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

confused, and scholars are still disputing as to the precise road which Rāma took, and the precise position of Pañchavaṭī, Ṛishyamūka, and Pampā. Nevertheless, the main threads of the story may well be considered historical. So at least Vālmīki seems to have regarded them. 23. The Rāmāyaṇa a blending of history and allegory.—It is also conceivable that the Rāmāyaṇa is a blending of history and some form of primitive nature-allegory. Thus in the Ṛigveda (iv. 57⁶,⁷, i. 140⁴) the word ‘sītā’ means furrow, and is not a proper name. Sītā’s birth from the Earth as narrated in the epic, the names of her twin sons (‘kuśa’ is a kind of grass, and ‘lava’ means reaping ¹), and Sītā’s final disappearance into the bosom of the Earth,—all this appears to be the mythology of some agricultural deity. If it were safe to think of Rāma as answering to the Vedic Rain-god Indra, the coincidence would harmonize well with the fact that the son of Rāvaṇa, who carries off Sītā, is called ‘Vanquisher of Indra’ or Indrajit, and also with the fact that Māruti, who like a rain- cloud in the monsoons, flies over the ocean and brings Rāma the comforting news about Sītā, means the ‘Son of the Wind-god’. All these things point to a possible commingling of history and certain features of agri- cultural mythology. The mythology, however, belongs to Vedic times. In Vālmīki’s days it must almost have ceased to be regarded as such. Thus the ultimate sources for the Rāmāyaṇa may have been threefold :

1. a real historical account about the palace-intrigue and exile; 2. another account also historical but more vague and uncertain about the experience of some early Aryan explorer (as distinguished from a colonizer and a permanent settler) of the south; and 3. the mythical account of Indra and his fight with the Enemy of the Harvest, an account which probably had lost most of its significance as nature-allegory, and had come to be regarded as genuine history dealing with persons as real as any legendary heroes are expected to be. It is no longer necessary to discuss the theory that Vālmīki derived the matter of his epic from the Iliad of Homer. The theory originated with Weber, and has been thoroughly answered by K. T. Telang (Indian Antiquary, 1872, pp. 143–7; 1873, pp. 123 ff.) and Professor Jacobi (Das Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 94–9). It is now no more than a literary curiosity.²

from the West Indies, and on the basis | merely because the geography was wrong? of statements made by him and his | ¹ Otherwise explained at Raghuvamśa, xv. 32. sailors, an epic had been written de- | ² Per contra, Arthur Lillie (among others) scribing the discovery and exploration of | maintains that Homer took his themes America, could we have reasonably im- | from the Indian Epics : see ‘Rāma and pugned the truth of its main story | Homer’, London, 1912.

Introduction [lx 24. Later modifications of the Rāma-story : 1. Buddhistic form.— The Buddhistic form of the Rāma-story is to be found in the ‘Daśaratha- Jātaka’ (Faüsboll, iv. pp. 124 ff.). The story is as follows. Daśaratha, king of Benares, had three children: Rāma, Lakshmaṇa, and Sītā, all born from his first wife, after whose death he marries a second, and has by her a fourth child, a son named Bharata. Overjoyed at having another son born to him, Daśaratha grants a boon to his wife. After seven or eight years the wife remembers the boon and asks Daśaratha to fulfil it by giving the throne to her son. The king refuses to grant her request; but fearing the machinations of the woman, he advises the three children by his first wife to stay away from the court for twelve years. He makes it twelve years, because astrologers had told him that he would live so long. Rāma, with his brother Lakshmaṇa and his sister Sītā, repairs to the Himalayas. Contrary to the prophecy of the astrologers Daśaratha dies in the ninth year. The widowed queen tries to secure the throne for Bharata, but he sternly refuses and goes to seek his eldest brother, to whom the throne by right belonged. Rāma, however, is unwilling to come immediately, seeing that the period of twelve years assigned to him by his father was not yet over. He stays away another three years and then returns, marries Sītā, and rules in peace. This feeble, distorted, unmotivated story was once regarded as a possible source of Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa. Professor Jacobi (Das Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 84–93) has already shown the utter untenability of such a view. And now we have definite evidence to prove that the Rāma-Rāvaṇa story was already well known¹ before 300 B.C. **25. Later modifications of the Rāma-story : 2. Jain forms.—**The Jain forms of the Rāma-story are to be found in works like the Padma-Purāṇa of Ravisheṇa, the Dharma-parīkshā of Amitagati, and the Trishashṭhiśa- lākāpurushacharita (chap. vii) of Hemachandra. The story in the main follows Vālmīki’s Rāmāyaṇa, and the evident object of these works must be to utilize an already existing story for preaching the special doctrines of the cult. Thus they make Rāma a pious Jain, a total abstainer from meat. This of course involved the omission of the golden deer incident (see § 18, J); Rāvaṇa abducts Sītā while Rāma is engaged in the battle with the fourteen thousand. Similarly Rāma kills Vālin in a fair fight (contrast § 18, K). Years after her abandonment, when Rāma meets Sītā once more, it was not through the instrumentality of Vālmīki, or through the incidents attending

¹ See Kauṭilīya, p. 11, line 3 from the bottom.          the reference to the Rāmāyaṇa in one of     As Bhāsa’s date is uncertain, the fact of          his plays (Avimāraka, p. 16, line 2) cannot     his having written two Rāma-plays and          have much significance chronologically.

lxi] History of the Rāma-story the horse-sacrifice (a Jain could not perform a sacrifice involving the death of any living animal), but merely and simply because people told him about her forlorn state; and he finally loses her again, not because Sītā disappears into the earth, but because, after her purity is attested anew by the fire-ordeal, she is convinced of the vanity of the world and becomes a Jain nun, tearing out her hair with her own hand. Rāma himself takes the mendicant vow soon after. We may note in passing that the Jain accounts tell us that the monkeys and bears and demons who took part in the battle at Laṅkā were not really monkeys or bears or demons. They were human beings who carried the images of a monkey or a bear or a demon on their banners. 26. Later modifications of the Rāma-story : 3. Hindu forms.—A whole treatise could be written discussing the various forms which the Rāma- story assumed in the later Hindu tellings of it, either in Sanskrit or in the different vernaculars of the country. And the special interest of such a treatise would lie in the attempt to show how the story came to be modified in accordance with changing beliefs and varying standards of judgement. We shall content ourselves with indicating merely the several tendencies that are discernible in the process. . 26, A. Exaggeration.—In these later tellings of the story mere exaggerations are what we naturally expect. Thus, even in the present form of the Rāmāyaṇa, the battle at Laṅkā is spun out and made to last for months, the intervals being filled in with one superhuman deed after another on both sides. There is a good deal of repetition. The same applies to some of the later descriptions of the battle of the twins with the army attending the sacrificial horse of Rāma. The twins are made to defeat all the great heroes who fought by Rāma’s side at Laṅkā, including Māruti, Lakshmaṇa, and even Rāma himself. Or, to take another instance which is significant in connexion with Bhavabhūti’s treatment of the theme, Rāvaṇa himself is represented as having been present at Sītā’s svayaṁvara, but unable to bend the bow (see § 18, C), which Rāma alone did. 26, B. Deification.—The beginnings of this process are already observable in the later portions of the Rāmāyaṇa, especially books i and vii, where Rāma is exalted into an Avatar of Vishṇu or the Supreme Spirit. This tendency was in course of time so much exaggerated that it eventually defeated its own purpose. Rāvaṇa also came to be considered as a regular devotee of Rāma; for, works on devotion admit intense enmity as a form of worship no less efficacious than friendship or service. So Rāvaṇa longs to be killed by Rāma and thereby to attain salvation (see U.R.C. ii. 11).

Introduction [lxii If he robs Sītā, it is simply to hasten the wished-for end, and without any sinful designs against Sītā, whom he revered as his mother. 26, C. Idealization.—Attempts were made quite early to clear the character of the intriguing queen Kaikeyī. Thus her nurse Mantharā (see § 18, E) becomes a special messenger sent by the Gods to secure Rāma's exile, and, as a necessary consequence, Rāvaṇa's death. Mantharā is the spirit of Kali (Quarrel), and she possesses Kaikeyī's soul, and makes her say and do what she, a paragon of virtue and kindness, would never otherwise have said and done. Similarly in regard to the episode of Sītā's residence at Laṅkā, the capital of the demon Rāvaṇa. The point was to establish her purity beyond the possibility of a suspicion. To effect this we found that the Uttara-kāṇḍa brought in the story of the curse (see § 18, L, note). Even that apparently did not suffice. The Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa (iii. 7) goes farther and says that Rāvaṇa did not abduct Sītā at all: only her shadow. When the golden deer appeared, Rāma, being an omniscient God, knew that it was a trick of the demon, and he rather welcomed it as it would give him a pretext to kill Rāvaṇa. So he tells Sītā to remain invisible for a while, himself creating in her place an illusory Sītā, which Rāvaṇa carries away. At the time of the fire-ordeal, this illusion is consumed and the real Sītā, untouched by the hand of the demon, shows herself. It is not necessary to mention the other fantastic devices adopted for the same purpose. 26, D. Curse-motif.—Curse as a motif in explaining conduct and fate came to be increasingly applied. Thus Daśaratha dies of grief for separa- tion from his son Rāma, because Daśaratha had himself been the unwitting instrument of causing separation between a father and his son (see Rāmā- yaṇa, ii. 63–64), and so had been cursed to that effect. Similarly almost every demon whom Rāma in his wanderings meets and kills, was repre- sented as a God or a superhuman being who had been, for one fault or another, cursed to assume the form of that particular demon, the release from the curse following immediately after his being killed by Rāma's hand. Quite a number of these additions also resulted from the attempt to describe the earlier lives of the characters that figure in the Rāmāyaṇa, the object being to explain their conduct in this birth by the influence of a previous birth. 26, E. Philosophizing.—Nor, we may be sure, were the interests of philosophy neglected. The Yoga-Vāsiṣhṭha, a philosophical poem even larger than the Rāmāyaṇa, and attributed to Vālmīki himself, is in form a dialogue which takes place between Vasiṣhṭha and Rāma on the occa- sion of Viśvāmitra's visit (§ 18, C) to Daśaratha's court. This work is in

lxiii] Early Plays: Mahāvīra-Charita substance a huge discursive treatise on the Vedānta philosophy. Adhyātma- Rāmāyaṇa, vii. 5, is popularly known as Rāma-gītā, and is in fact a condensed statement of the Vedānta doctrine after the fashion of the Bhagavad-gītā. And there are any number of lesser treatises exhibiting a tendency to philosophize in and out of season. 26, F. Invention and poetic embellishment.—Finally, single episodes from the Rāmāyaṇa, such as the marriage of Sītā, or the embassy of Aṅgada to Rāvaṇa just before the commencement of the battle, came to be embellished and enlarged, while a few other episodes not actually in the Rāmāyaṇa were invented and treated with much poetic feeling. The number of writers who have in these and various other ways treated the story of the Rāmāyaṇa can be easily counted by hundreds, among them some exceptionally gifted female authors; and their works are even to the present day read by hundreds of thousands of people throughout India; and those who cannot read, go to hear other people— the Kathakas or the Purāṇikas—read and explain them. The Rāmāyaṇa in India is not—and never will be, let us hope—a dead mythology. It is full of the noblest examples of virtue and truth, of devotion and self- sacrifice. Its characters have been for centuries, and still are, living forces moulding the actions and aspirations of the men and women of India.

Bhavabhūti's early plays: Mahāvīra-charita,

Mālatī-Mādhava

27. The Mahāvīra-charita.—Such was the Rāma-story, with a past so glorious and a future so vast and promising, that fascinated our poet and was in fact his first love (M. V. C. i. 7). In the Mahāvīra-charita Bhava- bhūti dramatizes the early history of Rāma, beginning shortly before his marriage and taking up the story of his exile and the abduction of his wife and her recovery, and ending with the return from Laṅkā and the coronation. Now here Bhavabhūti's most immediate problem was to give dramatic unity to a vast number of actions and incidents which extended over a period of fourteen years or more, and which had no intrinsic unity except in so far as they all concerned one person, Rāma. The poet might have introduced the various characters which figure in this part of Rāma's history,—Paraśurāma, Mantharā, Śūrpaṇakhā, Khara and the army of the fourteen thousand, Mārīcha, Jaṭāyus, Sugrīva, Vālin, Hanūmant, Śramaṇā, Vibhīshaṇa, Kumbhakarṇa, Rāvaṇa, and so on,—like a series of moving

pictures, and then dismissed them as quickly as they appeared. The result would have been a panoramic procession and not a play with a unified plot. It is likely that the earliest dramatizations of the Rāma-story were of this kind. The first step in the evolution of these 'epic plays' or 'chronicle plays', as we might call them, was perhaps the division of the story as a whole into minor episodes of inherent dramatic unity, and the employment of one of these units as the material for a play. This step may well have been taken by Bhāsa, who comes at least a century or two before Kālidāsa. Two of Bhāsa's plays—'The Coronation of Rāma' or Abhisheka-nāṭaka and 'The Image' or Pratimā—are based upon books iv-vi of the Rāmāyaṇa. We should expect a third Rāma-play by Bhāsa covering books i-iii, if not also a fourth covering book vii. At any rate Bhāsa treated the Mahā-Bhārata story in this fashion, dividing it into a number of separate episodes, each forming the subject of a single play. In most of these earlier plays, however, there was presumably no attempt made to show that the incidents were inevitable. They followed in a definite sequence, because the epic narrated them in that sequence. 28. Bhavabhūti's departure from the Rāmāyaṇa.—Now consider what Bhavabhūti does in order to bring about the desired unity of plot and adequate motivation. When Janaka proclaims his daughter Sītā's svayaṁ- vara, then Rāvaṇa, king of the demons, offers himself as a candidate for her hand. He does not indeed come personally, as suitors were expected to do: he is too proud for that. He sends a messenger who was to ask or rather demand Sītā in marriage. His suit is not only refused, but, even in the presence of his messenger, the girl is betrothed to Rāma—a mere mortal. This was an insult to Rāvaṇa's valour and prowess, and he is further incensed and mortified to learn that Rāma had killed Tāṭakā and Subāhu, and a number of other demons. Rāvaṇa is naturally burning for revenge (act i). However, Mālyavant, Rāvaṇa's trusted minister and adviser, tries to pacify him, and promises to secure his ends by gentler means: by diplomacy. The minister accordingly meets Paraśurāma and instigates him against Rāma (act ii, interlude). Unexpectedly, Paraśurāma is himself vanquished (act iii). This was a great blow to Mālyavant's scheme; the old diplomat does not, however, despair. He sends Rāvaṇa's sister, Śūrpaṇakhā, with instructions that she was to assume the form of the nurse Mantharā and, before Rāma returned to Ayodhyā from his marriage, give him the message (as if coming from his step-mother Kaikeyī) to withdraw into exile for fourteen years. By this plan Mālyavant hoped to draw Rāma

lxv] Early Plays : Mahāvīra-Charita and his wife undefended into the forest, where with the army of demons that Khara had under command, it would not have been very difficult to overpower Rāma and abduct his wife. The ruse succeeds.¹ Rāma dutifully accepts his exile, and Lakshmaṇa and Sītā accompany him (act iv). The abduction of Sītā now follows as a matter of course (act v, interlude). Since, however, Mālyavant did not succeed in crushing Rāma by the help of the army of the fourteen thousand, he prevails upon the very reluctant Vālin to undertake that task. The fight between Vālin and Rāma which follows is a fair one, and at its end Vālin dies, commending his son and his brother Sugrīva to Rāma's care ² (act v). This is the real climax of the play. Mālyavant has been using one means after another to secure his desired end, but all things work against him. Diplomacy had been tried and in vain. Nothing now remained but to risk one last united effort to overpower the enemy by force. This also succeeds no better. Rāvaṇa is killed (act vi) and Vibhīshaṇa installed in his place. Rāma thereupon recovers his wife, returns to Ayodhyā, and is crowned king (act vii). 29. Technical significance of these changes.—Now it is quite clear that even from the start Bhavabhūti has here taken great liberties with his sources. His changes are deliberate, well-advised. He seems to have had a clear conception of just what he wanted to do, and what to avoid. He was not satisfied with a mere reproduction in dramatic form of what the epic gave in a narrative form. He wanted to establish, as far as feasible, a necessary sequence between the various experiences and adven- tures through which his hero passes. But this is not all. He so selects the incidents, and, where there was no choice for him, so modifies them as to bring out, by contrast, all the fine points in Rāma's character. Bhavabhūti represents Rāma as an embodiment of duty, patience, truthful- ness, valour, and chivalry. And to set these qualities in high relief, he brings Rāma into contact with Paraśurāma, who has indeed valour, but valour marred by a fiery temper; with Vālin, who is chivalrous, but lacks strength of conviction, and so is easily beguiled by diplomacy; with

¹ Notice how by this one stroke Bhavabhūti beautiful woman (which disguise she secures three distinct objects. 1. He could, as a she-demon, easily assume). saves the character of Kaikeyī entirely. 3. Bhavabhūti also gains further oppor- 2. By bringing Śūrpaṇakhā thus early tunity for heightening Rāma's character. into contact with Rāma he gains adequate ² Thus the poet skilfully avoids 1. Rāma's motivation for her later conduct; for, if compromising conduct in relation to Rāma could not see through Śūrpaṇakhā's Vālin, and 2. the spectacle of the un- disguise as a nurse, no more was he ex- righteous quarrel between the brothers pected to see through her disguise as a Vālin and Sugrīva. i [H.O.S. 21]

Introduction [lxvi Mālyavant, whose misfortune it is to know the better and follow the worse; and finally with Rāvaṇa, whose great qualities of mind and of body (and they are great) are rendered futile by the adulterous passion that dominates and ruins him. In fact, it would not be incorrect to say that the whole play is a struggle between a noble, sincere, straightforward policy and a crooked, underhand, unscrupulous diplomacy, ending in an utter discomfiture of the latter. 30. Merits of the Mahāvīra-charita.—In addition to a unified plot the play affords us some attempts at genuine characterization. The poet has taken great pains to make Rāma an ideal of chivalry. He has no malice against his enemies (i. 31, i. 32¹), generously recognizes their valour (ii. 35, 36, and passim), and is considerate in his treatment of them after their defeat (iv. 21, v. 56). At the same time he is fully confident of his prowess (ii. 33²), and scorns to receive from his enemies any sympathy or advantage that goes beyond the strict code of chivalry (ii. 46¹, v. 50). He is generous and devoted to those whom he has once called his friends (v. 58¹⁷, v. 60), and has a supreme sense of his duty as a pupil (i. 38), as a son (iv. 42), and as a king (iv. 39). We have already spoken of the types of character¹ that are contrasted with his. It is necessary, however, to add that, although Bhavabhūti is conscious of the original divine nature of Rāma (vii. 2), he has tried to show him (except in one or two places) as entirely human and normal. The divine does not intrude itself too prominently and so dull our sympathies, as it does in some of the successors of our poet. The play contains some splendid poetry, and, especially in acts iii and iv, some spirited dialogue. 31. Defects of the Mahāvīra-charita.—The main drawback of the play is the circumstance that its characterization, however clever in some places, is generally stiff and unconvincing; there is no such thing as character- development, unless we choose to call the change of mood in Paraśurāma a development. Thus, from start to finish, Rāma is always the ideal hero, the Mahā-vīra; what we have is a revelation of the different phases of his character, or more correctly speaking, the same phase of his character— bravery, nobility, truthfulness, and what not—revealed under different circumstances and in relation to different persons. So also with Sītā. We do not find in her that fine shading of character and blending of opposing motives, that delicate growth of passion and affection that Bhavabhūti portrays, for instance, in the heroine of the Mālatī-Mādhava. The same may be said of the minister Mālyavant (see also § 36), who in this respect ¹ We may also mention the attempt to differentiate the characters (acts iii and iv) of Janaka and Daśaratha, and of Śatānanda and Viśvāmitra and Vasiṣṭha.

lxvii] Early Plays: Mālatī-Mādhava compares very unfavourably with the sublime character of Rākshasa in Viśākhadatta's Mudrā-Rākshasa. Another characteristic defect of the play is the poet's inability to stop when enough has been already said. Thus Mālyavant's self-revelation— the painful exposition of his motives, his hopes, and his fears—becomes positively tedious, especially in the interlude to act iv; it is not called for, and is technically a blemish. Similarly in act iii, the wordy war between Paraśurāma on the one hand, and Śatānanda and Janaka and Daśaratha and Viśvāmitra on the other, is carried to a length that may perhaps serve to display Bhavabhūti's knowledge of grammar, Yoga, Dharma-śāstra, Mīmāṁsā, and so forth, but that also betrays a radical defect in our poet, the lack of a proper sense of form and measure. As a result, awkward pauses must often have arisen on the stage, one or more characters being compelled to stop and wait till another had concluded his—perhaps poetic, but uncalled for—description or declamation. In fairness to Bhavabhūti however, it must be said that his treatment of the Bharata episode (end of act iv) and of the Vālin-Sugrīva incident can hardly be bettered. Here he gives the desired effect by a few bold strokes; and Vibhīshaṇa's remark (v. 58¹⁸), ‘How touching is this brevity where a prolix statement might have been looked for!’ can very appropriately be applied to Bhavabhūti's own treatment of the theme, as indeed he himself probably intended.¹ Finally we may mention that the language of the play is crude and lacks the grace and polish, and even the directness and vigour, of Bhava- bhūti's later plays. The descriptions are often lengthy and involved, and the diction then becomes stilted and unnatural. The poet may also be charged with some inconsistencies of statement: cp. vii. 16ᶜ with v. 38². The metrical test (see appendix 1) confirms the impression that the play is probably the earliest ² of the three plays of Bhavabhūti. 32. The Mālatī-Mādhava.—This play was probably written not very long after the Mahāvīra-charita. It is in ten acts and is technically called a prakaraṇa, and its plot, taken as a whole, is the poet's own invention. Quite possibly, of course, he may have received from various sources hints for certain incidents and episodes of the story. Thus (as noted at § 4) some parts of it, such as the journey from the Berars to Padmāvatī, are perhaps autobiographical; while others, such as the marriage of a nobleman from the Berars (Mādhava) with a distinguished lady of Northern India

¹ Bhavabhūti is very fond of introducing in his plays such indirect self-praise : com- pare M.M. i. 35¹⁰, vi. 13²; U.R.C. iii. 47⁵. But he generally takes care to introduce it so skilfully as not to destroy the stage- illusion.

² Compare also the prologue (i. 7²), where the work is called new or apūrva; every play is in a sense apūrva, but it is usually in his first play that an author tries to excuse himself on this ground. Cf. Mālavikā, i. 2.,

Introduction [lxviii]

(Mālatī), may have been suggested by historic facts.¹ For the central story, Bhavabhūti seems to have been indebted to the Bṛihatkathā, which—to judge from Kshemendra's synopsis thereof ² and from Soma- deva's Kathāsaritsāgara ³—contained three separate stories of the temple- runaways (see below, § 33, D) and the marriage in disguise (§ 33, E) and the immolation and rescue of a princess (§ 33, F).⁴ The play is of the romantic type, the central interest being a love-story, or rather a dexterous blending together of two love-stories. The plot is crowded with incident and adventure, thrilling us now with hope and now with fear, and the sequences are so far removed from the commonplace that we can never guess what is to come next until near the very end. And the action is projected upon a weird background, with tigers running wild in the streets, ghosts squeaking in the cemeteries, and mystic Kāpālikas performing gruesome rites in their blood-stained temples. 33, A. Analytic statement of the plot of the Mālatī-Mādhava.—Bhūri- vasu and Devarāta, two young friends and fellow-students at the University,⁵ promise each other before parting that, if they should marry and settle down, they would endeavour to pass on their friendship to the next generation by bringing about, if possible, a marriage between their own children. This promise is made in the presence of another fellow-student, Kāmandakī, and her pupil Saudāminī. The friends part. Bhūrivasu becomes minister of the king of Padmāvatī, and has a daughter named Mālatī; while Devarāta has a similar position at Kuṇḍinapura, the capital of the Berars, and has a son named Mādhava. The children grow up and Devarāta sends his son to Padmāvatī, ostensibly to complete his education, but really to remind Bhūrivasu of his early promise. Devarāta is too cautious to send his son direct to Bhūrivasu; instead, he sends him to Kāmandakī, who had now become a Buddhist nun, and was staying in a monastery (vihāra) at Padmāvatī, much honoured both by the king and his minister. 33, B.—Bhūrivasu comes to know of Mādhava's presence in the city, and is not averse to giving his Mālatī in marriage to Mādhava; only it so happens that the king his master has already asked Bhūrivasu to give his daughter Mālatī in marriage to an old court-favourite of his called Nandana:

¹ For two notable marriages of this kind in the Vākāṭaka dynasty of the Berars, we have epigraphic testimony: JRAS., April, 1914, p. 325. ² See his Bṛihatkathāmañjarī (Kāvyamālā, no. 69), xi. 6–88; 67–78; iii. 218–30. ³ See Kathāsaritsāgara, xiii. 17–150; 158–215; iv. 146–203. ⁴ It would be interesting to study the various artistic changes which Bhavabhūti made in his originals. ⁵ Ancient India had famous seats of learning (Ujjain, Takshaśilā, Nālandā), each housing and feeding and teaching thousands of bachelor students. See Hiuen Tsang's description of Nālandā (book ix: S. Beal's translation, ii. 167).

lxix] Early Plays: Mālatī-Mādhava It was dangerous to refuse the king's request; so Kāmandakī advises Bhūrivasu to assent to the king's wish, but to word his assent in such a way as to leave himself a loophole or chance of evasion in case of need (ii. 2¹⁰), herself undertaking to contrive to bring the young people together and arrange for a private marriage. Bhūrivasu could in that case plead that he was in no wise a party to this clandestine affair, and the king—the marriage once solemnized—would have no choice but to submit. With the help of friends, Kāmandakī manages to throw the young people together in chance encounters on the road or at the spring festival of the God of Love, or in the city garden; while,—by praising to Mālatī the person and family and accomplishments of Mādhava, by painting with contrasting touches the ugliness and stupidity of Nandana, and finally by narrating to her some ancient stories of girls in like circumstances¹ who chose their husbands without regard to their parents' wishes,—Kāmandakī so works upon Mālatī's feelings that when the opportunity comes she is ready to elope with Mādhava and marry him in a place prepared by Kāmandakī. 33, C.—Such is the main plot. Interwoven with it is a by-plot, also a love-story, namely between Nandana's sister Madayantikā and Mādhava's friend Makaranda. This by-plot is clearly intended to be a foil for the main plot, an element of contrast with it. Thus the first meeting of Mālatī and Mādhava occurs at the spring festival in a most natural way. The first meeting of Madayantikā and Makaranda takes place under most exceptional circumstances: A tiger has broken loose, has killed his keepers, and is running amuck in the streets, when Madayantikā, who happens to pass by, is saved from deadly peril by Makaranda.² A second notable contrast appears in the characters of Mālatī and Madayantikā. Mālatī is a modest obedient girl whom Kāmandakī finds it hard to persuade to disobey her father's wishes; while Madayantikā, the sister of the court-favourite, is a flighty passionate girl who elopes with Makaranda at the very first opportunity. Further, as compared with Mādhava's love, that of Makaranda is frankly sensuous. There was nothing to prevent Makaranda from going in straightforward fashion to Nandana and asking for the hand of his sister (whom moreover he had saved from the tiger). The actual method adopted is an elopement under cover of darkness. 33, D.—The story is further complicated and diversified by the intro- duction of two episodic elements: 1. the marriage of Nandana to Maka- randa disguised as Mālatī; 2. the two hairbreadth escapes of Mālatī, one before and one after her marriage. The purpose of the first episode is ¹ Such as Śakuntalā, Urvaśī, and Vāsavadattā. ² His opportune presence is adequately motivated (iv. 0²⁸). The rescuer is wounded.

Introduction [lxx to link the main plot more closely to the by-plot, since it is the event of which the union of the two pairs of lovers is the immediate sequel. The purpose of the second episode is merely to thrill the audience and to satisfy the human craving for the marvellous and even the gruesome. The first episode comes about in this way. A clandestine marriage between Mālatī and Mādhava having been decided upon, Kāmandakī secures the opportunity as follows: It was announced that the marriage of Mālatī and Nandana would be celebrated in the evening; and, according to the custom, Mālatī was to go just before the marriage to one of the city temples and there duly worship the Goddess. It is prearranged that Mādhava and Makaranda should go beforehand into the temple and there remain hidden. Mālatī, who however is quite in ignorance of what was to follow, approaches; the attendants stand outside, only her trusty com- panion and confidante, Lavaṅgikā, going with her into the interior. Then after a scene (act vi) which is one of the best in the play, the whole plot is revealed. Makaranda was to put on the dress of Mālatī¹ and join the marriage procession and be married to the unsuspecting Nandana, Mādhava in the meantime taking the real Mālatī with him to a place prepared for them and being formally married to her. 33, E.—The same stratagem was to give Makaranda his wife—Mada- yantikā, sister of Nandana. For, after the marriage of the pseudo-Mālatī with Nandana, when the latter meets his supposed wife and makes her advances of love, he receives a cold rebuff, and finally a kick. The bride- groom walks away in high dudgeon. Now Madayantikā, the bridegroom's sister, hearing of the infamous treatment her brother received at the hands of the new bride, comes to her room to expostulate with her. What follows is easily imagined. Makaranda throws off his disguise and elopes with Madayantikā. Had he been able to reach the appointed place in safety and solemnize the marriage, the play would have ended smoothly but much too early (end of act viii). The only difficulty then would have been to pacify the king, which would not have been very difficult perhaps. What actually happens is that, as Makaranda is escaping from Nandana's house, he unexpectedly comes upon certain night-watches who challenge him. A skirmish ensues. More guards are sent, and Mādhava, hearing of the news, runs to his friend's rescue. The two friends fight so bravely that the king, who was aroused and was watching their valour, is moved to pardon them; and, coming to know of all the facts, he even acknowledges the two marriages. ¹ In judging the verisimilitude of this inci- Mālatī herself was very probably taken dent, we must consider that the part of by a man (see appendix 11).

lxxi] Early Plays : Mālatī-Mādhava 33, F.—Here at any rate the play might very naturally end ; but no. The poet wants (see i. 6) to make as diversified an appeal as he can, and so he has introduced the second episode. It seems that at Padmāvatī, in the cremation-ground close by the river, there was a temple of the Goddess Karālā (the Terrible). This Goddess is very fond of blood, and her votaries wear garlands of skulls, and offer her animal sacrifices (sometimes even human sacrifices), and in return she grants them magic powers, such as flying through the air, rendering oneself invisible, and so forth.¹ On the very night of the day when Mālatī and Mādhava meet in the garden, and Makaranda kills the tiger—it being the uncanny night that precedes the new moon—a certain Kāpālika, Aghoraghaṇṭa by name, has arranged to offer a human sacrifice, and Mālatī is chosen as the victim. Kapālakuṇḍalā, the female disciple of Aghoraghaṇṭa, has all in readiness, and they are about to immolate Mālatī, when Mādhava, hearing Mālatī's cry, appears on the scene and rescues her. The opportune presence of Mādhava in the dead of night, and upon the cremation-ground, was, the poet frankly admits (v. 28), the merest chance. Mādhava was there trying to propitiate in some occult way the ghouls and other uncanny beings who infest such places. Mādhava kills Aghoraghaṇṭa, though he permits Kapālakuṇḍalā— as she was a woman—to escape. 33, G.—Out of this escape comes the second hairbreadth escape of Mālatī. Kapālakuṇḍalā longs to avenge the death of her master ; and just when everything seems to be going well—Mādhava married to Mālatī, Makaranda securely in possession of Madayantikā, and even the king himself induced to pardon the two lovers,—she finds an opportunity to pounce upon Mālatī and lead her off with intent to kill her. There is general grief and lamentation, which fills the whole of act ix and a part of act x. This time Mālatī is saved by another fortuitous coincidence. We have already spoken (§ 33, A) of Saudāminī, the pupil of Kāmandakī. She apparently had become an adept in occult sciences, and having by chance come upon Kapālakuṇḍalā, she reproves her, rescues Mālatī from her hands, and restores her to her sorrowing relatives, and the play ends happily. 34. Mālatī-Mādhava : criticism of the plot.—It would be easy, of course, to criticize the plot by saying that it is no more than a loose patchwork : it lacks the consistency, the inevitableness, that should belong to every dramatic action. The poet evidently wishes to represent Kāman- dakī as an expert in underhand diplomacy. She is in fact the arch-plotter ¹ Bhavabhūti, like other people of his time (see Bāṇa, Harsha-charita, iii, story of Bhairavāchārya), implicitly believed in these powers, so that we cannot reason- ably charge him with an illicit intro- duction of the supernatural.

Introduction [lxxii in the play; but her own scheming contributes far less to the ultimate result than does mere chance. In this connexion the Kapālakuṇḍalā episode is what is most frequently criticized. It gives the poet the chance to describe the cemetery-scenes, or to indulge (acts ix and x) in a pathetic outpouring of song, but it serves no other purpose. Some go so far as to suppose that this entire episode is a later addition by the poet, prompted by a desire to emulate Kālidāsa (see § 7 above): it did not belong to the poet's original conception of the plot. It would seem that a good case could be made in favour of this theory, especially if we take into account the number of lines and stanzas and parts of stanzas that we find common¹ to this play and to the Uttara-Rāma-charita, after the completion of which latter play Bhavabhūti is believed to have reverted to the former play and enlarged it. Now although it be true (see appendixes 6 and 8) that Bhavabhūti did revise his own plays, I

lxxiii] Early Plays : Mālatī-Mādhava been inserted later into the M. M. But we must remember that much of the talk of love and grief in the M. M. is purely conventional, and it need not surprise us if the stanza after all did originally belong to it. Compare in this connexion M. M. act i, stanza 34ᶜ, where the hero talks of the moon, when it is full day. 35. Technique of the Mālatī-Mādhava.—From the preceding analysis of the plot it is clear that in sheer inventiveness of incidents Bhavabhūti has now attained considerable power, although he does not quite realize that a mere string of incidents, however exciting or dramatic, does not necessarily lead to a climax nor give a real unity of plot. Secondly, the poet recognizes the value of suspense, but it is the sort of suspense which results from an incipient fatalism. Neither in the situation, nor in the characters, nor again in the background on which they are thrown in the early part of the play, is there a foreshadowing of the final dénouement as a thing inevitable or even antecedently probable. In defence it may be urged that, after all, chances do occur in the world as it is constituted, and that the dramatist has really no right to rule chance entirely out of his creation and make the latter a rational system conformable to the demands of his own philosophy. Consider, for instance, Shakespeare's Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. It is not antecedently necessary for the dénouement of these plays that Ophelia should die, or that Friar John be ‘stay'd by accident’ and not deliver the letter. Laertes might just as well have avenged the death of his father without Ophelia's drowning, and the Capulets and the Montagues might just as well have been induced to join hands and merge old feuds at the wedding of their children as at their funeral. But these irrational accidents came to Shakespeare as parts of the story proper, and the audience was willing to accept the dramatist’s statement, just as we should accept that of a traveller, provided it did not overtax our credulity. More important it is to inquire if there is any dramatic justification for these accidents: any attempt, in other words, to place us in that frame of mind in which we instinctively seem to scent dangers long before they come—scent dangers that do not come. Bhavabhūti has done something of the kind. Compare, for instance, passages like iv. 4ᵇ, iv. 7; v. 27³, v. 28; viii. 10, viii. 14; ix. 8ᵈ, ix. 39, ix. 49; x. 13; &c. Here the poet seems to be purposely dwelling on the fickleness of Fortune, the instability of all mundane existence. This gives us the necessary mood. Stanza viii. 10 is particularly significant in this connexion. 36. Mālatī-Mādhava : its advance over the Mahāvīra-charita.—We found (see § 31) the Mahāvīra-charita weak in characterization. In the k [H.O.S. 21]

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

lxxv] Early Plays: Mālatī-Mādhava in a play proper.¹ Taken as a whole the play may unhesitatingly be pronounced to be, both in substance and in form, a decided advance over the Mahāvīra-charita. It was written with the distinct purpose of avoiding some of the faults of his earlier work (see M. M. i. 8), and its technique is much more conscious and deliberate. 37. Defects of the Mālatī-Mādhava.—We have already commented upon the defects in the structure of the plot. In a word the play may be said to give us a particularly vivid form of story-telling, with a number of conscious critical approaches to dramatic technique. What the poet needs now is practice and, as a natural result of it, a toning down of the youthful exuberances that still mar the play. Thus we find here a constant tendency to exaggerate, to over-emphasize so as to drive a thing home, and this cannot have been wholly the result of the dullness, the tardy responsiveness, of his audience; a part of it at least must be charged to the poet's lack of restraint. He gives us dozens of long descriptions, full of lengthy compounds and mouth-filling phrases, where his delight in words as words is quite evident. It may be that his audience also shared his delight, and if only the passage as a whole conveyed an emotional mood and if that mood was adequately interpreted in suitable action, they did not care what the passage really meant. We may also note that the compounds though long are not usually involved, so that on the whole it is fairly smooth sailing. Another characteristic defect of the play is its sentimentality. In the first act, for instance, Mādhava's love seems to be a purely intellectual affair. He loves being in love and talking about his love; and throughout the play he seems to be intent on showing how ‘we that are true lovers’² love and run into risks and get separated and weep and even commit suicide à la mode de Kāma-śāstra or some other Śāstra. The long Prākrit descriptions (iii. 12⁸⁻⁴³, vii. 0⁷⁹⁻⁹¹, vii. 1²⁰⁻⁴⁷, and elsewhere) might just as well have been, like the love-scene in act viii, taken bodily over from some ancient treatise;³ and it is quite conceivable, seeing that the descriptions are in the vernacular, that they were expressly meant for the ‘groundlings’ who perhaps had a special relish for such topics; and in that case the long

¹ We must, however, remember that such descriptions have a value and a purpose, especially if the stage-properties be meagre. To me Hamlet's '’Tis now the very witching time of night' (iii. 2. 406 ff.) is more blood-curdling than all the stage- effects that electricity and modern science can produce. For a detailed statement as to the stage-conditions in Ancient India, see appendix 11. ² As You Like It, ii. 4. 55. ³ Such as that of Aṅgiras which Bhavabhūti quotes in M. M. ii. 2¹⁵. Vātsyāyana’s Kāma-sūtra gives the quoted passage as an anonymous view in iii. 1 (Durgāpra- sāda's ed., p. 194). We have already (§ 31) commented upon the poet’s fond- ness for displaying his learning.

Introduction [lxxvi compounds would rather show that Bhavabhūti did not care to make the thing too easily understood. The standards and limits of propriety as well as of prudery are different for different people, and for different epochs in the social development of the same people; and since Bhavabhūti was in this play evidently straining for effect and eager to secure from every different element of his audience all possible emotional response, any wholesale condemnation of the poet on this score would be as unfair as a similar condemnation of certain free passages in Shakespeare's poems and plays, or of the erotic verse of some of the early Christian writers.¹ The Present Play: Uttara-Rāma-charita 38. Transition to the Uttara-Rāma-charita.—Between the two plays that we have been hitherto considering and the play before us we must assume an interval of time sufficient to account for its almost perfect development in form and technique. The poet himself calls this play a product of his mature genius.² Presumably therefore in the interval the poet was acquiring more practice—writing more dramas; but unfortunately none of these intervening attempts have survived. We have given above (§ 15) the external evidence that inclines us to assume such lost works; but were this evidence entirely lacking, it would yet be hard to believe that the transition from the earlier to the later work—a transition which is no ess significant than the transition from Love's Labour's Lost to Romeo and Juliet—was all made without any intermediate steps; and when we remember that there was no printing in those days and that even the manuscripts themselves (especially of works not produced for the court and not patronized by the king) did not command any extensive circulation; and when we recall further that, even with more favourable conditions, nearly half the Elizabethan dramatic literature is now almost entirely lost to us,— we need not wonder at this regrettable loss, nor grow sceptical about the existence of works other than those that have actually survived the ravages of human and non-human enemies of letters. We turn now to a consideration of the present play, which is Bhava- bhūti's masterpiece and which has earned for him, by a consensus of opinion among scholars ancient and modern, a position at least equal to

¹ I would therefore entirely dissent from     Dr. Gray when, in an otherwise very     kindly intentioned passage, he says (Vāsa-     vadattā, introduction, p. 28): ‘There     are personal descriptions more de-     tailed than would be desirable in the     Occidental literature, together with evi-     dent approval of relations and ideals which     the less sensual Western mind rightly condemns.’     The italics are mine. ² Compare U. R. C. vii. 20ᵈ. The allusion is     purposely veiled.

lxxvii] Uttara-Rāma-Charita: Critical Estimate that of Kālidāsa, the current view being¹ that in the Uttara-Rāma-charita Bhavabhūti has even surpassed the so-called ‘Shakespeare of India’. We have given for this play in the sequel (pp. 4–14) a synoptic analysis of its plot act by act, and have tried to show the bearing of every act (and scene) upon the dénouement of the play. We will here limit ourselves to a few general criticisms. 39. Special features of the Uttara-Rāma-charita.—The play, as its title shows, treats of the later history of Rāma, from his coronation and the abandonment of Sītā to the final reunion. As we have seen (pp. liv– lxviii), the main incidents of the story—the circumstances leading to the abandonment of Sītā, her rescue, the birth of the twins and their education, the horse-sacrifice and the heroism displayed by the boys in capturing the horse, their recognition by Rāma, the final ordeal of Sītā, and presumably also the final reunion,—these were all given to the poet, not excepting even the Śambūka episode (act ii) and the Lavaṇa affair (end of act i and of act vii). The poet’s task therefore was not to create a plot, nor even to make any considerable change in the sequence of given events and connect them causally, as was the case in the two earlier plays. The problem to be answered was briefly this: How could Rāma ever think of abandoning such a wife as Sītā? and, having abandoned her—for whatever cause—how could they be again united in any real sense until all clouds, all vestiges of doubt and distrust, had been entirely banished from their minds? The Dushyanta of Kālidāsa not only repudiates Śakuntalā, but actually insults her to her face (Śākuntala, act v, Vyapadeśam āvilayitum, &c.); and yet, when the reunion comes in act vii, Śakuntalā has no other proof as to the penitence of the king than the indirect report coming from her mother’s friend, and presumably the sad and wasted form of her husband when she first beholds him after a separation of years. True, the king begs her to forgive him (act vii: Sutanu hṛdayāt pratyā- deśa-vyalīkam, &c.), but Śakuntalā has already acknowledged and accepted him quietly before that, although her early experience of ‘that jar of poison with honey on top’ might have taught her a lesson.² Similarly

¹ Uttare Rāma-charite Bhavabhūtir viśishyate. ² Of course, Kālidāsa, with the instinct of an artist, has tried to lessen the suddenness of the transition in various ways. One in particular must here be noted, since its artistic significance has not been suffi- ciently recognized; namely the difference in the background of act vii of the play as contrasted with that of the first and the following two acts. That of act vii is a hermitage in the sky far removed from the world, its passions, its hopes (Yat kāṅkshanti tapobhir anya-munayas tas- miṁs tapasyanty amī); that of acts i–iii is a forest on earth, a penance-grove if you will, but it is in the full bloom of spring. The wild infuriated elephant which breaks in at the end of act i, and the mild forgiving lioness in act vii which Sarvadamana robs of her cub, express

Introduction. [lxxviii in The Winter's Tale it is a much grosser insult and far too unkind a treatment which Hermione receives, and yet she is reconciled to her husband on the evidence of hearsay reports of Paulina, and possibly his expressions of remorse in the statue-scene. Apparently, Bhavabhūti was not satisfied with such inadequate motivation: he was not content to bring somehow the estranged pair together and then leave them to settle their causes of dispute later—amicably or otherwise. He felt that a reunion, to be perfect, must first be a reunion of hearts; and this was the psychological problem which he deliberately proposed to himself in this play, especially in the first three acts. The complicated chain of events leading to the actual reunion and the recognition of the princes forms the burden of the last four acts. 40. Technical perfection of the opening act of the Uttara-Rāma- charita.—Nothing can show more clearly the advance which Bhavabhūti had made in his technique than a careful study of the first act of the Uttara-Rāma-charita in relation to its significance for the final dénouement. This is the act in which Rāma abandons Sītā. The prologue has already informed us (i. 6) of the circulation of a rumour which, when it reaches Rāma, makes him decide upon the abandonment of his wife. Before the rumour actually reaches him, however, it was necessary for the poet to make clear to the audience several essential points. (1) That Rāma himself would put no faith in the rumour; this is effected by U. R. C. i. 12⁸–i. 14. Lakshmaṇa might just as well have said that the pictures ended with ‘our return from Laṅkā’, or ‘our meeting with Bharata in Nandigrāma’; but he (unintentionally) happens to mention Sītā’s fire- ordeal, and that gives the poet his chance. (2) That in nevertheless abandoning his wife on the basis of this false rumour, Rāma was obeying the higher call of what he owed as a king to his subjects. A king and his affairs must be above even the faintest possibility of suspicion. This stern conception of duty, and the readiness to sacrifice everything for it, is illustrated not only by i. 12 or i. 41, 42, 44, but even in the very first speech that Rāma makes (i. 7⁴–i. 8). We here get the first distant echoes, as it were, of a storm that is brewing. (3) That Sītā would understand Rāma’s higher motive, and would have gone herself voluntarily into exile if necessary (i. 12¹). What Sītā did resent was not that she was abandoned, but that she was abandoned in so heartless a fashion (i. 49) without her having the faintest inkling of whither she was being led and why. symbolically this difference in atmo- sphere. It is for a similar purpose that Bhavabhūti has placed the great reconciliation scene of U. R. C. act iii in the Pañchavaṭī, ‘every spot in which, unto those manifold expressions of our unreserved endear- ments, can bear testimony.’