रत्नावली नाटिका (सम्राट हर्षवर्धन - शास्त्रीय नाटिका रत्न सम्पूर्ण ४ अङ्क सान्वय सटीक)

viii RATNAVALI

One of the distinguishing excellences of Sanskrit drama is 'its poetic grandeur which envelopes it as flowers overspread the bosom of the earth in the season of Spring.......It weaves the wreath of idyllic fancies in an unbroken chain adding to its favourite and familiar blossoms ever-fresh beauties from an inexhaustible garden. Nor is it unequal to depicting the grander aspects of nature in her mighty forests and on the shores of ocean. A profound familiarity with its native literature can here alone follow its diction through a ceaseless flow of phrase and figure, listen with understanding to the home of the bee as it hangs over the lotus and contemplate with S'akuntalā's pious sympathy with the creeper as it winds round the mango tree. But the poetic beauty of the Indian drama reveals itself in the mysterious charm of its outline, if not in its full growth even to the untrained'. (En- cy. Brita. )

To the Brahmanic supremacy in the evolution of the dramatic art and its idealism another notable characteristic of Sanskrit drama can be attributed ; that is the absence of tragedy. Though the tragic elements are not wanting in Sanskrit drama, yet tragic end is denied us most probably on the ground of peculiar conditions of Indian thought in propounding the law of action' and exposing the existence of human life which is nothing but the outcome of the workings of the deeds done in the previous birth. In explaining this view Dr. Keith holds, "The actions and status of man in existence depend on no accident ; they are essentially the working out of deeds done in a previous birth and these again are explained by yet earlier actions from time without beginning. Indian drama is thus deprived of a motif which is invaluable to Greek tragedy and everywhere provides a deep and profound tragic element, the intervention of forces beyond control or calculation in the affairs of man, confronting his mind with obstacles upon which the greatest intellect and the most determined will are shattered. A conception of this kind would deprive the working