वासवदत्ता (महाकवि सुबन्धु - श्लेष-प्रधान शास्त्रीय गद्यकाव्य सान्वय सटीक)

58 VĀSAVADATTĀ then (Kandarpakētu) saw in a dream ¹ a damsel ² about eighteen years of age with her hips girt ³ round with the bond of a girdle⁴ which was the gate ⁵ of the city of delight of her thighs ; which was the golden rampart of the great treasure-house of the city of joy ⁶ ; which was a trench for the line of the tendril of down ⁷ ; each night separated by a river, from whose opposite banks they continually call to each other. ¹ Cf. Hall, Introd., pp. 30–31, note ; and, for parallels in Sanskrit romances and dramas, as well as in The Thousand Nights and One Night, see Gray, ‘Literary Studies on the Sanskrit Novel,’ in WZKM. 18. 40–41, 50. For a more modern parallel, reference may be made to the Panjābī legends of Princess Adhik Anūp Daī, daughter of Rāja Sirkaṭ (a hero of the Rāja Rasālū cycle), and of Jalālī, the black- smith’s daughter (Temple, Legends of the Panjāb, 1. 233 ; 2. 168–169, Bombay, 1884– 1900). The same motif is found in early European romances, as in the Artus de la Bretagne and Palmerin de Oliva (Dunlop, History of Prose Fiction, 1. 258–259, 380, London, 1896). See also, for other instances of dreams toward morning, Harṣacarita, pp. 136–138, 166, 207, Bombay ed., 1892 (tr. Cowell and Thomas, pp. 105–106, 132–133, 177, London, 1897); Kādambarī, pp. 135–136, Bombay ed., 1890 (tr. Ridding, p. 57, London, 1896) ; Bṛhatkathāślokasaṃgraha, 2. 43 (ed. and tr. Lacôte, Paris, 1908) ; Natesa Sastri, Dravidian Nights, p. 49, Madras, 1886 ; Frere, Old Deccan Days, 2 ed., pp. 68–69, London, 1870. In India, as elsewhere in the East, dreams play an important rôle in divination, and the wide sphere of Sanskrit oneiro- mancy has been admirably discussed by Julius von Negelein (Der Traumschlüssel des Jagaddēva, Giessen, 1912), on the basis of a critical edition and translation of Jagad- dēva’s Svapnacintāmaṇi. It seems generally agreed that dreams toward morning come true (cf. the texts cited by Hall, loc. cit.). According to the Kathāsaritsāgara, 46. 150, ‘the slow or speedy fruitage of it [a dream] depends on the difference of time [when it is beheld] ; but this dream, being seen at the end of the night, will give a speedy fulfilment’ ; and it may be added that the Asura princess Uṣā, to whom Subandhu himself alludes (below, p. 61), first saw her future husband, Aniruddha, in a dream (Kathāsaritsāgara, 31. 11–32, tr. Tawney, 1. 276–277, Calcutta, 1880). ² This detailed description of the heroine, to which many parallels might be cited in Sanskrit literature, becomes of special interest when compared with the well-known representations of the female form in Indian art, in which the breasts and hips are of exaggerated development, while the waist is correspondingly slender. Vāsavadattā is to be classed, from Subandhu’s description, as a padminī, having, among other cha- racteristics, a moon-like face, eyes with reddish corners, dark, heavy hair, a line of down on the abdomen, and a slow gait ; a taruṇī, as being between sixteen and thirty, and a dēvasattvā, as being noble in conduct and wealthy (Schmidt, Beiträge zur indischen Erotik, pp. 220–224, 243–253, Leipzig, 1902). For similar, but far briefer, descriptions of Oriental beauties, see, for example, Swynnerton, Romantic Tales from the Panjāb, pp. 391–392, London, 1903 ; The Thousand Nights and One Night, tr. Payne, 3. 111–112 ; 4. 295 ; 7. 147, 210 ; 8. 103–104, London, 1882–1884. ³ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘marked out.’ ⁴ Tel. ed., ‘new girdle.’ ⁵ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘garland of.’ ⁶ Tel. ed. and Srirangam text, ‘the golden rampart of the abode of the treasure of her thighs, Love’s great depository.’ ⁷ Tel. ed., ‘zone of the trench for the multiform tendril of down’ ; Srirangam text also adds ‘zone.’