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

lxxix]    Uttara-Rāma-Charita: Critical Estimate Wherefore did Rāma follow this unstraightforward course? In order to motivate this act adequately the poet (4) places Rāma in a peculiar situation: He is newly crowned (i. 8⁶) and has just taken upon himself the heavy responsibilities of the state; and every man who knows what it is to take charge of a new and important office will fully understand Rāma's conscientiousness, his anxious care not to seem to be wanting in the due discharge of his duties. Further Rāma is alone (i. 3); the elders and advisers, who presumably might have restrained him from such im- petuous acts, are away (ii. 6¹⁰); and his forlornness has been brought home to him (i. 11) and has thrown him into a sort of nervous excitement just a little before the crisis comes which calls for immediate action. If the matter to be decided upon had been some non-personal affair of state, Rāma might have settled it in the way best for all; but where it was a personal affair of state, it was to be expected that he would be more rigorously self-exacting than was either right or just to himself. Finally, it was necessary to make clear (5) that, having abandoned his wife, Rāma would nevertheless suffer, and so would Sītā. The picture-gallery episode serves to show how dearly they loved each other, how they could not bear even the thought of living away from each other (i. 27²⁻⁶, i. 30, i. 33¹⁴).   To bring out vividly these five points would have been achievement enough for one act, but Bhavabhūti is not content with that. In act i he is thinking of act vii, and so, besides giving us the dohada affair (i. 10¹, i. 33³) which serves as the immediate pretext for Sītā's banishment, the act gives us also the jṛimbhaka incident (i. 15²), which plays such a signal part in the recognition of the princes, as well as the allusions to Bhāgīrathī (i. 23¹) and Pṛithivī (i. 51), who later take charge of the abandoned Sītā¹ and bring her into the action at the proper time. Two more points, which perhaps are not so very obvious at first sight: When we learn that Rāma has caused to be painted, on the walls of his palace, scenes from his past career—that career wherein Sītā was so prominent a figure,—and when we see the intense feeling and devoutness with which he looks at the pictures and recalls the memory of his past life with his beloved,—we can then readily understand his passionate clinging to these dear memories (iii. 14⁴, iii. 43¹³, vi. 38), and the source of mournful comfort that he will find therein even after the loss of his wife, so that we do not have to be actually told that Rāma did not marry a second time. Of course, he did not and would

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¹ Herein Bhavabhūti departs from his sources.    in his hermitage. Bhavabhūti wanted to   It was Vālmīki who, both according to     keep the twins ignorant of their parent-   the Rāmāyaṇa and the Padma-Purāṇa,     age; hence the change.   took charge of Sītā and gave her a shelter