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

Introduction [lxxx not and could not. Secondly, there is, to my mind, a peculiarly dramatic appropriateness in the fact that the play—I mean the play proper—should open with a speech of Rāma (i. 8⁴) that was meant to console his wife for a thing which had happened and which could not but happen: the separation from her dear relatives and elders. Here we have the very keynote of the play struck once and for all. When to all this we add that the language of the entire act is exceptionally rich and poetic, that there is hardly a sentence or even a phrase which we would wish were not there,¹ hardly a word which is not just the right word, that the poet affords us a deep insight into the workings of the human heart so that the emotional tone is genuine and not mawkish or sentimental (as it was in some parts of his earlier plays), and that the whole is arranged in a sequence which is entirely natural and clearly shows that Bhavabhūti has at last mastered the art of condensing and enlarging, of choosing and omitting, and above all has learned the value of restraint,—with that we have said our last word in praise of this act and of the dramatic technique that is involved in the writing of it. 41. The Uttara-Rāma-charita as a psychological study.—In acts ii and iii we have Bhavabhūti in yet another light. Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa gives the story of Śambūka in vii. 74–82, and the Padma-Purāṇa gives it in v. 32, 33 and elsewhere. Both these works tell us that Rāma, after killing the Śūdra ascetic, visited the hermitage of Agastya in the Pañcha- vaṭī, but neither is alive to the great poetic opportunity afforded by Rāma's reappearance in the old familiar scenes after the great event of Sītā's abandonment. The Padma-Purāṇa does perhaps vaguely realize the poetic possibilities of the theme (cp. v. 35²⁶ ff.), but the treatment is not to be compared with the splendid descriptive and reflective passages that we find in the Uttara-Rāma-charita, acts ii and iii. For all practical purposes then these acts might be said to be an original work of Bhavabhūti, and we have seen (§ 39) that he had a strong psychological reason for the invention. Let us now see what the poet makes of his opportunities. ¹ For the stage-omission of i. 30⁹ to i. 31ᵈ see appendix 8. With this single ex- ception the themes of the pictures are all well chosen. Each has a distinct purpose. The poet's treatment, of course, is necessarily allusive and the audience could easily fill in the details. His dramatic sense is shown as much by what he keeps as by what he omits; e.g. the Ahalyā incident and the fight with Vālin. Note also that Rāma does not in the play, as he does in the epic (vii. 43 f.), expressly seek information about the kimvadantī (rumour); and he abandons Sītā immediately after his interview with the spy, not the next morning, as in the epic. That the cry for help (i. 49³) should come just at the right moment to remind him of his kingly duty, while at the same time the allusion to Rākshasa- trāsa (fear of demons) should make his heart soften, is also highly artistic. So far as we know, the episode of the picture-gallery is original with Bhava- bhūti.