof. Pischel explained the combination of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama as a relic of this early form of literature, which thus might serve both epic and dramatic ends.19Despite the considerable vogue which the theory has at one time or other attained, and the energetic defence of it by Professor Oldenberg, who has based upon it an elaborate theory of the development of Indian prose, it is doubtful whether we can accept the view.20It is a very real difficulty here also that the tradition shows no trace of knowledge of this characteristic of the hymns, and we do not find any work actually in this form in the whole of the Vedic literature. The alleged instances of this type, such as those of the tale of Çunaḥçepa in theAitareya Brāhmaṇa, or the working up in theÇatapatha Brāhmaṇaof the legend of Purūravas and Urvaçī cannot possibly be made to fit the theory. In the latter case we have a tale, which manifestly does not agree with the verses of theṚgveda, and which is openly and obviously an attempt to work that hymn into the explanation of the ritual; in the former we have the use of gnomic verses to illustrate a theme, a form of literature which is preserved through the history of Sanskrit prose, and portions of a verse narrative. The true type, verses used at the point of emotion, especially, therefore, to give the vital speeches and replies, is thus not represented by any text of the Vedic literature. Whether it ever existed at all in the sense postulated by the theory, whether there are traces of it in thePāliJātakas, or whether its existence even there is a misunderstanding, are questions which are not in vital connexion with the origin of Sanskrit drama, and may, therefore, here be left undiscussed. One consideration, however, is germane; if it were necessary to explain the Vedic dialogues by this theory, it would certainly be possible to do so far more effectively and simply than by the theory of their being the remains of ritual dramas. The most serious objection to both theories is that they are not really necessary. Professor Geldner21who formerly patronized[23]the theory of Oldenberg has sought to explain the hymns in question as ballads.22

Nor of course is it necessary to make any use of this theory in order to explain the mixture of prose and verse in the Sanskrit drama. The use of prose needs no defence or explanation; that of verse is what was essentially to be expected, in view of the importance of song as a form of amusement as well as in worship both in Vedic times and later, and of the fact that our extant dramas draw so largely on epic tradition, preserved in versified texts. Nothing indeed is more noteworthy in Sanskrit literature than the determination to turn everything, law, astronomy, architecture, rhetoric, even philosophy into a metrical form. The theorists on the drama give no suggestion that the prose was regarded as any less fixed in character than the verses, or that it was not the duty of the author of the drama to be as careful in preparing the one as the other, and the manuscript tradition of the drama does not hint at any distinction of the two elements as regards source.

[Contents]3.Dramatic Elements in Vedic RitualWhen we leave out of account the enigmatic dialogues of theṚgvedawe can see that the Vedic ritual contained within itself the germs of drama, as is the case with practically every primitive form of worship. The ritual did not consist merely of the singing of songs or recitations in honour of the gods; it involved a complex round of ceremonies in some of which there was undoubtedly present the element of dramatic representation; that is the performers of the rites assumed for the time being personalities other than their own. There is an interesting instance of this in the ritual of the Soma purchase for the Soma sacrifice. The seller is in some versions at the close of the ceremony deprived of his price, and beaten or pelted with clods. Now there can be no doubt that we have here, not a reflex of a disapproval of trafficking in Soma, but a mimic account of the obtaining of Soma from its guardians the Gandharvas, and there is some truth in the comparison drawn[24]between the Çūdra who plays therôleof the mishandled seller and the much misused Devil of the mediaeval mystery plays.23But we must not exaggerate the amount of representation; it falls very far short of an approach to drama, a point which is overlooked by Professor von Schroeder throughout his discussions. A drama proper can only be said to come into being when the actors perform parts deliberately for the sake of the performance, to give pleasure to themselves and others, if not profit also; if a ritual includes elements of representation, the aim is not the representation, but the actors are seeking a direct religious or magic result. It would be absurd, for instance, to treat the identification in the marriage ritual of the husband and wife with the sky and the earth as in any sense dramatic or to see any drama in the performance of the royal consecration, which is based carefully on the divine consecration of Indra, doubtless in the view that thus the king was for the time being identified with the great god, and so acquired some measure of his prowess.In the Mahāvrata24we find elements which are of importance as indicating the materials from which the drama might develop. The Mahāvrata is plainly a rite intended to strengthen at the winter solstice the sun, so that it may resume its vigour and make fruitful the earth. Now an essential part of the rite is a struggle between a Vaiçya, whose colour is to be white, and a Çūdra, black in colour, over a round white skin, which ultimately falls to the victorious Vaiçya. It is impossible, without ignoring the obvious nature of this rite, not to see in it a mimic contest to gain the sun, the power of light, the Aryan, striving against that of darkness, the Çūdra. In the face of the ethnological parallels it is impossible also to sever this episode from the numerous forms of the contest of summer and winter, the first represented by the white Aryan, the second by the dark Çūdra. We have in fact a primitive dramatic ritual, and one which it may be added was popular throughout the Vedic age. The same ceremony is also marked by a curious episode; a Brahmin student and a hetaera are introduced as engaged in coarse abuse of each other, and in the older form of the ritual[25]we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable. The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at producing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse, in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated.25There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable certainty that no drama was known. In theYajurvedawe have long lists of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation, and the term Naṭa, which is normally the designation of the actor in the later literature is unknown. We find but one term26which later ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity.Professor Hillebrandt,27on the other hand, is satisfied that we have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow28insists that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have known dialogue, abusive conversation and blows, but of which the chief parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in theKauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa29as the arts, but of which thePāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra30disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Naṭa,31whose activity belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the Puruṣamedha sections of the[26]Yajurveda, where in the imaginary sacrifice of men the imagination of the Brahmins appears to have laboured to enumerate every form of human activity. But in the absence of any proof that secular pantomime is older than religious throughout the world, and in the absence of anything to indicate that it was so in the case of India, it seems quite impossible to accept Professor Konow’s suggested origin of drama.Of other elements which enter into drama we find the songs of theSāmaveda, and the use of ceremonial dances. Thus at the Mahāvrata maidens dance round the fire as a spell to bring down rain for the crops, and to secure the prosperity of the herds. Before the marriage ceremony is completed32there is a dance of matrons whose husbands are still alive, obviously to secure that the marriage shall endure and be fruitful. When a death takes place, and the ashes of the deceased are collected, to be laid away, the mourners move round the vase which contains the last relics of the dead, and dancers are present who dance to the sound of the lute and the flute; dance, music, and song fill the whole day of mourning.33Dancing is closely associated throughout the history of the Indian theatre with the drama, and in the ritual of Çiva and Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa it has an important part. Hence the doctrine which has the approval of Professor Oldenberg34and which finds the origin of drama in the sacred dance, a dance, of course, accompanied by gesture ofpantomimiccharacter; combined with song, and later enriched by dialogue, this would give rise to the drama. If we further accept the view that the dialogue in prose was added from the ritual element seen in the abuse at the horse sacrifice and the Mahāvrata, then within the Vedic ritual we may discern all the elements for the growth of drama present.In this sense we may speak of the drama as having its origin in the Vedic period, but it may be doubted whether anything is gained by such a proposition. Unless the hymns of theṚgvedapresent us with real drama, which is most implausible, we have not the slightest evidence that the essential synthesis of elements and development of plot, which constitute a true[27]drama, were made in the Vedic age. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it was through the use of epic recitations that the latent possibilities of drama were evoked, and the literary form created. One very important point in this regard has certainly often been neglected. The Sanskrit drama does not consist, as the theory suggests, of song and prose as its vital elements; the vast majority of the stanzas, which are one of its chief features, were recited, not sung, and it was doubtless from the epic that the practice of recitation was in the main derived. Professor Oldenberg35admits in fact the great importance of the epic on the development of drama, but it may be more accurate to say that without epic recitation there would and could have been no drama at all. Assuredly we have no clear proof of such a thing as drama existing until later than we have assurance of the recitation of epic passages by Granthikas, as will be seen below.[28]

3.Dramatic Elements in Vedic Ritual

When we leave out of account the enigmatic dialogues of theṚgvedawe can see that the Vedic ritual contained within itself the germs of drama, as is the case with practically every primitive form of worship. The ritual did not consist merely of the singing of songs or recitations in honour of the gods; it involved a complex round of ceremonies in some of which there was undoubtedly present the element of dramatic representation; that is the performers of the rites assumed for the time being personalities other than their own. There is an interesting instance of this in the ritual of the Soma purchase for the Soma sacrifice. The seller is in some versions at the close of the ceremony deprived of his price, and beaten or pelted with clods. Now there can be no doubt that we have here, not a reflex of a disapproval of trafficking in Soma, but a mimic account of the obtaining of Soma from its guardians the Gandharvas, and there is some truth in the comparison drawn[24]between the Çūdra who plays therôleof the mishandled seller and the much misused Devil of the mediaeval mystery plays.23But we must not exaggerate the amount of representation; it falls very far short of an approach to drama, a point which is overlooked by Professor von Schroeder throughout his discussions. A drama proper can only be said to come into being when the actors perform parts deliberately for the sake of the performance, to give pleasure to themselves and others, if not profit also; if a ritual includes elements of representation, the aim is not the representation, but the actors are seeking a direct religious or magic result. It would be absurd, for instance, to treat the identification in the marriage ritual of the husband and wife with the sky and the earth as in any sense dramatic or to see any drama in the performance of the royal consecration, which is based carefully on the divine consecration of Indra, doubtless in the view that thus the king was for the time being identified with the great god, and so acquired some measure of his prowess.In the Mahāvrata24we find elements which are of importance as indicating the materials from which the drama might develop. The Mahāvrata is plainly a rite intended to strengthen at the winter solstice the sun, so that it may resume its vigour and make fruitful the earth. Now an essential part of the rite is a struggle between a Vaiçya, whose colour is to be white, and a Çūdra, black in colour, over a round white skin, which ultimately falls to the victorious Vaiçya. It is impossible, without ignoring the obvious nature of this rite, not to see in it a mimic contest to gain the sun, the power of light, the Aryan, striving against that of darkness, the Çūdra. In the face of the ethnological parallels it is impossible also to sever this episode from the numerous forms of the contest of summer and winter, the first represented by the white Aryan, the second by the dark Çūdra. We have in fact a primitive dramatic ritual, and one which it may be added was popular throughout the Vedic age. The same ceremony is also marked by a curious episode; a Brahmin student and a hetaera are introduced as engaged in coarse abuse of each other, and in the older form of the ritual[25]we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable. The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at producing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse, in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated.25There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable certainty that no drama was known. In theYajurvedawe have long lists of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation, and the term Naṭa, which is normally the designation of the actor in the later literature is unknown. We find but one term26which later ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity.Professor Hillebrandt,27on the other hand, is satisfied that we have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow28insists that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have known dialogue, abusive conversation and blows, but of which the chief parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in theKauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa29as the arts, but of which thePāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra30disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Naṭa,31whose activity belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the Puruṣamedha sections of the[26]Yajurveda, where in the imaginary sacrifice of men the imagination of the Brahmins appears to have laboured to enumerate every form of human activity. But in the absence of any proof that secular pantomime is older than religious throughout the world, and in the absence of anything to indicate that it was so in the case of India, it seems quite impossible to accept Professor Konow’s suggested origin of drama.Of other elements which enter into drama we find the songs of theSāmaveda, and the use of ceremonial dances. Thus at the Mahāvrata maidens dance round the fire as a spell to bring down rain for the crops, and to secure the prosperity of the herds. Before the marriage ceremony is completed32there is a dance of matrons whose husbands are still alive, obviously to secure that the marriage shall endure and be fruitful. When a death takes place, and the ashes of the deceased are collected, to be laid away, the mourners move round the vase which contains the last relics of the dead, and dancers are present who dance to the sound of the lute and the flute; dance, music, and song fill the whole day of mourning.33Dancing is closely associated throughout the history of the Indian theatre with the drama, and in the ritual of Çiva and Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa it has an important part. Hence the doctrine which has the approval of Professor Oldenberg34and which finds the origin of drama in the sacred dance, a dance, of course, accompanied by gesture ofpantomimiccharacter; combined with song, and later enriched by dialogue, this would give rise to the drama. If we further accept the view that the dialogue in prose was added from the ritual element seen in the abuse at the horse sacrifice and the Mahāvrata, then within the Vedic ritual we may discern all the elements for the growth of drama present.In this sense we may speak of the drama as having its origin in the Vedic period, but it may be doubted whether anything is gained by such a proposition. Unless the hymns of theṚgvedapresent us with real drama, which is most implausible, we have not the slightest evidence that the essential synthesis of elements and development of plot, which constitute a true[27]drama, were made in the Vedic age. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it was through the use of epic recitations that the latent possibilities of drama were evoked, and the literary form created. One very important point in this regard has certainly often been neglected. The Sanskrit drama does not consist, as the theory suggests, of song and prose as its vital elements; the vast majority of the stanzas, which are one of its chief features, were recited, not sung, and it was doubtless from the epic that the practice of recitation was in the main derived. Professor Oldenberg35admits in fact the great importance of the epic on the development of drama, but it may be more accurate to say that without epic recitation there would and could have been no drama at all. Assuredly we have no clear proof of such a thing as drama existing until later than we have assurance of the recitation of epic passages by Granthikas, as will be seen below.[28]

When we leave out of account the enigmatic dialogues of theṚgvedawe can see that the Vedic ritual contained within itself the germs of drama, as is the case with practically every primitive form of worship. The ritual did not consist merely of the singing of songs or recitations in honour of the gods; it involved a complex round of ceremonies in some of which there was undoubtedly present the element of dramatic representation; that is the performers of the rites assumed for the time being personalities other than their own. There is an interesting instance of this in the ritual of the Soma purchase for the Soma sacrifice. The seller is in some versions at the close of the ceremony deprived of his price, and beaten or pelted with clods. Now there can be no doubt that we have here, not a reflex of a disapproval of trafficking in Soma, but a mimic account of the obtaining of Soma from its guardians the Gandharvas, and there is some truth in the comparison drawn[24]between the Çūdra who plays therôleof the mishandled seller and the much misused Devil of the mediaeval mystery plays.23But we must not exaggerate the amount of representation; it falls very far short of an approach to drama, a point which is overlooked by Professor von Schroeder throughout his discussions. A drama proper can only be said to come into being when the actors perform parts deliberately for the sake of the performance, to give pleasure to themselves and others, if not profit also; if a ritual includes elements of representation, the aim is not the representation, but the actors are seeking a direct religious or magic result. It would be absurd, for instance, to treat the identification in the marriage ritual of the husband and wife with the sky and the earth as in any sense dramatic or to see any drama in the performance of the royal consecration, which is based carefully on the divine consecration of Indra, doubtless in the view that thus the king was for the time being identified with the great god, and so acquired some measure of his prowess.

In the Mahāvrata24we find elements which are of importance as indicating the materials from which the drama might develop. The Mahāvrata is plainly a rite intended to strengthen at the winter solstice the sun, so that it may resume its vigour and make fruitful the earth. Now an essential part of the rite is a struggle between a Vaiçya, whose colour is to be white, and a Çūdra, black in colour, over a round white skin, which ultimately falls to the victorious Vaiçya. It is impossible, without ignoring the obvious nature of this rite, not to see in it a mimic contest to gain the sun, the power of light, the Aryan, striving against that of darkness, the Çūdra. In the face of the ethnological parallels it is impossible also to sever this episode from the numerous forms of the contest of summer and winter, the first represented by the white Aryan, the second by the dark Çūdra. We have in fact a primitive dramatic ritual, and one which it may be added was popular throughout the Vedic age. The same ceremony is also marked by a curious episode; a Brahmin student and a hetaera are introduced as engaged in coarse abuse of each other, and in the older form of the ritual[25]we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable. The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at producing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse, in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated.25

There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable certainty that no drama was known. In theYajurvedawe have long lists of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation, and the term Naṭa, which is normally the designation of the actor in the later literature is unknown. We find but one term26which later ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity.

Professor Hillebrandt,27on the other hand, is satisfied that we have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow28insists that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have known dialogue, abusive conversation and blows, but of which the chief parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in theKauṣītaki Brāhmaṇa29as the arts, but of which thePāraskara Gṛhya Sūtra30disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Naṭa,31whose activity belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the Puruṣamedha sections of the[26]Yajurveda, where in the imaginary sacrifice of men the imagination of the Brahmins appears to have laboured to enumerate every form of human activity. But in the absence of any proof that secular pantomime is older than religious throughout the world, and in the absence of anything to indicate that it was so in the case of India, it seems quite impossible to accept Professor Konow’s suggested origin of drama.

Of other elements which enter into drama we find the songs of theSāmaveda, and the use of ceremonial dances. Thus at the Mahāvrata maidens dance round the fire as a spell to bring down rain for the crops, and to secure the prosperity of the herds. Before the marriage ceremony is completed32there is a dance of matrons whose husbands are still alive, obviously to secure that the marriage shall endure and be fruitful. When a death takes place, and the ashes of the deceased are collected, to be laid away, the mourners move round the vase which contains the last relics of the dead, and dancers are present who dance to the sound of the lute and the flute; dance, music, and song fill the whole day of mourning.33Dancing is closely associated throughout the history of the Indian theatre with the drama, and in the ritual of Çiva and Viṣṇu-Kṛṣṇa it has an important part. Hence the doctrine which has the approval of Professor Oldenberg34and which finds the origin of drama in the sacred dance, a dance, of course, accompanied by gesture ofpantomimiccharacter; combined with song, and later enriched by dialogue, this would give rise to the drama. If we further accept the view that the dialogue in prose was added from the ritual element seen in the abuse at the horse sacrifice and the Mahāvrata, then within the Vedic ritual we may discern all the elements for the growth of drama present.

In this sense we may speak of the drama as having its origin in the Vedic period, but it may be doubted whether anything is gained by such a proposition. Unless the hymns of theṚgvedapresent us with real drama, which is most implausible, we have not the slightest evidence that the essential synthesis of elements and development of plot, which constitute a true[27]drama, were made in the Vedic age. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that it was through the use of epic recitations that the latent possibilities of drama were evoked, and the literary form created. One very important point in this regard has certainly often been neglected. The Sanskrit drama does not consist, as the theory suggests, of song and prose as its vital elements; the vast majority of the stanzas, which are one of its chief features, were recited, not sung, and it was doubtless from the epic that the practice of recitation was in the main derived. Professor Oldenberg35admits in fact the great importance of the epic on the development of drama, but it may be more accurate to say that without epic recitation there would and could have been no drama at all. Assuredly we have no clear proof of such a thing as drama existing until later than we have assurance of the recitation of epic passages by Granthikas, as will be seen below.[28]

1i. 2 ff.↑2Hopkins,Great Epic of India, pp. 7, 10, 53.↑3Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.↑4Sieg,Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, p. 27.↑5SBE. xxxii. 182 f.↑6TI. i. 307 f.↑7i. 92. 4.↑8xii. 1. 41.↑9Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda(1908); VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.; xxiii. 1 ff., 270 f.↑10VOJ. xviii. 59 ff., 137 ff.; xxiii. 273 ff.; xxiv. 117 ff. Cf. Charpentier, VOJ. xxiii. 33 ff.;Die Suparṇasage(1922) is somewhat confused and uncritical.↑11See ch. xi., § 9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 130 f.↑12See also Jarl Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage(Uppsala, 1922).↑13This is quite consistent with the ritual use in a Soma ‘wish’ offering suggested by Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, pp. 79 ff. Cf. his remarks on vii. 103 inṚgveda-Noten, ii. 67.↑14Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4.↑15Keith, JRAS. 1911, p. 1006.↑16Cf.Sansk. Phil. pp. 404 ff.↑17ZDMG. xxxvii. 54 ff.; xxxix. 52 ff.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 ff.; GN. 1911, pp. 441 ff.;Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa(1917), pp. 53 ff.;Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.↑18VS. ii. 42 ff. GGA. 1891, pp. 351 ff.↑19Compare Oldenberg,Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241.↑20See Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.; 1912, pp. 429 ff.;Rigveda Brāhmaṇas, pp. 68 ff.↑21Die indische Balladendichtung(1913). Cf. G. M. Miller,The Popular Ballad(1905).↑22The existence of this type in the Epic is certainly most improbable, and in the Jātakas it is not frequent; cf. Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage, and Winternitz’s admissions, GIL. ii. 368 with Oldenberg, GN. 1918, pp. 429 ff.; 1919, pp. 61 ff.↑23Hillebrandt,Ved. Myth., i. 69 ff.↑24Keith,Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, pp. 72 ff.↑25Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv.↑26VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2.↑27AID. pp. 22 f.↑28ID. pp. 42 ff.↑29xxix. 5.↑30ii. 7. 3.↑31The Prākritic form of the term as opposed to Vedicnṛtuandnṛttais legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious dancing gave a factor to drama.↑32Çān̄khāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, i. 11. 5.↑33Caland,Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, pp. 138 ff.↑34Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 237; Macdonell,Sanskrit Literature, p. 347.↑35Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241. In Mexico we have the material of a ritual drama (K. Th. Preuss,Archiv für Anthropologie, 1904, pp. 158 ff.), but not the epic element.↑

1i. 2 ff.↑2Hopkins,Great Epic of India, pp. 7, 10, 53.↑3Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.↑4Sieg,Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, p. 27.↑5SBE. xxxii. 182 f.↑6TI. i. 307 f.↑7i. 92. 4.↑8xii. 1. 41.↑9Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda(1908); VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.; xxiii. 1 ff., 270 f.↑10VOJ. xviii. 59 ff., 137 ff.; xxiii. 273 ff.; xxiv. 117 ff. Cf. Charpentier, VOJ. xxiii. 33 ff.;Die Suparṇasage(1922) is somewhat confused and uncritical.↑11See ch. xi., § 9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 130 f.↑12See also Jarl Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage(Uppsala, 1922).↑13This is quite consistent with the ritual use in a Soma ‘wish’ offering suggested by Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, pp. 79 ff. Cf. his remarks on vii. 103 inṚgveda-Noten, ii. 67.↑14Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4.↑15Keith, JRAS. 1911, p. 1006.↑16Cf.Sansk. Phil. pp. 404 ff.↑17ZDMG. xxxvii. 54 ff.; xxxix. 52 ff.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 ff.; GN. 1911, pp. 441 ff.;Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa(1917), pp. 53 ff.;Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.↑18VS. ii. 42 ff. GGA. 1891, pp. 351 ff.↑19Compare Oldenberg,Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241.↑20See Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.; 1912, pp. 429 ff.;Rigveda Brāhmaṇas, pp. 68 ff.↑21Die indische Balladendichtung(1913). Cf. G. M. Miller,The Popular Ballad(1905).↑22The existence of this type in the Epic is certainly most improbable, and in the Jātakas it is not frequent; cf. Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage, and Winternitz’s admissions, GIL. ii. 368 with Oldenberg, GN. 1918, pp. 429 ff.; 1919, pp. 61 ff.↑23Hillebrandt,Ved. Myth., i. 69 ff.↑24Keith,Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, pp. 72 ff.↑25Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv.↑26VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2.↑27AID. pp. 22 f.↑28ID. pp. 42 ff.↑29xxix. 5.↑30ii. 7. 3.↑31The Prākritic form of the term as opposed to Vedicnṛtuandnṛttais legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious dancing gave a factor to drama.↑32Çān̄khāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, i. 11. 5.↑33Caland,Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, pp. 138 ff.↑34Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 237; Macdonell,Sanskrit Literature, p. 347.↑35Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241. In Mexico we have the material of a ritual drama (K. Th. Preuss,Archiv für Anthropologie, 1904, pp. 158 ff.), but not the epic element.↑

1i. 2 ff.↑

1i. 2 ff.↑

2Hopkins,Great Epic of India, pp. 7, 10, 53.↑

2Hopkins,Great Epic of India, pp. 7, 10, 53.↑

3Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.↑

3Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.↑

4Sieg,Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, p. 27.↑

4Sieg,Die Sagenstoffe des Ṛgveda, p. 27.↑

5SBE. xxxii. 182 f.↑

5SBE. xxxii. 182 f.↑

6TI. i. 307 f.↑

6TI. i. 307 f.↑

7i. 92. 4.↑

7i. 92. 4.↑

8xii. 1. 41.↑

8xii. 1. 41.↑

9Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda(1908); VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.; xxiii. 1 ff., 270 f.↑

9Mysterium und Mimus im Rigveda(1908); VOJ. xxii. 223 ff.; xxiii. 1 ff., 270 f.↑

10VOJ. xviii. 59 ff., 137 ff.; xxiii. 273 ff.; xxiv. 117 ff. Cf. Charpentier, VOJ. xxiii. 33 ff.;Die Suparṇasage(1922) is somewhat confused and uncritical.↑

10VOJ. xviii. 59 ff., 137 ff.; xxiii. 273 ff.; xxiv. 117 ff. Cf. Charpentier, VOJ. xxiii. 33 ff.;Die Suparṇasage(1922) is somewhat confused and uncritical.↑

11See ch. xi., § 9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 130 f.↑

11See ch. xi., § 9; Winternitz, GIL. iii. 130 f.↑

12See also Jarl Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage(Uppsala, 1922).↑

12See also Jarl Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage(Uppsala, 1922).↑

13This is quite consistent with the ritual use in a Soma ‘wish’ offering suggested by Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, pp. 79 ff. Cf. his remarks on vii. 103 inṚgveda-Noten, ii. 67.↑

13This is quite consistent with the ritual use in a Soma ‘wish’ offering suggested by Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, pp. 79 ff. Cf. his remarks on vii. 103 inṚgveda-Noten, ii. 67.↑

14Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4.↑

14Oldenberg, GGA. 1909, p. 77, n. 4.↑

15Keith, JRAS. 1911, p. 1006.↑

15Keith, JRAS. 1911, p. 1006.↑

16Cf.Sansk. Phil. pp. 404 ff.↑

16Cf.Sansk. Phil. pp. 404 ff.↑

17ZDMG. xxxvii. 54 ff.; xxxix. 52 ff.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 ff.; GN. 1911, pp. 441 ff.;Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa(1917), pp. 53 ff.;Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.↑

17ZDMG. xxxvii. 54 ff.; xxxix. 52 ff.; GGA. 1909, pp. 66 ff.; GN. 1911, pp. 441 ff.;Zur Geschichte der altindischen Prosa(1917), pp. 53 ff.;Das Mahabharata, pp. 21 ff.↑

18VS. ii. 42 ff. GGA. 1891, pp. 351 ff.↑

18VS. ii. 42 ff. GGA. 1891, pp. 351 ff.↑

19Compare Oldenberg,Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241.↑

19Compare Oldenberg,Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241.↑

20See Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.; 1912, pp. 429 ff.;Rigveda Brāhmaṇas, pp. 68 ff.↑

20See Keith, JRAS. 1911, pp. 981 ff.; 1912, pp. 429 ff.;Rigveda Brāhmaṇas, pp. 68 ff.↑

21Die indische Balladendichtung(1913). Cf. G. M. Miller,The Popular Ballad(1905).↑

21Die indische Balladendichtung(1913). Cf. G. M. Miller,The Popular Ballad(1905).↑

22The existence of this type in the Epic is certainly most improbable, and in the Jātakas it is not frequent; cf. Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage, and Winternitz’s admissions, GIL. ii. 368 with Oldenberg, GN. 1918, pp. 429 ff.; 1919, pp. 61 ff.↑

22The existence of this type in the Epic is certainly most improbable, and in the Jātakas it is not frequent; cf. Charpentier,Die Suparṇasage, and Winternitz’s admissions, GIL. ii. 368 with Oldenberg, GN. 1918, pp. 429 ff.; 1919, pp. 61 ff.↑

23Hillebrandt,Ved. Myth., i. 69 ff.↑

23Hillebrandt,Ved. Myth., i. 69 ff.↑

24Keith,Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, pp. 72 ff.↑

24Keith,Śāṅkhāyana Āraṇyaka, pp. 72 ff.↑

25Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv.↑

25Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv.↑

26VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2.↑

26VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2.↑

27AID. pp. 22 f.↑

27AID. pp. 22 f.↑

28ID. pp. 42 ff.↑

28ID. pp. 42 ff.↑

29xxix. 5.↑

29xxix. 5.↑

30ii. 7. 3.↑

30ii. 7. 3.↑

31The Prākritic form of the term as opposed to Vedicnṛtuandnṛttais legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious dancing gave a factor to drama.↑

31The Prākritic form of the term as opposed to Vedicnṛtuandnṛttais legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious dancing gave a factor to drama.↑

32Çān̄khāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, i. 11. 5.↑

32Çān̄khāyana Gṛhya Sūtra, i. 11. 5.↑

33Caland,Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, pp. 138 ff.↑

33Caland,Die altindischen Todten- und Bestattungsgebräuche, pp. 138 ff.↑

34Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 237; Macdonell,Sanskrit Literature, p. 347.↑

34Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 237; Macdonell,Sanskrit Literature, p. 347.↑

35Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241. In Mexico we have the material of a ritual drama (K. Th. Preuss,Archiv für Anthropologie, 1904, pp. 158 ff.), but not the epic element.↑

35Die Literatur des alten Indien, p. 241. In Mexico we have the material of a ritual drama (K. Th. Preuss,Archiv für Anthropologie, 1904, pp. 158 ff.), but not the epic element.↑

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