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

Note by the General Editor [xiv] in India, have mixed (so far as possible) with its people, and have mastered at least one of the great modern vernaculars, such as Marāṭhī or Bengālī. And, on the other hand, since the Hindus themselves are already actively engaged in interpreting the East to the West, it is needful also that they visit us, not merely to learn our way of doing things, but also to look at life as we look at it, and thus to find out what things—such, let us say, as repose of spirit or the simple life—the West most needs to learn of the East. Sir William Jones and Henry Thomas Colebrooke, illustrious pioneers of Indic philology, are ideal examples of the spirit and methods that were and are and must ever remain exemplary. They went to India and learned of the Hindus, and to the work of making the East known to the West they gave, with heroic devotion, all that they had to give. And ever since their day, the business of the East India Company or of the Imperial Government has taken men to India who have proved to be not only faithful officials, but also Indianists of large achievement. With the spread of Sanskrit studies upon the Continent in the second third of the last century, there arose men who, like Eugène Burnouf or the lexicographers Böhtlingk and Roth, accomplished great things without ever visiting the Land of the Rose-apple. More recently, the ease and speed of ocean-travel have brought it about that the Indianists who have not visited India are few indeed. They feel that they must go; for thus, as so often in modern life, do greater opportunities make obligations greater. But it is not only for a better understanding of each other's hopes and aspirations that the Indianists of the two hemispheres must join forces. They must realize, far better than they now do, the importance of turning to account the modern methods of organization and business efficiency, and the modern progress of the graphic arts. The value of organization, and of combining the labours of isolated scholars for well-considered ends, is illustrated by the Kāvya-Mālā of Bombay and the Ānandāçrama Series of Poona. Moreover, as regards wide circulation and usefulness, complete works issued in such large groups or series as those, and in such form as only an adequate printing establishment can give them, have an enormous advantage over works issued singly or in incomplete parts, and at some obscure press, and in a small edition. Let me add that the work of eminent printers, such as the late Jāvaji Dādāji of Bombay, seems to me to be a very real service to science, and as such to deserve generous recognition from scholars.

xv] Note by the General Editor His Excellency the Prime Minister of Nepal sent lately to Oxford, to be copied photographically for the use of scholars, seventy manuscripts of the Nepal Durbar Library. Such enlightened co-operation between East and West deserves mention, not only by way of grateful acknowledgement, but also as an admirable example which—let us hope—may be followed by others. It suggests the establishment, perhaps at the Nirṇaya Sāgara Press in Bombay, of a central agency to which Hindu Librarians may safely entrust manuscripts for mechanical reproduction, without sending them to Europe. The requirements for such an establishment are by no means too hard to provide. They are (1) a safe place of storage, (2) the photographic apparatus, and (3) a competent operator.—See Postscript on the next page. It is with hope and with gladness that I lay before students of the history of the East the work of Doctor Belvalkar. I am glad that a Hindu, well versed in the learning of his native land, should think it worth while to learn of the West. And I hope that his residence in America may make his Eastern learning vastly more fruitful for us Occidentals than it ever could be, if he had not come hither to find out (as I said) what lessons from his country's past may best be taught to us. And I hope again that many in the coming years may follow his example, establishing thus most valuable relations of personal friendship and co-operation between Indianists of the Orient and the Occident. Aeschylus—as Athenaeus¹ reports—said that his dramas were fragments of the great banquet of Homer's table. And so of Sophocles: his Ajax, for example, is essentially the Ajax of the Iliad. In like manner, the material of the greatest Hindu dramatists, Bhāsa and Kālidāsa and Bhavabhūti, is in large measure taken from the Hindu epics.² Thus the play before us, Rāma's Later History, is, as appears from its title, a dramatization of the Rāmāyaṇa. Its author, Bhavabhūti, for knowledge ¹ viii. 39 . . . Αἰσχύλου, ὃς τὰς αὑτοῦ τραγῳδίας τεμάχη εἶναι ἔλεγε τῶν Ὁμήρου μεγάλων δείπνων. ² The Mahā-Bhārata itself, using the very same metaphor as Aeschylus, declares (i. 2. 389) that 'all the best poets live upon this story' of the Bhāratans. And it adds (385, 388) that 'the inspiration of the poets comes from this incomparable narrative', and that 'there is not a story in the world that does not go back to the Bhārata'. इदं कविवरैः सर्वैराख्यानमुपजीव्यते । इतिहासोत्तमादस्माज्जायन्ते कविबुद्धयः । अनाश्रित्यैतदाख्यानं कथा भुवि न विद्यते ॥

Note by the General Editor [xvi] of what was to him the classics, and for his use of that knowledge, may justly be compared with John Milton; and for the exquisite finish of his diction, we might call him the Thomas Gray of India. For the student of comparative literature, in particular of literary genetics and the history of the drama, this play has many aspects of interest which I hope the editor has not failed to put in a clear light. But it is for the student of the history of religions that the Rāma-legend is especially instructive: its hero has become a pattern, often quite divine, of all that is good and noble; Sītā is wifely fidelity incarnate; and the Rāmāyaṇa—translated from Sanskrit into the great vernaculars, Bengālī, Hindī, Marāṭhī, and so on, and especially the Rāmāyan of Tulsīdās—has become to untold millions literally a Bible to which they look for examples of virtue and for inspiration to righteous living. Our drama is accordingly one of the many forms into which the Indian genius has cast the story of its greatest popular hero, its deified hero; one of the many expressions of its loftiest ideals. May the knowledge of those ideals so enlarge our minds and our sympathies that, when we pass judgements on the East, we shall realize the truth of the Sanskrit proverb, ‘The whole world is one family’. C. R. Lanman. Harvard University, December, 1914. Postscript.—The prism-process was described by K. Krumbacher in an article entitled ‘Die Photographie im Dienste der Geisteswissenschaften’. This appeared in 1906 in the Neue Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, 17. 601–659, and was also published separately by Teubner, price marks 3.60. For further articles on the photographic reproduction of manuscripts, see The Nation, of New York, for March 5, 1908 (procédé Graffin), for March 19, 1908 (excellence of ‘good ordinary photographs’, and ease of making them), and for December 30, 1909 (apparatus of Carl von Arnhard of Munich). The Photostat, manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Co., is sold by the Commercial Camera Co. of Rochester, New York, for $500 or $750 or $1,100 according to the size. The Camera Co. issues a pamphlet entitled ‘The Photostat and its operation’. ‘The photostat is a simple and practical apparatus for the rapid photographing of printed or written docu- ments...directly upon the surface of sensitized paper with the image in correct position.... No previous knowledge of photography is necessary.’ For a great library or scientific society which is not too painfully hampered by lack of funds, and in which the apparatus will be much used, the photostat is unquestionably the best and in the long run the cheapest apparatus.

A METHOD FOR CITING SANSKRIT DRAMAS PROPOSED BY THE GENERAL EDITOR OF THIS SERIES Method of citing the metrical parts of a play.—These are cited by act, and by stanza as numbered from the beginning of that act, and by quarter or pāda, the pāda being indicated by a or b or c or d. Method of citing the prose parts of a play.—The prose lines between any two consecutive stanzas are numbered from the prior to the latter stanza, starting always anew from the prior stanza. A given line is cited by number of act and by number of prior stanza (counted as above) and by number of line as counted from said prior stanza.—If there is no prior stanza (that is, if the act begins with prose), a zero is put in place of the stanza number. Examples of the use of this method.—Thus, for this play, the Uttara- Rāma-charita, the citation iii. 2ᶜ means quarter or pāda 3 of stanza 2 of act iii, mohe mohe Rāmabhadrasya jīvam. Thus again iii. 2³ means prose-line 3 as counted from stanza 2 of act iii, Muralā—Katham iva. And iii. 0³ means prose-line 3 at the beginning of act iii, Muralā— Bhagavatī Tamase, &c. Appeal to future editors to use this method.—We might suppose a method of citation to be a matter wholly unworthy of the serious con- sideration of a great scholar, if we judge by the way in which such great scholars as Böhtlingk or Pischel have failed to consider it. And from the brevity of the foregoing three paragraphs, one might suppose the matter of a method of citation to be so simple as to call for no elaborate discussion. It is simple, but the simplicity is the outcome of a laborious consideration of complexities arising from bad methods or lack of method, which com- plexities are a constant annoyance to the scholar and a hindrance to his progress. The essentials of a good method are discussed on the following pages, and the need of a good method is made clear by showing the faults of some bad ones. A bad method puts the student to a deal of worse than useless trouble, and wastes his time, just as a good method saves it. A c [H.O.S. 21]

A Method for citing Sanskrit Dramas [xviii good method should be so good as to commend itself to general acceptance by scholars and future editors, since uniformity is in itself highly desirable. For these reasons I earnestly hope that this system will be widely accepted and followed by scholars of India and the Occident. Importance of a good method of citation.—‘A simple and sufficient means of citation is absolutely indispensable for any text of mingled verse and prose that is of consequence enough to be studied and cited at all. The editor who fails to provide such means is guilty of flagrant neglect of plain duty and of gross disregard for the time and convenience of students and of his colleagues. By way of punishment he may count upon the seriously circumscribed usefulness of his book and the silent maledictions of those who are forced to use it.’—This was my plea, in 1900, before the court of intending editors, on behalf of a good method of citation, and made in the preface of the translator of Konow’s Karpūra-mañjarī, Harvard Oriental Series, vol. 4, p. xvi. The system tried by me in 1900 proved unsatisfactory in one particular, the method of citing the prose-passages. The one now proposed is substantially the same as that of 1900, excepting the feature which concerns the prose-passages. Two aspects of the method : its logical character and its typographical **expression.—**A good method must be good in that it is logical and there- fore easy to understand and to remember, and good also in that the typographical devices for its expression are simple and are easily and quickly caught by the eye. These general requirements are so obvious as to need no argument. Nobody disputes them—chiefly (I fear) because nobody stops to think of them. Hence the need of bringing them to the attention of future editors. The excellences of a good method appeal in part to the mind and in part to the sense of sight, and the means for securing them will accordingly be treated under two heads (which, however, cannot be wholly separated in discussion), namely, The logically essential features of a good method, and (p. xxiv) Typographical devices for making this method usable. **Logically essential features of a good method.—**A good method should utilize the native divisions of the text so far as these are natural or logical or generally accepted.—To illustrate. For the English Bible we have the generally accepted divisions into books and chapters and verses. These are always accordant among the innumerable editions, while the pagination (unless by some strange chance) is always discordant. To cite the English Bible by pages, ignoring those divisions, would be futile folly. And it is no less wrong in principle to ignore the natural divisions of a Sanskrit play. Hence

xix] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series Canon 1. A good method should utilize the logical divisions of the text—that is, the divisions of the play into acts, and the divisions of the acts into stanzas and prose-passages. Canon 1 forbids us to cite the play by pages, since this ignores the division into acts, and results in endless discord as between different editions. Again, it forbids us to number either the speeches or the lines from the beginning of the act, since this ignores the division of the act into prose and verse, and results in the very undesirable possibility of citing the same verse in more than one way (by stanza-number or speech-number or line-number). Canon 2 (corollary to canon 1). The numbering should start anew with each division.—The numbering of stanzas should start afresh at the beginning of each act; and the numbering of prose-lines should start afresh from the last stanza preceding the prose-passage. Discord from numbering stanzas in one sequence for entire play.— The numbering of all stanzas in one sequence from beginning to end of the play has this result : that any differences in the number of stanzas in prior acts as between different editions become operative or even cumulative for any later act or acts. The serious disadvantages of this bad practice are strikingly illustrated by four European editions of the Śākuntala, namely Böhtlingk's of 1846, Williams's of 1876, Pischel's of 1877, and Cappeller's of 1909. In all these four editions act vii has thirty- five stanzas (no more and no less), and these stanzas (apart from mere variants) are identical. In Böhtlingk they are numbered from 160 to 194; in Williams, from 165 to 199; in Pischel, from 187 to 221; and in Cappeller, from 155 to 189. This is confusion worse confounded, and (with all deference to these honoured names) it is the more inexcusable because it is wholly needless. The discord results primarily from the fact that the numbering of stanzas goes in one sequence from the beginning of the play to the end, and secondarily from the fact that, for example, act iii contains twenty-four stanzas in one text (so Böhtlingk, Cappeller) and forty-one in another (so Pischel). This wholly wrong method of numeration continues the discord of act iii through all the remaining four acts. If only the numeration began anew with each act, the stanza-numbers of act vii would be wholly accordant in all four editions, and the same references would have been precisely correct for each and all. The discord in the other acts is on the whole so slight as to cause little trouble, and even that little is avoidable (see below, p. xx). Canon 3. The citations should be precise.—A citation which makes it necessary to search an entire page or long prose-passage is not precise. It should be so precise that you can instantly find the exact word intended.

A Method for citing Sanskrit Dramas [xx It should therefore consist of three elements, and, if possible, of not more than three. A citation consisting of two elements only (act-number and stanza-number) may be used to designate an entire stanza, but not to designate a prose-passage. Canon 4. They should apply at one and the same time to text and translation and notes.—The system should be such that the same citation will serve equally well for finding either a passage in the text or the corresponding passage of the translation or of an appurtenant native com- mentary or the corresponding exegetical or critical notes. Thus a given matter may be found by the same reference in any one of three or four different places. The method here proposed by me is usable at once in these three or four ways, and this is a very great convenience. Canon 5. The system should be such that the citations will need little change for new editions.—That is, it should be applicable to edition after edition of the same play with the very least possible change and inconvenience. This requirement also is met by the system here proposed. First as to the stanzas. If a stanza rejected from the text of an earlier editor is to be inserted in the text of a later editor, let the later editor insert it in its place and (without changing the number of all the subsequent stanzas) assign to it the number of the preceding stanza and distinguish the repeated number by a star. On the other hand, if a stanza inserted by an earlier editor is to be rejected by a later editor, then let the later editor leave out not only the stanza but also the number. For example, act ii of the Śākuntala has, in each of the four above- named editions, the same eighteen stanzas, all numbered with the utmost possible discord. Next after the stanza śamapradhāneshu (ii. 7) some MSS. give a stanza nirākṛita-, &c. Böhtlingk and Williams give this in their notes, while Pischel receives it into his text, and Cappeller rejects it. If the stanza-numbering had begun anew with each act, Pischel might have inserted nirākṛita- with the numbering ii. 7*; or, if Pischel’s edition had been the editio princeps and he had numbered nirākṛita- as ii. 8, Cappeller might have left the stanza out and have numbered śamapra- dhāneshu as ii. 7, and (skipping ii. 8) have numbered his next stanza as ii. 9. In this way, even in spite of the difference in the total number of stanzas, the numbering of them could very easily have been kept entirely harmonious. As to the prose-passages, this may be added. Although the prose- passages are occasionally long, they are for the most part short. As between different editions of the same play, the numbering of the prose- lines will not correspond exactly; but since the numbering starts anew with each new prose-passage, the discordances will never be cumulative and thus they will usually be so slight as to cause very little inconvenience.

xxi] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series At this point a word in defence of Mr. Belvalkar's procedure in giving, immediately after a Prākrit passage, its explanation in Sanskrit (or chhāyā), set off by double verticals and by a difference of type. It is true that this increases the length of the prose-passages, and consequently the possible discord in the line-numbers as between one edition and another. But this disadvantage is seldom considerable, and it is more than offset by the convenience of always having the explanation just where it is needed, instead of having to search for it at the bottom of the page or the end of the volume. Moreover the breaking up of one printed page into two or three or four typographically varying parts for text and chhāyā and variants and comments is very unsightly. The elements of the citations.—These may now be discussed in systematic order. It is only the second and third elements of the citations for the prose-passages that occasion doubts or difficulties. For metrical and prose-passages alike, the first element of the citation should of course be the act-number, as canon 1 requires. For metrical passages, the second element should of course be the stanza-number as counted from the beginning of the act. The stanzas are short, and of a length (two or four printed lines) which is uniform as compared with that of the prose-passages, so that stanzas are precisely indicated and easily found by a single number. For metrical passages, the third element should indicate the natural subdivisions of the stanza. A Sanskrit stanza consists of four quarters or pādas. A quarter of a stanza may therefore be indicated by a letter (a, b, c, d). If an entire stanza is intended, the third element, the letter, should be omitted. In this edition, anushṭubh and āryā stanzas are printed as two lines, each line consisting of two undivided pādas; and in referring to such a line, the letters ab are used together without any comma¹ between them, or else cd. Metrical passages containing interjected prose.—Prose-lines some- times intervene between parts of a stanza. This complication is met in a manner so logical and natural as hardly to need description: namely, the stanza-number and pāda-letter together are treated as one element of the citation, that is, as the second element, and the letter is not set as a 'superior'. Thus between iv. 24ᵇ and iv. 24ᶜ of Uttara-Rāma-charita a prose-passage of two lines and a complete stanza (iv. 25) intervene. The prose-lines are cited as iv. 24 b¹ and iv. 24 b². The prose-lines fol- lowing iv. 24ᵈ are cited as iv. 24 d¹, iv. 24 d², and so on (although iv. 25 precedes them !). ¹ If there is a comma (e. g. ii. 25ᵃ, ᵇ), the ferred to are not printed in the same punctuation indicates that the pādas re- line (are not anushṭubh or āryā).

A Method for citing Sanskrit Dramas [xxii] It even happens that a bit of prose intervenes¹ between two fractions of a pāda: so between the first and second words of pāda d of Mahāvīra- charita vi. 7 (durgo, &c.). Here the line of prose may be cited as vi. 7ᵈ¹. For prose-passages, the second element of the citation should be the number of the stanza immediately preceding.—This solution of the matter is not obvious, and that is the reason why different editors use so per- plexingly different methods.—The indication of the prose-passage ought to be logically parallel with the indication of the stanza. This rule requires that each prose-passage, like each stanza, be regarded as a unit and be numbered from the beginning of the act. Editors have not usually treated each prose-passage as a unit,—apparently for the entirely invalid reason that a prose-passage unit often consists of two or more speech-units, and perhaps also because they did not see how to indicate typographically the numbering of units so complex and of such irregular length. Act i of the Śākuntala begins with a stanza. This is followed by a prose-passage unit consisting of several speeches; but there is no difficulty in citing them all as ‘act i, prose-passage 1’. And since each one of stanzas 1–9 of act i is followed by a prose-passage, it is evident that each of these nine prose-passages may be cited by the number of the stanza immediately preceding it. The like is true of the remaining twenty-three prose-passages which follow stanzas 11–33 (st. 33 is the last of act. i in Pischel’s posthumous ed.). There is no prose-passage immediately following stanza 10. But it is not necessary on this account to give to the twenty-three prose-passages which follow stanzas 11–33 the numbering 10–32 just for the sake of a strict arithmetical sequence, since this produces a discord through most of the act. It is simpler to number them as 11–33, that is, to skip the number 10. In this way there is no need of any special or separate typographical indication of the number of a prose-passage. In short, it suffices to give to any prose- passage the number of the stanza immediately preceding. For prose-passages, the citation should always contain a third element, an Arabic numeral, that is, an element which will distinguish a prose-citation from a stanza-citation. A stanza-citation consists of an act-numeral (Roman) and stanza-numeral (Arabic), followed, if necessary by a letter (a, b, c, or d) to indicate the quarter or pāda. The distinguishing element of a prose-citation should therefore be an Arabic number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c.). Thus i. 5 means act i, stanza 5; and i. 5ᵈ means act i, stanza 5, ¹ Since the citations of the system here pro- bare name of a dramatis persona) from a posed are intended to show on their face line which contains a verse-portion. Thus whether they refer to prose or to verse, the stage-direction after iii. 39 of this play it is necessary that an editor should should not be printed in the same line rigorously exclude all prose (except the with iii. 39ᵈ.

xxiii] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series

pāda 4. But i. 5⁴ means act i, prose-passage immediately following stanza 5, subdivision 4.—It will be observed that this method has the incidental advantage (a very considerable one) of showing on its face whether a line of poetry or a line of prose is intended.—The prose-passages vary in length from a single word to several pages. Examples of long prose-passages (forty to sixty lines) in the Śākuntala are those following i. 24, vi. 1, vi. 24, vii. 20. Precision of reference (and not alone the need of distinguishing prose-citations from stanza-citations) requires a third element indicating the subdivision.—What then shall this subdivision of the prose-passage be? The subdivision of the prose-passage should be the printed line.— The natural subdivisions of a prose-passage are the single speeches. But these are very uneven in length, and the numbers employed to indicate them would come at such irregular intervals and places on the page as not to be readily caught by the eye (a grave disadvantage). Moreover, a single speech is sometimes so long that a single number would not show precisely enough where a word or phrase is. In the case of prose-passages, therefore, it is best to use the printed line as the basis of subdivision, and to place the line-numbers at brief and regular intervals, and always in the same relative position on the page, that is, in the left-hand margin, and never in the right-hand margin. The numbering of the lines of the prose-passage must of course start anew with each new passage (canon 2, p. xix). The numbering of the lines or of the speeches from the beginning of the act is ruled out as wholly illogical and as a source of confusion (canon 1).¹ In Konow's Karpūra-mañjarī, Cambridge, 1901, the numbers of the act, and of the stanza as counted from the beginning of the act, are clearly shown. For the prose between two consecutive stanzas, I have numbered each clause (not speech and not line) of prose, counting from the prior stanza. The disadvantage of this method is that the numbers have to be put at irregular intervals and in irregular positions, and are therefore not easily caught by the eye. The disadvantage is so serious as to condemn this my former method.

¹ The Mālavikāgnimitra of Mr. S. P. Pandit, Bombay, 1889, numbers the stanzas from the beginning of the act. But it also numbers the speeches from the beginning of the act, without distinction of prose and verse or of Sanskrit and Prākrit. Mr. Pandit makes a great gain in sim- plicity by using the same numbers (many, of course, are skipped) for reference to his chhāyā and his variants on the lower part of the page and to his notes at the end of the volume. His speech-numbers are very easily caught by the eye because they are always in the same relative position, a free vertical column on the left-hand edge of the page, no matter whether it is a right-hand page or a left- hand page. So far as convenience goes, I have long deemed this to be the best edition of its time among Sanskrit plays. Only the speeches are sometimes too long for a precise citation, and the numbering of speeches from the beginning of the act is wrong in principle.

A Method for citing Sanskrit Dramas [xxiv Typographical devices for making the present system usable.—No matter how easy the system is for the mind, it will be a failure unless it is easy also for the eyes. That is, the system must not only be well thought out, but there must also be adequate typographic devices for its expres- sion.—Device 1. The number of the act should be clearly stated in the headline of the right-hand page.—Device 2. The number of the stanza as counted from the beginning of the act should be given at the end of each stanza.—Device 3. The number of every third prose-line as counted from the last preceding stanza should be shown by a figure close to the beginning (not the end) of that line, but nevertheless standing free in the left-hand margin, and thus very readily caught by the eye. The number should be placed exactly opposite the middle of the type-line. The numbering by threes is far more convenient than the numbering by fives. The reason why the marginal number should be on the left and not on the right is that many prose-lines contain only a word or two, so that the eye has to travel a long distance over blank paper to find the number. Any one may convince himself that this is a real inconvenience by examining the line- numbers of a wide-paged book (for example, p. 70 of Hertel’s Tantrākhyā- yika, Berlin, 1910). If the marginal numbers for prose-lines in all editions were uniformly put on the left-hand side, the gain of convenience would be very great. Any one may assure himself of this by looking at Mr. S. P. Pandit’s Mālavikāgnimitra, where the speech-numbers are thus given (see above, p. xxiii, note). The eye catches them with wonderful ease. Additional device for making this method easy : corner-citations.— In the outer upper corner of the left-hand page is given the citation of the line with which that page begins; and in the outer upper corner of the right-hand page is given the citation of the line with which that page ends. A dash and square bracket are placed after the left-hand citation, and a square bracket and dash are placed before the right-hand citation, and the two citations are intended to be read together. Thus the two corner-citations vii. 31⁵—] [—vii. 35ᵇ are to be read as follows: ‘From vii. 31⁵ to vii. 35ᵇ.’ The purpose of the corner-citations is to show just what parts of the text are to be found included on any two pages which face each other at an ‘opening’ of the book (beim Aufschlagen des Buches, à l'ouverture du livre). The object of putting the citations in the outer corners is to enable the reader, when ‘thumbing’ the volume, to find any passage with the least possible opening of the leaves, and therefore with the minimum of time and trouble. If they were put, as they often are, on the inner corners, the reader would have to open the leaves almost completely in order to make use of the corner-

xxv] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series citations.—The page-numbers are relegated to the inconvenient inner corners in order to discourage as far as possible the employment of them for citation. (The page-numbers have their use for the printer and book- binder.) Minor typographic details.—As to the corner-citations: The numerals and letters and dashes should be set close together, without spacing, to the left or right of the single square bracket. The act-numerals should be Roman numerals (not Arabic), and lower-case (not capitals). The stanza- numbers should be Arabic. The letters which indicate the verse of the stanza should be ‘superiors’ (that is, be set higher than the rest of the type-line) and Roman (not Italic). The same holds for the figures which indicate the prose-line. The corner-citations should be set thus: vii.31⁵—] [—vii.35ᵇ They should not be set as follows: not thus, [—vii. 35. b; nor thus, [—VII. 35. b; nor thus, [—VII. 35.ᵇ I have no quarrel with one who insists on using Arabic figures for the number of a maṇḍala of the Rigveda, of a parvan of the Mahā-Bhārata, or of a kāṇḍa of the Rāmāyaṇa. But for an act of a play, the Roman numeral has undoubted advantages. And if the Roman numeral is used, let it be in lower-case, not in capitals. As eminent printers have observed (so Bänsch-Drugulin, De Vinne), the use of many capitals on a page ‘stört die Ruhe des Satzbildes’, ‘spots the page’, gives it an unrestful look. For punctuating the elements of one citation, moreover, periods are much better than commas: thus, iii. 1¹, iv. 2ᶜ, v. 6¹, vii. 35ᵇ. In a mass of references, the overworked commas give the line a serrated or very ragged effect: thus, III, 1, 1; IV, 2, c; V, 6, 1; VII, 35, b. The contrast between the serrated style and the restful style is so great as to make comment needless. Inconveniences resulting from lack of system or from a bad system.— These might well be adduced by way of comment on the foregoing principles and canons and devices, or to serve as arguments therefor. Their relevance is clear. Lack of system, good or bad.—As an example may be cited the old edition of Uttara-Rāma-charita, of Calcutta, 1831. This gives the number of the page, but not the line of the page, nor any stanza-numbering (good or bad), nor even the number of the act except at the beginning and end of each act. Since the edition is long out of print and the page-numbers of later editions have no determinable relation with the page-numbers of the old one, all references made to the old one by writers on the drama and by lexicographers and grammarians and others have of course become worthless. Citation by pages and multiple sequences of pagination.—An extreme d [H.O.S. 21]

example of the futility of citing by pages is seen in Ghāṭe's edition of this play (Nagpur, 1895). Here the pagination begins anew in one and the same volume no less than seven times: namely, for preface (1–2), intro- duction (1–12), text (1–192), translation (1–60), notes (1–51), glossary (1–8), and corrections (1–3), to say nothing of two sequences without pagination. Thus for example there are (if we disregard the differences of Arabic, Roman, and Nāgarī numbers) two pages for every page numbered ‘60’ or less, three pages numbered ‘51’, four pages numbered ‘12’, five pages numbered ‘8’, and seven pages numbered ‘2’. In Kāḷe's Śākuntala, Bombay, 1898, there are no less than ten different sequences of pages! two sequences are without pagination, and eight sequences begin with page 1. Multiple sequences of pagination are very frequently found in books printed in India, and I call upon Hindu editors to recognize the inconvenience thereby occasioned, and to exclude such sequences from the works which they edit. Combinations of bad system and systemlessness.—These need hardly be described except to show the bewildering perplexities that result. Of these an example or two. The Mṛichchhakaṭika of Calcutta, 1829, gives in the headlines the name of the play (343 times repeated, but with no indication of the act!) and the page-numbers. There is no numbering of the stanzas and none of the prose-lines. Stenzler's edition of Bonn, 1847, gives in the headlines the number of the act and the page-numbers, and every fifth page-line is indicated by a marginal number. Lassen's Prākrit grammar refers to the Calcutta edition. In order that students may use Lassen's book with Stenzler's text, Stenzler puts the Calcutta page-numbers in his margins. The general effect is confusing, and the confusion is aggravated by the numbers at the end of every speech (not line) in Prākrit (not Sanskrit) counted from the top of the page! Böhtlingk's translation of this play gives no help for finding a desired passage except the number of the act at the beginning of each act. In order to use it with reasonable facility, I had to write the number of the act on the outer corner of the uneven pages, and the number of the stanza in the margin. Goḍabole's Mṛichchhakaṭika of Bombay, 1896, gives the act-number in the headlines. It numbers the stanzas from the beginning of each act, and gives these numbers between double verticals at the end of each stanza. But it also gives a number between European parentheses at the end of each speech in Prākrit (not Sanskrit) for reference to the explanation at the foot of the page. This double numbering is, to use an English nyāya, like having a big hole for the big cat and a little hole for the kitten. Moreover, it gives a marginal numbering of the lines counted (without distinction of prose and verse or of Prākrit and Sanskrit) from

xxvii] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series the beginning of the act.—Now observe the result. A prose-passage may be cited, if in Sanskrit, by page and by line (the line you must count for yourself), or by act and marginal line-number; if in Prākrit, by either of these methods or else by act and Prākrit speech-number. For metrical passages take the words kukkehiṁ kukkīhiṁ a bukkaante as an example. These may be cited as Mṛichchhakaṭika, ed. Goḍabole, Bombay, 1896, p. 62, l. 3; or as ditto, act i, line 556; or as ditto, act i, stanza 52ᶜ. But this stanza is actually numbered as ‘(46) || 52 ||’, because, being a Prākrit speech, the number 46 is given for reference to the explanation. And even the number 46 is an abbreviation (the common one) for 146, so that stanza 41 on page 48 (an earlier page!) is numbered as ‘(91) || 41 ||’. The general appearance of the text is further marred by excessively frequent Nāgarī numbers referring to the variants. No one can comprehend all these complexities at a glance. They require careful study. But needless complexities are not worth careful study. Moreover, one writer will cite a line in one way and another writer in another. The upshot of it all is—baffling confusion! In closing, I beg the reader to remember that these inconveniences are mentioned, not in order to discredit the past work of honoured scholars, but rather in order to persuade scholars to avoid them in their future work. C. R. LANMAN. HARVARD UNIVERSITY, June 18, 1914.

इस पृष्ठ पर कोई पाठ्य सामग्री (text) उपलब्ध नहीं है। यह पृष्ठ रिक्त (blank page) है।

PREFACE <span style="font-size: larger;">I</span><span style="font-size: smaller;">T</span> is now just a century and a quarter since Sir William Jones published, in 1789, his translation of Kālidāsa's Śākuntala, and thereby gave to the western world its first knowledge of the dramatic literature of the Hindus. During these hundred and twenty-five years the Śākuntala has been edited some thirty times, and there are over fifty translations in as many as thirteen European tongues, to say nothing of translations into the vernaculars of India. Its own intrinsic merits have won for it, in the land of its birth, the title of a masterpiece, not only of Kālidāsa's plays, but even of the Indian literature. And on the strength of these merits, and in part perhaps on account of Goethe's lavish praise, this title has been recognized in the Occident, and without demur. The Hindus, on other hand, hold that our present play, Rāma's Later History or Uttara-Rāma-charita, the masterpiece of Bhavabhūti, surpasses in some respects even the Śākuntala. Almost a hundred years ago, in 1827, Horace Hayman Wilson introduced it to western readers by giving a very free version of it in his Hindu Theatre. But strangely enough, in all this time, not a single edition of the play has appeared in the Occident, nor even a translation that is both adequate and now obtainable. Félix Nève's French version, long out of print, was issued in 1880. The English version of Charles H. Tawney was twice printed, in 1871 and 1874, but in distant Calcutta and in scant supply. In India the Uttara-Rāma-charita is placed in the hands of almost every college student, and he admires it and loves it ever after. It becomes a part of his experience, 'revealing new and newer charms every moment.'¹ So at least it has been with me ever since 1899, when I made my first acquaintance with the play. And it is as a partial return for the many happy hours that I passed in the company of Bhavabhūti that I here undertake to make the real genius of the author, his greatness as a dramatic poet, known beyond the little band of zealous Indianists in Europe and America who can study the play in the original. For there are many, in the West as elsewhere, who are eager for an intelligent general knowledge of the great literatures of the world, such as is accessible, however, to no human being in the originals, so numerous are the languages in which veritable masterpieces have been written. ¹ Kṣaṇe kṣaṇe yan navatām upaiti tad eva rūpaṁ ramaṇīyatāyāḥ.—Śiśupālavadha, iv. 17.

Preface [xxx] Moreover, the history and technique of the drama in general have now become a recognized university study; and as a specimen of what India, inde- pendently, has achieved in the way of dramatic literature, the present play will not fail to be interesting. To Indianists, to students of comparative literature, and to students of drama, accordingly, this edition makes its appeal. But it is one thing to read a book and feel its beauties for oneself, and a very different thing to help others to feel them. And the difficulty is all the greater when that help has to be rendered through the medium of a language which is not one's mother tongue. In that case the trans- lator can never be quite certain that the English word which he is using will convey the exact shade of meaning which the original Sanskrit word has for him; or that the English word may not have, for an English reader, some unpoetical connotation or lurking suggestion due to facts in his social environment which the translator may not fairly be expected to know. The kind criticism of Professor Lanman has saved me from some of these pitfalls; but it is too much to hope that I have always done full justice to the poet. To translate a narrative work, or a work which interests us only by reason of the facts which it tells us, is fairly easy. For a scientific or philosophical treatise one has only to choose suitable technical terms and define them precisely and use them consistently; and what is obscure or unduly terse you can explain and expand. But in translating poetry we are called upon not only to give the meaning correctly, but also to repro- duce the subtle literary qualities of the original. Rhythm, word-order, figures of speech, compactness or diffuseness of expression—in short, almost every literary device of the original ought, in theory, to reappear in the translation. But since the genius of one language differs radically from that of another, an ideal translation is, as von Wilamowitz- Moellendorff observes, a travesty or perhaps a metempsychosis: in other words, a wellnigh impossible task. Some things must be sacrificed. But it is far better, wherever possible, to keep close to the original and show the author in his true native colours, rather than, under the pretext of giving a literary finish to the translation, to make him say things which he did not say and would never dream of saying. A few words then as to certain principles, mostly limitations, that have governed me in my translation. First, whereas the original play is mingled prose and verse, the translation is all in prose. The translation of the stanzas is set in narrow measure (that is, with an indentation on both sides) and with the stanza-number at the end in bold-face type, and it is thus distinguished typographically from the translation of the prose. There are in the play nineteen kinds of metre, having from eight to nine-

xxxi] Preface teen syllables to the line. Bhavabhūti uses these metres with consummate skill, as I have tried to show in the Notes, and especially in Appendix 1. The succession of light and heavy syllables and the rhythmic pauses which break the line at irregular intervals give to each of these metres an emotional effect which a Hindu at least can feel and perhaps describe, but which it is absolutely impossible to reproduce in a language where the system of verse-accent is wholly different. The use of prose in translation carries with it, of course, the giving up of rhyme. Both rhyme and metre are apt to lead to useless padding or unwarranted curtailing. Bentley's familiar comment on Pope's Iliad is worth repeating: ‘A very pretty poem, but he must not call it Homer.’ There have been, no doubt, a few ideal translations made by men gifted with true poetic inspiration, but unless the translator is sure that he has this gift, let him beware. Secondly, as to literalness. An attempt, on linguistic or other grounds, to render words radically akin in Sanskrit by words radically akin in English, or to render the same word or phrase in just the same way at every occurrence, is apt to defeat its own end. The word saṁskṛta is indeed equal to con-fectus; but confection as a version of saṁskāra is absurd. Again, the exigencies of the situation sometimes move the trans- lator to render noun by adjective, adjective by adverb, adverb by verb, and so on. In such cases, for the sake of those who are reading the original also, the literal version or the analysis of the compound will be given in the Notes. Once more, it may happen that the ever-varying context shows that the same word has a dozen finely differenced shades of meaning in as many different places. The particle kila, for example, is here rendered in perhaps a dozen different ways. The like holds true for the forms of address. In all this I have tried to heed von Wilamowitz- Moellendorff's precept (Reden und Vorträge³, p. 5) : ‘To give free and origi- nal expression to the thoughts and feelings and moods of the poet because you [the translator] have yourself fully comprehended and experienced them : that—no more, but also no less—is translating.’ Thirdly, as to word-order. It was Bhavabhūti's boast (i. 2) that upon him the Goddess of Speech and Eloquence waited as a submissive hand- maid. And so, we may not assume that with him ‘rhyme was the rudder to sense’, in other words that his diction was determined by exigencies of metre or the like. On the contrary, his word-order is deliberate and almost always artistic; and in the stanzas especially he likes to create a sort of suspense by withholding the principal word, or putting it in only towards the end. In a highly inflected tongue like Sanskrit, the resultant suspending of the sense or the resultant inversion is easily possible and even natural, and I have often tried to reproduce it. But in English the

Preface [xxxii] inflections are nearly all lost, and for this very reason the sense is so dependent on the word-order as to leave little freedom in the arrangement of words, save at the cost of unclearness or extreme harshness. And since a translation, whatever else it pretends to be, must be intelligible, I have had, yet oftener and against my will, to sacrifice the effects of the original in the interest of ready intelligibility. The alliterative effects of the original are often very striking. Bhava- bhūti uses smooth liquid sounds for the softer emotions and harsh guttural combinations to express the sturdier ones. To reproduce these effects in English is in some cases not feasible, and in others not advisable, and in most cases I had to give up the attempt. Finally, as to exotic colour. If East and West are ever to understand each other, then each must bring to the other a sympathetic hearing. On either side a top-lofty condemnation of the peculiarities of the other quite defeats the purposes of a book like this. Accordingly, I have not tried to avoid an idea or an expression peculiar to the Hindus and easily understood by them, just because it may seem ‘queer’ to a foreigner, and I venture to hope that my attitude will be taken as the best compliment that I could pay, not only to the author or to his native country, but also to the fair- mindedness of my foreign readers. An instance or two. An older person in addressing a younger, says āyushman. This I have rendered by ‘long-lived one’, meaning thereby not ‘one who has lived long’, but ‘one who, it is hoped, may live long’. My version is un-English; but the prayer for long life or the benediction (if indeed the speaker is conscious of it at all) is an implicit one, and to render it always as if it were an explicit one, by the phrase ‘may thy days be long’, or the like, is wholly wrong. The synonymous (Marāṭhī) chirañjīva, is still current in India, and is almost equivalent to ‘my son’ as used by an older man (not necessarily the father) to the younger. Like comment might be made on the phrases ‘my father’s feet’, ‘lotus-feet’, ‘vitals of my heart’, ‘valiant monkeys’, ‘shampooing’, and others. A few minor matters. Certain words, like yathā or iti (as marking the beginning or the end of a quotation), or like iti or abhinīya with a stage- direction, are sufficiently rendered by the italics in which those directions are printed or by marks of punctuation. Sometimes, where my version seemed too free, the original word is given in parentheses, although it is not to be regarded as the precise equivalent of the adjacent English word. Words inserted to complete the sense or to bring out more fully the exact force of the original are put in square brackets. Most of the other devices are self-explaining. In all these matters I have tried to follow the dictates of common sense.

xxxiii] Preface The foot-notes to the translation are meant to give the help that a non- Hindu reader may need for understanding the play, but no more. The play bristles with proper names as familiar to a Hindu as is the name of Achilles to a Greek or of St. Paul to a Christian. These Sanskrit names are hard for the Occidental. Moreover, he is confused as to the identity of a character, partly because the same person is called by so many different names. I have therefore given a brief foot-note every time a new name appears in the translation. And to show the relation of the several characters in the action, I have (on the advice of Professor Lanman) given in the Introduction a summary of Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa, a poem which (strange as it may seem to a Hindu) is very little known outside of India. More elaborate verbal or aesthetic comments are reserved for the Notes proper. The conclusion of a preface, the grateful acknowledgement of kind counsel and friendly services, is, to the author at least, a most delightful task. It is right and it is pleasant to say 'Thank you'. And it is pleasanter still to think that the names of men who share your enthu- siasms are to be permanently associated with your work, and that the turning of its pages will always remind you of those who have toiled and are toiling with you to reach a common goal. The names of those who have edited or translated this play before me are given in Appendix 12, and need not be repeated here. Dr. Frederick W. Thomas, Librarian of the India Office in London, has procured for me the loan of manuscripts from the India Office Library, the Deccan College Manuscripts Library and the Ānandāśrama Library of Poona, and the Sanskrit College Library of Calcutta—and all with a zeal and kindness that go far beyond the perfunctory discharge of official duty. Dr. Otto Schrader of the Adyar Library at Madras did me the valued favour of sending to the Harvard Library for my use some palm-leaf manuscripts. And I am indebted to Mr. S. P. V. Ranganāthaswāmi, Āryavaraguru, of Vizagapatam, for a similar favour, and also for providing me with some early editions of the play, now out of print. The Prime Minister of Nepal, with a liberality and insight that deserve all praise, sent seventy manuscripts of the Durbar Library to Oxford for photographic reproduction under the supervision of Professor Macdonell, among them the old and important Nevārī manuscript (dated 1196) of this play, and of it the Harvard College Library generously procured for me a rotograph copy. To His Excellency, to Dr. Macdonell, and to the College, my hearty thanks. Shreemant Babasaheb Ghorpade, the talented Chief of Inchalkaranji, has laid me under considerable obligation. It is to his kindness that e [H.O.S. 21]