महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

Introduction [lxxiv Mālatī-Mādhava Bhavabhūti is, for the first time, truly creating character, and developing it by making it react upon its environment. This will be evident if we compare Mālyavant with Kāmandakī, Sītā with Mālatī. Mālyavant, the diplomat of the Mahāvīra-charita, is purely an academic figure. He chops logic rather too freely, and shows a preternatural insight as to the future success or failure of his schemes. There is no feeling in his strategy, and his very lamentations in act vi seem to be 'made to order'. Contrast with him Kāmandakī, who plays a similar rôle in the Mālatī-Mādhava. In her we find a genuine old lady, shrewd and resourceful, and full of learning and devotion and affection (see especially act vi, end), although one often wishes that her knowledge had not been so versatile.¹ Compare again Sītā, as she is depicted in the Mahāvīra-charita, with the Mālatī of this play. Sītā, the moment she sees Rāma, feels a striking partiality for him, just as Sītā's sister feels for Rāma's brother. All seems to be pre-arranged: a sort of pre-natal relation, a falling in love at first sight reduced to a wooden mechanism. The same is true of the passage of love and tenderness in the second act of the Mahāvīra-charita, where Sītā seems, in a few minutes, to grow from a demure bride into a matron of phenomenal maturity of thought and sentiment. How different from her is Mālatī—tossed in the conflict between her love (intense but never obtru- sive) for Mādhava and her duty of submission to her parents' wishes, a duty to which, in spite of all the artful machinations of Kāmandakī (§ 33, B) and even after the incident in the temple of Karālā (§ 33, F), she holds firmly, so that she is ready rather to commit suicide (cp. M. M. ii. 2, vi. 8¹⁻⁵) than do anything unworthy of a modest, well-bred girl! The same traits of her character are again brought out in that admirable love-scene² between Mādhava and Mālatī in the beginning of act viii. Among other merits of the Mālatī-Mādhava we may mention that the language—particularly of the three or four best scenes in the play—is extremely good, and we also find some genuinely poetic imagery and feeling. The description of the cremation-ground at night (act v) and of the forest scenery (act ix) are some of the best that the poet ever wrote, although they may here and there seem to be overdrawn and out of place ¹ She had studied the Kāma-śāstra, and, what is more, she liked to make a display of her learning; or rather it is Bhavabhūti who speaks through her and Lavaṅgikā and Madayantikā. We will return to this point presently. ² It does not seem to have been sufficiently realized that Bhavabhūti is in this scene following very closely the instruc- tions in Kāma-sūtra, iii. 2, even to such details as Mālatī's reply (nāhaṁ kiṁ pi jānāmi: viii. 4¹³) and her earlier gestures.