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

INTRODUCTION ix of the law of the act of all activity......"( Keith's Sanskrit Drama P. 277.) According to Aristotle the conditions a tragedy essensially lie in what is called 'undeserved misfortune,' which the hero of a drama has undergone. And that 'undeserved misfortune' must be the outcome of some great error on the part of the hero but not the outcome of any depravity or systematic misdeed on his part. In the case of a person filling into misery from happiness by reason of his misdeeds no tragic feeling will be aroused. So Aristotle says, "..the change in the hero's fortune must not be from misery to happiness but on the contrary from happiness to misery ; the cause of it must lie not in any depravity, but in some grat error on his part" ( Aristotle on the art of poetry translated by In- gram Bywater P. 50 ) Now the commission of a great error is an accident which is not admitted in the Indian doctrine of Karma. According to this doctrine every aspect and deed of human existence is attributed to the working of the deeds done in the previous life ; so any misfortune met with by a hero of a Sanskrit drama will be attributed to his previous deed and as such his misfortune will not create any tragic feeling and hence no tragedy is possible according to the Sanskrit playwrights. In Venisamhára, Duryo- dhana's helpless and deplorable plight, accentuated by the misfor- tune due to the death of his heroic brothers-and military experts who sided with him, may arouse some feeling but cannot create any tragic feeling, as his said misfortune is not come to him accidentally but is an outcome of his systematic misdeeds and mischievous attitude of injuring the Pándavas. So our sympathy goes more towards the Pándavas who attained to happiness in the long run ofter continued struggle against the evils. So the strong conviction of Indian mind as to the working of the law of action is reponsible for the absence of tragedy in Sanskrit drama. Hence all Sanskrit dramas are comedy in the loose sense of the term. Another characteristic of Sanskrit drama is that the persons represented herein are all typical characters ; Dr. Keith says