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]

Preface [xxxiv I owe the loan of the important Old Javanese version of the Rāmāyaṇa which he had secured from Java. Professor H. Kern of Utrecht, the editor of that version, very kindly supplied me with certain items of information about it. My college friend, Mr. R. D. Ranade of Poona, and my brother-in-law, Dr. N. G. Sardesai, have kept me constantly supplied with books and information of all kinds, which, but for them and at such a distance from India, I should not have been able to obtain. The suggestion to edit this play for the Harvard Oriental Series came first from Professor James Haughton Woods of Harvard University, whose acquaintance I made while he was studying philosophy in India, and who, both at the inception of the work and in its progress, has given me his help and his whole-hearted sympathy. To the Controller of the Oxford University Press, Mr. Horace Hart, M.A., my thanks are due not only for the typographic excellence of the work, but also for the promptness with which he printed it. This work, while yet incomplete, was submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University. There is yet one more name which I must mention, and which I have purposely kept to the last. It is impossible to express adequately all that this edition owes to the sympathy, the assistance, the almost fatherly care that it has received from my honoured teacher, Professor C. R. Lanman, the editor of this series. When in India, I had made some sort of a plan for bringing out an annotated edition of the Uttara-Rāma-charita. I cannot say what that edition would have been like; but if the present form of the work is in any way an improvement on my earlier plan, as it undoubtedly is, the difference is all to the credit of Professor Lanman. He assisted me in my work most unselfishly. There was no detail too slight to escape his attention, and on every point he would bring to bear all the mature results of his wide experience as a scholar and an editor. His criticisms were always judicious and sympathetic; and I have profited as much by what he taught me expressly in the way of western scientific methods of research as by the indirect inspiration that I derived while observing him at work upon the Visuddhimagga. As the work was born and has grown, so it is natural that it should also go forth into the world under Professor Lanman’s guidance, and I congratulate myself upon having succeeded in overcoming his reluctance to have this work dedicated to him. S. K. BELVALKAR. HARVARD UNIVERSITY, April, 1914.

INTRODUCTION

Bhavabhūti, his life, and his date

1. Bhavabhūti's account of himself.—Bhavabhūti, the author of the Uttara-Rāma-charita, gives in the prologues to his three plays various items of information about himself and his family. This information is fullest in the Mahāvīra-charita,¹ which is probably the poet's earliest work. In his second work, the Mālatī-Mādhava,² there is, in addition to this information, an attempt to glorify his family (i. 7) and his own attain- ments (i. 10). There is also a note of defiance or of discontent (i. 8) at the reception accorded to his earlier work. His latest work, the Uttara- Rāma-charita, is most meagre and also modest in the biographical matter. These items may be put together as follows : In the country to the south there is a city called Padma-pura. In it live certain Brahmans surnamed Udumbara, who trace their lineage to the saint Kaśyapa. They follow the Taittirīya branch of the Black Yajur Veda, are well versed in the Brahma-lore, and have performed the Soma sacrifice.³ They are pious householders, heads of their school, revered of all men, and duly maintain the five Sacred Fires. It was to this family of the Udumbaras that that famous performer of the Vājapeya sacrifice, he who was called Mahā-Kavi (Great Poet), belonged. Fifth in descent from him is our Bhavabhūti, Bhaṭṭa Gopāla of blessed name being his grandfather, and Nīlakaṇṭha of hallowed memory being his father. His mother's name is Jatukarṇī. Bhavabhūti's original name is Śrīkaṇṭha ;⁴

[Footnotes]

[Left Column] ¹ Mahāvīra-charita is cited from the Nirṇaya Sāgara edition of 1901 with Vīrarāghava's commentary. From v. 46¹ to the end, I cite the version given in that edition without the comm., on the pages follow- ing 247 (first sequence). ² The Mālatī-Mādhava is cited from the Nir- ṇaya Sāgara ed. of 1900 with the comm.'s of Tripurāri and Nānyadeva, and of Jagaddhara. The various Nirṇaya Sāgara editions of the two plays do not differ much as to pagination. ³ See Dr. A. B. Keith, Bhavabhūti and the Veda, JRAS., July, 1914, p. 729. [Added

[Right Column] in proof-sheets.] ⁴ 'In whose throat—upon whose lips—resides the Goddess of Wealth and Eloquence.' This probably was the name given him by his parents. His full name would accordingly be Śrīkaṇṭha Nīlakaṇṭha Udumbara. He was called Bhava-bhūti, say some, because God Śiva (Bhava) gave him 'luck' or 'holy ashes' (bhūti); others say, because he wrote a stanza containing either the line Sāmbā punātu Bhava-bhūti- pavitra-mūrtiḥ or Girijāyāḥ kuchau vande Bhava-bhūti-sitānanau.

Introduction [xxxvi] he has mastered the sciences of grammar and rhetoric and logic,¹ and has studied the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Sāṅkhya and the Yoga. His preceptor was Jñāna-nidhi,² rightly so called, a pious ascetic, and, like Aṅgiras, pre-eminent among the sages. Bhavabhūti is a poet and, as is natural, is in friendly relations with the actors, into whose hands he gave his dramatic works. 2. His family-home, Padmapura in the Berars.—Some manuscripts of the Mālatī-Mādhava distinctly say that Padmapura was 'in the Berars', Vidarbheshu.³ In the prologue, the stage-manager speaks of the play as enacted on the occasion of the 'fair of Lord Kālapriya'. If the usual assumption is correct that Lord Kālapriya is the same as Mahākāleśvara, whose famous shrine at Ujjain in Mālva is mentioned by Kālidāsa and Bāṇa and others,⁴ and if we are justified in inferring that the Mālatī- Mādhava was therefore enacted at Ujjain,—then the stage-manager's mention of Padmapura as 'in the country to the south' or as 'in the Dekkan' (Dakshiṇāpathe) would be entirely in harmony with the datum of the manuscripts which specify Padmapura as 'in the Berars'; for Vidarbha is in fact to the south (and a little east) of Ujjain. In fairness, however, we must add that the oldest extant manuscript ⁵ of the Mālatī- Mādhava, dated Nevārī Saṁvat 276 = A.D. 1156, does not mention the province in which Padmapura was situated, nor does the prologue to the Mahāvīra-charita. 3. Identity of Padmapura with Padmāvatī of the Mālatī-Mādhava unproved.—The scene of the Mālatī-Mādhava is laid in a city named Padmāvatī. This city and its surroundings are so minutely described in that play, especially at the end of act iv and the beginning of act ix, that Mr. M. V. Lele ⁶ believes he has succeeded in identifying its exact site with that of what is now a small village called Pavāyā or Polā-Pavāyā, near which remains of a considerable city are discernible. Pavāyā is a little to the north-east of Narvār. Narvār is near the centre of Gwalior state, and is almost due south of Agra, and just 100 miles from it; and it is 220 miles from Ujjain, about north-east by north. If Bhavabhūti's ancestral home, Padmapura, is to be identified with the

Footnotes

¹ 'Science of words and of sentences and of syllogisms.' ² 'Store of knowledge.' ³ See Dr. Bhandarkar's 2nd edition, p. 11 of the Text, end. ⁴ See Raghuvaṁśa, vi. 34; Meghadūta 37 (stanza Bhartuḥ kaṇṭha-, &c.) and 38; also Kādambarī, p. 53, ed. of the Bombay Skt. Series. ⁵ The Nepal Durbar Library MS., no. 1473 ṭ of the Catalogue (Calcutta, 1905), a palm-leaf MS. I used a rotograph copy of it made for the Harvard College Library. ⁶ See his book (in Marāṭhī) entitled Mālatī-Mādhava, Sāra va Vichāra, p. 5 a. Also Cunningham, Archaeological Report for 1862–5, vol. ii, pp. 307–8, where, however, Padmāvatī is identified with Narvār itself.

xxxvii] Bhavabhūti, his Life, and his Date Padmāvatī described in the Mālatī-Mādhava (as is sometimes done), we must find some shrine of Lord Kālapriya with reference to which Padmāvatī may be said to be ‘on the road to the south’, and Mr. Lele suggests¹ that Kālpi on the Jumna (about fifty miles south-west of Cawnpur) does meet this requirement. According to this view, the play was first enacted at the fair at Kālpi (=Kālapriya), and the poet’s family seat, Padmapura (=Padmāvatī, near Narvār), would indeed have been ‘on the road to the south’ from Kālpi. The arguments for this view concern 1. the names, and 2. the preciseness of the description of Padmāvatī. As to the names, Padmapura and Padmāvatī do indeed mean the same thing, Lotus-ville, but neither of them is a distinctive name (there are twenty-nine Green-villes in the United States); and the surface similarity between Kālpi and Kālapriya is not by itself convincing. As for the argument that Bhava- bhūti’s description of Padmāvatī could only have been written by one familiar with the place from birth, it is quite devoid of cogency. His description of the Daṇḍakā forest would prove just as well that he was born there also! It proves his keenness of observation, not his birthplace. Moreover in describing the region of Padmāvatī, Bhavabhūti says: ‘These hills and forests remind me of the Godāvarī and the southern mountains.’ The word ‘remind’ (smārayanti, M. M. ix. 3²) clearly marks his acquaintance with Padmāvatī as the later experience and his familiarity with the south as the earlier one. Pending the discovery of new data, then, we may assume that Bhavabhūti’s ancestral home, Padmapura, was in the Berars,² and not near the site of Narvār in Gwalior state. This would not of course necessarily involve the further assumption, which it is usual to make, of the identity of the shrine of Lord Kālapriya with that of Mahākaleśvara of Ujjain. That is possible, but it is better to leave the question open. 4. Further biographical details.—It would thus seem that, like the hero in his Mālatī-Mādhava, Bhavabhūti quite early in life left his native country of the Berars and went to Ujjain in Mālva, or perhaps to Padmā- vatī, there to complete his studies under his preceptor Jñānanidhi. Bhavabhūti here not only grounded himself in the various sciences,³ but also, like his older contemporary or immediate predecessor, Bāṇa,⁴ stood ¹ In his book just cited, pp. 4 b, 84 a. ² Dr. Bhandarkar (in his M.M., 2nd ed., note to act i, line 31) observes that there are still many Brahman families in the region around Chandā who follow the Taittirīya branch of the Black Yajur Veda, the branch to which Bhava- bhūti’s family belonged (above, § 1). Chandā is in Nagpur, near the border of the Berars, and not far from the Godāvarī. ³ He likes to show off his knowledge: cp. Glossary 1, Technical terms from the three plays. ⁴ Cp. Harsha-charita, p. 47 f, Nir. Sāg. ed. For the chronological relation cp. below, § 8.

on friendly terms with all sorts and conditions of men. Especially intimate was his friendship with the actors. The Mahāvīra-charita and Mālatī-Mādhava actually mention this friendship in the prologue; in the Uttara-Rāma-charita it is hinted at in the account given by Lava of Vālmīki’s play-within-the-play (act iv. 22²⁷⁻³⁵), which we may well believe to be autobiographical. We should very much like to have some details about this relation between the actors and the would-be dramatist, but all is left to imagination. It is possible that Bhavabhūti began by writing for his actor-friends prologues for other people’s plays.¹ He may even at times have modified an earlier play. Possibly again he may have actually taken parts in the plays.² Certain it is that he soon persuaded the actors to stage his own plays, and though he did not immediately succeed as a playwright, he soon got recognition, and was perhaps even able (below, § 13) to secure royal patronage. 5. Bhavabhūti’s personality as inferred from his writings.—Regarding Bhavabhūti’s private life, the impression which the perusal of his plays leaves upon us is of the most favourable kind. He was by no means Fortune’s favourite. His was an uphill fight for fame, may be for even food and the daily necessities of the family; and he complains very bitterly (Māl. Mādh. i. 8) against the proverbially fickle judgements of the people. Even his latest play (Uttara-Rāma, i. 5) is not without this pessimistic note. It would thus seem that our poet had experienced many a reverse of fortune ³ and had emerged triumphant from them all. What gave him the strength to fight his unequal fight with the world, what sustained his courage and infused a new enthusiasm in him, was the consolation of an ideal family life such as, we must believe, was his. Love was not to him a mere sensuous affair, as it often is with poets Sanskrit or non-Sanskrit; it was with him a spiritual communion of souls. Of such a love he has left us many an idealized picture which may well bear comparison with those of other literatures. Thus he says: Uniform in happiness and in sorrow—conformable to all the conditions of life—in which the heart finds solace—the flavour of which age cannot stint—which, with time, as the veil of reserve drops away, abides as a perfect and ripened affection,— that one supreme blessing only the fortunate among mankind, and after a sore trial, attain. (Uttara-Rāma-charita, i. 39.) And it is not only in the Uttara-Rāma-charita, where the theme was exalted, and the personages ideal, that we find such lofty sentiments. We have similar ones in the Mālatī-Mādhava: for example, vi. 18: ¹ See Appendix 8. ³ Cp. Mālatī-Mādhava, viii. 14; Uttara-Rāma- ² Cp. note to English Translation, act vii. 19⁹. charita, vii. 4ᶜ,ᵈ.

xxxix] Bhavabhūti, his Life, and his Date Know ye, my dear children, that for the man his lawfully wedded wife and for the wife her lord are, the one to the other, the dearest of friends, the sum-total, I should say, of all relations, the consummation of all desires, a priceless treasure, the very life and all. And when children come, this affection between man and wife reaches its utmost perfection (Uttara-Rāma, iii. 18) : As being the common meeting-ground of the father's and the mother's affection, in a child we, so to say, tie in a common knot of joy the several strands of their hearts. Bhavabhūti's conception of friendship was also equally lofty. Compare, for instance, Mahāvīra-charita, v. 59 : To guard thy friend's interests even at the sacrifice of thy own life; in thy dealings with him to avoid all malice, all guile ; and to strive for his weal as thou wouldst for thy own : such is the course of noble friendship. Other instances of this are the relation between Mādhava and Makaranda (Mālatī-Mādhava, ix. 40) and that between Janaka and Daśaratha (Uttara- Rāma, iv. 13, 14). These extracts from Bhavabhūti's works will help to make the otherwise shadowy figure of the poet somewhat life-like and real. We now proceed to the more difficult task of determining his date. 6. Bhavabhūti's date : traditional story about Kālidāsa and Bhava- bhūti.—Tradition couples Bhavabhūti's name with that of Kālidāsa, grouping them with seven others as the 'nine gems' of the court of king Vikrama or Vikramāditya of Ujjain. The story goes that, when Kālidāsa was already a recognized 'gem' in the court of Vikramāditya, there came to him one day a Brahman poet, and begged him to intercede with the king and secure the royal patronage. This poet was no other than our Bhavabhūti. He read aloud his Uttara-Rāma-charita while Kālidāsa was half listening to him and half engaged in playing a game of sāra's (a kind of chess). When Bhavabhūti had finished, Kālidāsa praised the work very highly, and agreed to use his influence for the poet if he would but drop a bindu (nasal) in the last line of one of the stanzas (i. 27. See Notes). Bhavabhūti accepted the improvement, and became an acknowledged 'gem'. The stanza about the 'nine gems' is late, and we do not even know from it who is meant by 'Vikramāditya', since that is a title assumed by several kings. The Saṁvat era which is still current in many parts of

Introduction [xl] India is supposed to have been founded by a Vikramāditya (57 B.C.), and some scholars place Kālidāsa in the court of this Vikramāditya. But the best modern opinion¹ makes the Golden Age of the classical Sanskrit literature coincident with the bloom of the Gupta dynasty, several kings of which had assumed the title of Vikramāditya. This brings Kālidāsa somewhere between 375 and 475 A.D. 7. Bhavabhūti's works certainly influenced by those of Kālidāsa.— The matter of Kālidāsa's Śākuntala is an old epic legend which we find in the Mahā-Bhārata; and the matter of his Urvaśī may be traced through the Brāhmaṇas back to the hymns of the Ṛigveda itself. Accordingly, the fact that Bhavabhūti alludes in his Mālatī-Mādhava (see ii. 7¹⁰, iii. 3) to the familiar tales of Śakuntalā and Dushyanta, and of Purūravas and Urvaśī, has of course not an atom's weight towards proving that he knew the tales from Kālidāsa's plays. On the other hand, the dénouement of the Uttara- Rāma-charita resembles that of the Śākuntala enough to suggest that Bhavabhūti was familiar with Kālidāsa's technique. Again, the parallelisms in thought and expression as between Bhavabhūti and Kālidāsa (they have been put together for study in appendix 4) present further cumulative evidence looking in the same direction. Thirdly, the parallelism between act ix of Mālatī and act iv of Urvaśī is even yet more weighty as proof. In the one we have the love-lorn Mādhava wandering in quest of his Mālatī, and in the other the distracted Purūravas seeking in vain for Urvaśī. Here again, as between Bhavabhūti and Kālidāsa, the dramatic situation and its poetic treatment bear such striking similarity as to suggest direct and conscious imitation. Fourthly, Bhavabhūti's dramatic device (at M. M. ix. 25, 26) of making the desperate Mādhava send a cloud as messenger to his beloved, is so clearly an imitation of Kālidāsa's Cloud- messenger or Megha-dūta that there can be scarcely a doubt that Bhava- bhūti (perhaps its earliest imitator) here had that famous and much- imitated poem distinctly in mind,—so complete is the correspondence of the stanzas concerned not only in situation but also in the words and even in the characteristic metre. Indeed, as concerns points three and four, we may say that Bhavabhūti has deliberately set himself to use Kālidāsa's motifs, and if possible, in so doing, to surpass him. So much then seems certain, that Bhavabhūti studied and imitated Kālidāsa. Accordingly he may have been either a somewhat younger

¹ See B. Liebich, Das Datum des Kālidāsa, Indogermanische Forschungen, Band xxxi (1912), pp. 198-203. This paper gives a convenient statement of the vari- ous older views and arguments with the needed references to previous discussions. Compare also Professor Pathak's paper on Kālidāsa and the Hūṇas of the Oxus valley, Ind. Ant. for Nov. 1912, pp. 265– 267.