Chapter XVI: Act III: , when Sītā sees and forgives her spouse, is admirable in its

delicacy of the portrayal of her gradual but generous surrender to the proof that, though harsh, he deeply loved her. Lava again is a fine study in his pride, followed by submission to the great king when approached with courtesy, but the Vidyādhara’s tale of the use of the magic weapons, doubtless an effort to vie with Bhāravi’s Kirātārjunīya, is ineffective. The last Act, however, reveals Bhavabhūti at his best; the plain tale of the Rāmāyaṇa makes Kuça and Lava recite the story of the Rāmāyaṇa at a sacrifice and be recognized by their father; here a supernatural drama with goddesses as actors leads insensibly to a happy ending, for Bhavabhūti again defies tradition to attain the end, without which the drama would be defective even in our eyes. Sītā and Rāma are splendidly characterized; the one in his greatness of power and nobility of spirit, the other ethereal and spiritual, removed from the gross things of earth. Janaka and Kauçalyā are effectively drawn; their condolences have the accent of sincerity, but the other characters—there are twenty-four in all—present nothing of note. It was not within Bhavabhūti’s narrow range to create figures on a generous scale; in his other dramas they are reduced to the minimum necessary for the action.

As a poem the merits of the Uttararāmacarita are patent and undeniable. The temper of Bhavabhūti was akin to the grand and the inspiring in nature and life; the play blends the martial fervour of Rāma and his gallant son with the haunting pathos of the fate of the deserted queen, and the forests, the mountains, the rivers in the first three Acts afford abundant opportunity for his great ability in depicting the rugged as well as the tender elements of nature; what is awe-inspiring and magnificent in its grandeur has an attraction for Bhavabhūti, which is not shown in the more limited love of nature in Kālidāsa. He excels Kālidāsa also in the last Act, for the reunion of Sītā and Rāma has a depth of sentiment, not evoked by the tamer picture of the meeting of Duḥṣanta and Çakuntalā; both Rāma and Sītā are creatures of more vital life and deeper experience than the king and his woodland love.

We find, in fact, in Bhavabhūti, in a degree unknown to Kālidāsa, child of fortune, to whom life appeared as an ordered joyous whole, the sense of the mystery of things; ‘what brings things together’, he says, ‘is some mysterious inward tie; it is certainly not upon outward circumstances that affection rests’. [405] Self-sacrifice is a reality to Bhavabhūti; Rāma is prepared to abandon without a pang affection, compassion, and felicity, nay Sītā herself, for the sake of his people, [406] and he acts up to his resolve. Friendship is to him sacred; to guard a friend’s interests at the cost of one’s own, to avoid in dealings with him all malice and guile, and to strive for his weal as if for one’s own is the essential mark of true friendship. [407] Admirable also is his conception of love, far nobler than that normal in Indian literature; it is the same in happiness and sorrow, adapted to every circumstance of life, in which the heart finds solace, unspoiled by age, mellowing and becoming more valuable as in course of time reserve dies away, a supreme blessing attained only by those that are fortunate and after long toil. [408] The child completes the union; it ties in a common knot of union the strands of its parents’ hearts. [409] Bhavabhūti was clearly a solitary soul; this is attested by the prologue of the Mālatīmādhava:

ye nāma kecid iha naḥ prathayanty avajñām: jānanti te kim api tān
prati naiṣa yatnaḥ
utpatsyate ’sti mama ko ’pi samānadharmā: kālo hy ayam anavadhir
vipulā ca pṛthvī.

‘Those that disparage me know little; for them my effort is not made; there will or does exist some one with like nature to mine, for time is boundless and the earth is wide.’ Yet we may sympathize with those who felt [410] that his art was unfit for the stage, for Bhavabhūti’s style has many demerits in addition to the defects of his technique.

Bhavabhūti in fact proclaims here as his own merit richness and elevation of expression (prauḍhatvam udāratā ca vacasām) and depth of meaning, and we must admit that he has no small grounds for his claims. The depth of thought and grandeur which can be admitted in the case of Bhavabhūti must be measured by Indian standards, and be understood subject to the grave limitations which are imposed on any Brahmanical speculation as to existence by the orthodoxy which is as apparent in Bhavabhūti as it is in the lighter-hearted Kālidāsa. When, therefore, we are told [411] that ‘with reference to Kālidāsa he holds a position such as Aeschylus holds with reference to Euripides’, we must not take too seriously the comparison. No poet, in fact, suggests less readily comparison with Euripides than does Kālidāsa. He has nothing whatever of the questioning mind of the Greek dramatist, contemporary of the Sophists, and eager inquirer into the validity of all established conventions. In style again he aims at a level of perfection of achievement, which was neither sought nor attained by Euripides. Unquestionably, if any parallel were worth making, Kālidāsa would fall to be ranked as the Sophokles of the Indian drama, for as far as any Indian poet could, ‘he saw life steadily and saw it whole’, and was free from the vain questionings which vexed the soul of Euripides. Bhavabhūti again cannot seriously be compared with Aischylos, for he accepted without question the Brahmanical conceptions of world order, unlike the great Athenian who sought to interpret for himself the fundamental facts of existence, and who found for them no solution in popular belief or traditional religion. There can, moreover, be no greater contrast in style than that between the simple strength of Aischylos, despite his power of brilliant imagery, [412] and the over-elaboration and exaggeration of Bhavabhūti. The distinction between Kālidāsa and his successor is of a different kind. Both accepted the traditional order, but Kālidāsa, enjoying, we may feel assured, a full measure of prosperity in the golden age of India under the Gupta empire, viewed with a determined optimism all that passed before him in life, in strange contrast to the bitterness of the denunciations of existence which Buddhism, then losing ground, has set forth as its contribution to the problems of life. Bhavabhūti, on his part, recognized with a truer insight, sharpened perhaps by the obvious inferiority of his fortunes and failure to enjoy substantial royal favour, the difficulties and sorrows of life; his theme is not the joys of a pleasure-loving great king or the vicissitudes of a Purūravas, too distant from humanity to touch our own life, but the bitter woes of Rāma and Sītā, who have for us the reality of manhood and womanhood, as many a touch reminds us: [413]

kim api kim api mandam mandam asattiyogād: avicalitakapolaṁ
jalpatoç ca krameṇa
açithilaparirambhavyāpṛtaikaikadoṣṇor: aviditagatayāmā rātrir evaṁ
vyaraṅsīt.

‘As slowly and gently, cheek pressed against cheek, we whispered soft nothings, each clasping the other with warm embrace, the night, whose watches had sped unnoticed, came to an end.’

As regards the formal side of Bhavabhūti’s style we must unquestionably admit his power of expression, which is displayed equally in all three dramas. To modern taste Bhavabhūti is most attractive when he is simple and natural, as he can be when it pleases him. Thus in Act VI of the Mālatīmādhava we have a pretty expression of Mādhava’s joy at the words of love of him uttered by Mālatī when she has no idea of his presence near her:

mlānasya jīvakusumasya vikāsanāni: saṁtarpaṇāni
sakalendriyamohanāni
ānandanāni hṛdayaikarasāyanāni: diṣṭyā mayāpy adhigatāni
vacomṛtāni.

‘Fortune has favoured me, for I have heard the nectar of her words that make to bloom again the faded flower of my life, delightful, disturbing every sense, causing gladness, sole elixir for my heart.’ The deliberate rhyming effect is as appropriate as it is uncommon in such elaboration, and it is characteristic that the same effect is shortly afterwards repeated. Effective simplicity and directness also characterize the speech, in Sanskrit contrary to the usual rule, of Buddharakṣitā in Act VII, when she clinches the argument in favour of the elopement of Madayantikā and Makaranda:

preyān manorathasahasravṛtaḥ sa eṣaḥ: suptapramattajanam etad
amātyaveçma
prauḍhaṁ tamaḥ kuru kṛtajñatayaiva bhadram: utkṣiptamūkamaṇinūpuram
ehi yāmaḥ.

‘Here is thy beloved, on whom a thousand times thy hopes have rested; in the minister’s palace the men are asleep or drunken; impenetrable is the darkness; be grateful and show thy favour; come, let us silence our jewelled anklets by laying them aside, and depart hence.’ Equally effective is the expression of the admirable advice tendered to Mādhava and Mālatī at the moment when Kāmandakī has succeeded in securing their union:

preyo mitram bandhutā vā samagrā: sarve kāmāḥ çevadhir jīvitaṁ vā
strīṇām bhartā dharmadārāç ca puṅsām: ity anyonyaṁ vatsayor jñātam
astu.

‘Know, my dear children, that to a wife her husband and to a husband his lawful wife are, each to each, the dearest of friends, the sum total of relationships, the completeness of desire, the perfection of treasures, even life itself.’ Pretty again are the terms in which Kāmandakī laments Mālatī in Act X when she learns of her disappearance:

ā janmanaḥ pratimuhūrtaviçeṣaramyāṇy: āceṣṭitāni tava samprati tāni
tāni
cāṭūni cārumadhurāṇi ca saṁsmṛtāni: dehaṁ dahanti hṛdayaṁ ca
vidārayanti.

‘My body is aflame and my heart torn in sunder by the memory of thy childish movements which grew more delightful every hour from thy birth, and of the beauty and sweetness of thy loving words.’

It is, therefore, the more to be regretted that Bhavabhūti was not content with simplicity, but is often too fond of elaborate and overloaded descriptions, which are fatally lacking in simplicity and intelligibility and can be fully comprehended only after careful study and examination. We must, however, it is clear, admit that Bhavabhūti definitely improved in taste as the years went on. The latest of his dramas, the Uttararāmacarita, is far less obnoxious to criticism for defects of judgement than the Mālatīmādhava, which may be set down as an adventure in a genre unsuited to the poet’s talent. There is an admirable touch in the scene in Act I of the play where Sītā, wearied, falls to rest on the pillow of Rāma’s arm, that arm which no other woman can claim and which has ever lulled her to sleep, and he gazes on her in fond admiration: [414]

iyaṁ gehe lakṣmīr iyam amṛtavartir nayanayor
asāv asyāḥ sparço vapuṣi bahulaç candanarasaḥ
ayaṁ kaṇṭhe bāhuḥ çiçiramasṛṇo mauktikasaraḥ
kim asyā na preyo yadi param asahyas tu virahaḥ.

‘She is Fortune herself in my home; she is a pencil of ambrosia for the eyes; her touch here on my body is as fragrant as sandal juice; her arm round my neck is cool and soft as a necklace of pearls; what in her is there that is not dear, save only the misery of separation from her?’ Scarcely are the words said than the attendant enters with the word, ‘It has come’, which on her lips is to announce the advent of the spy whose report is to lead to Sītā’s banishment, while the audience, following the words, applies it at once to the separation which Rāma was deploring, and which to him was the parting in the past when Rāvaṇa stole his bride.

The spontaneous regard which springs up for each other in the hearts of the two princes Lava and Candraketu when they meet is admirably depicted: [415]

yadṛcchāsampātaḥ kim u guṇagaṇānām atiçayaḥ
purāṇo vā janmāntaranibiḍabandhaḥ paricayaḥ
nijo vā sambandhaḥ kim u vidhivaçāt ko ’py avidito
mamaitasmin dṛṣṭe hṛdayam avadhānaṁ racayati?

‘Is it this chance encounter, or his wealth of splendid qualities, or an ancient love, firm bound in a former birth, or a common tie of blood unknown through the might of fate, which draws close my heart to him even at first sight?’

The rebuke which Vāsantī addresses to Rāma for his treatment of Sītā, despite the loyalty of the queen, is effectively broken off by a faint: [416]

tvaṁ jīvitaṁ tvam asi me hṛdayaṁ dvitīyam
tvaṁ kaumudī nayanayor amṛtaṁ tvam an̄ge
ity ādibhiḥ priyaçatair anurudhya mugdhām
tām eva çāntam athavā kim ataḥ pareṇa.

‘“Thou art my life, my second heart, thou the moonlight of my eyes, the ambrosia for my body thou”: with these and a hundred other endearments didst thou win her simple soul, and now alas—but what need to say more?’

Elsewhere we have less simplicity, but in these cases we must distinguish carefully between those instances in which the difficulty and complexity of expression serve to illustrate the thought, and those in which the words are made to stand in lieu of ideas. In many cases Bhavabhūti may justly claim to have achieved substantial success, even when he is not precisely simple. The effect of love on Mādhava is effectively expressed: [417]

paricchedātītaḥ sakalavacanānām aviṣayaḥ
punarjanmany asminn anubhavapathaṁ yo na gatavān
vivekapradhvaṅsād upacitamahāmohagahano
vikāraḥ ko ’py antar jaḍayati ca tāpaṁ ca kurute.

‘An emotion, evading determination, inexpressible by words, never before experienced in this birth of mine, wholly confusing because of the impossibility of examination, is at once numbing me within and filling me with a torment of fire.’

The poet’s command of the philosophical conceptions of his day is shown in the verse following:

paricchedavyaktir bhavati na puraḥsthe ’pi viṣaye
bhavaty abhyaste ’pi smaraṇam atathābhāvavirasam
na saṁtāpacchedo himasarasi vā candramasi vā
mano niṣṭhāçūnyam bhramati ca kim apy ālikhati ca.

‘Though an object be before one’s gaze, determination is not easy; brought back, memory intervenes to introduce an element of falsity; neither in the cool lake nor in the moonbeams can passion be quenched; my mind, powerless to attain a fixed result, wanders, and yet records something.’

We have a further effective picture of the physical effect of love on Mādhava when he seeks to assuage his sorrows by depicting his beloved from memory: [418]

vāraṁ vāraṁ tirayati dṛçor udgamam bāṣpapūras
tatsaṁkalpopahitajaḍima stambham abhyeti gātram
sadyaḥ svidyann ayam aviratotkampalolān̄gulīkaḥ
pāṇir lekhāvidhiṣu nitarāṁ vartate kiṁ karomi.

‘Time after time the tears that stream from my eyes blind my sight; my body is paralysed by the numbness born of the thought of her; when I seek to draw, my hand grows moist and trembles incessantly; ah, what is there that I can do?’

It is, however, easy to pass into exaggeration, as in: [419]

līneva pratibimbiteva likhitevotkīrṇarūpeva ca
pratyupteva ca vajralepaghaṭitevāntarnikhāteva ca
sā naç cetasi kīliteva viçikhaiç cetobhuvaḥ pañcabhiç
cintāsaṁtatitantujālanibiḍasyūteva ca lagnā priyā.

‘So have I grasped my dear one that she is as it were merged in me, reflected in me, depicted in me, her form mingled in me, cast into me, cemented with adamant to me, planted within me, pinned to my soul by the five arrows of love, firmly sewn into the fabric of my thought continuum.’

A stanza like this, whatever credit it may do to the ingenuity of its author, hardly gives any high opinion of his literary taste, but we are undoubtedly forced to assume that he believed deliberately in the merits of the style he adopted, which as contrasted with that of Kālidāsa belongs to the Gauḍī type, [420] which loves compounds in prose, and aims at the grandiose rather than sweetness and grace. The adoption of such a style, possibly under the influence of the reputation of Bāṇa, is wholly unjustified in drama; the prose, which normally in the plays moves freely and easily, is hampered by compounds of ridiculous length which must have been nearly as unintelligible to his audiences as they are now without careful study. The defect, it is true, gradually diminishes; the Uttararāmacarita is far freer from sins of this type. In the verse the theory does not make such demands for compounds, so that the poetry is often better than the prose; especially in his latest drama it gains clearness and intelligibility. Sanskrit, however, was clearly in large measure an artificial language to Bhavabhūti; he employs far too freely rare terms culled from the lexicons, honourable to his scholarship but not to his taste, and the same lack of taste is displayed in the excess of his exaggerations. Of the sweetness and charm of Kālidāsa he has as little as of the power of suggestion displayed by his predecessor; but he excels in drawing with a few strokes the typical features of a situation or emotion. He seeks propriety in his characters’ utterances; Janaka shows his philosophical training, as do the two ascetics in Act IV; Lava manifests his religious pupilship under Vālmīki; Tamasā as a river goddess uses similes from the waters. Effective is the speech of the old chamberlain who addresses the newly-crowned Rāma as ‘Rāma dear’ to remember the change and fall back on ‘Your Majesty’. It may be admitted also that in many passages Bhavabhūti does produce effective concatenations of sounds, but only at the expense of natural expression and clearness of diction. The appreciation which he has excited in India is often due not to his real merits, but to admiration of these linguistic tours de force, such as the following:

dordaṇḍāñcitacandraçekharadhanurdaṇḍāvabhan̄godyataṣ
ṭan̄kāradhvanir āryabālacaritaprastāvanāḍiṇḍimaḥ
drākparyastakapālasampuṭamiladbrahmāṇḍabhāṇḍodara—
bhrāmyatpiṇḍitacaṇḍimā katham aho nādyāpi viçrāmyati.

‘The twang, emanating from the broken staff of Çiva’s bow, bent by his staff-like arms, is the trumpet sound proclaiming to the world the youthful prowess of my noble brother; it ceases not yet, its reverberations enhanced by its rumbling through the interstices of the fragments of the universe rent asunder by the dread explosion.’ It may readily be admitted that the sound effect of such a verse is admirable, but it is attained only at the sacrifice of clearness and propriety of diction.

4. THE LANGUAGE AND THE METRES

Bhavabhūti, with his limited scope, confines himself to Çaurasenī, and models his style on Sanskrit, so that the speakers of Prākrit are committed to the absurdity of elaborate style in what is supposed to be a vernacular. For him doubtless as for later poets the production of Prākrit was a mechanical task of transforming Sanskrit according to the rules of Vararuci or other grammarians.

In metre the Mahāvīracarita shows a free use of the Çloka, as is inevitable in an epic play; it is found 129 times; the Çārdūlavikrīḍita (75), Vasantatilaka (39), Çikhariṇī (31), and Sragdharā (28) are the other chief metres; the Upajāti, Mandākrāntā, and Mālinī are not rare, but the Āryā (3) and Gīti (1) are almost gone, and there are only sporadic Aupacchandasika, Puṣpitāgrā, Pṛthvī, Praharṣiṇī, Rathoddhatā, Vaṅçasthā, Çālinī, and Hariṇī. The Uttararāmacarita has the same metres, save the Sragdharā, a curious omission; it adds the Drutavilambita and Mañjubhāṣiṇī; the occurrences of the Çloka are 89, the Çikhariṇī is second (30), Vasantatilaka third (26), and Çārdūlavikrīḍita fourth (25). The Mālatīmādhava has the same metres as the Uttararāmacarita plus the Narkuṭaka [421] and a Daṇḍaka of six short syllables and sixteen amphimacers; here the Vasantatilaka takes first place (49), Çārdūlavikrīḍita (32), Çikhariṇī (21), and Hariṇī (12). The Mālinī (21) and Mandākrāntā (15) take on greater importance, while the Çloka is negligible (14). The fact that there are only 8 Āryās reflects the changed character of Bhavabhūti’s versification from that of Kālidāsa.

IX

VIÇĀKHADATTA AND BHAṬṬA NĀRĀYAṆA

1. THE DATE OF VIÇĀKHADATTA

A curious vagueness besets our knowledge of Viçākhadatta or Viçākhadeva, son of the Mahārāja Bhāskaradatta or the minister Pṛthu, grandson of the feudatory Vaṭeçvaradatta. None of these persons are elsewhere known, and for his date we are reduced to conjectures. The play ends with a stanza mentioning Candragupta as would be natural in a play of which he is hero, but there are variants in the manuscripts, including Dantivarman, Rantivarman, and (A)vantivarman. The last has been utilized to fix the date, but in two different ways; Avantivarman might be the Maukhari king whose son married Harṣa’s daughter, or the king of Kashmir (A.D. 855–83); Jacobi [422] identifies the eclipse referred to in the play as that of December 2, 860, when, he holds, Çūra, the king’s minister, had the play performed. There is no conclusive argument for or against this clever combination. Konow [423] sees in Candragupta the ruler of the Gupta line, and would make the poet a younger contemporary of Kālidāsa, but this is fantasy. We have some evidence of imitation of Ratnākara by Viçākhadatta, but it is possibly not conclusive as to date. Still less weight attaches to the fact that in one manuscript the Nāndī is supposed to be over before the play begins, for that is merely a habit of South Indian manuscripts, true to the Bhāsa tradition. There is nothing that prevents a date in the ninth century, though the work may be earlier. [424]

2. THE MUDRĀRĀKṢASA

Whatever its date, the Mudrārākṣasa [425] is one of the great Sanskrit dramas, although in India itself its merits have long been underrated, because it does not conform to the normal model. It is a drama of political intrigue, centred in the person of Rākṣasa, formerly minister of the Nandas, who is now sworn to revenge their destruction on Cāṇakya, the Brahmin who vowed to ruin them, and who, in pursuance of this end, secured an alliance between Candragupta, their rival, and Parvateça [426] and attacked Pāṭaliputra. Rākṣasa seeing resistance vain surrendered the city; the last of the royal house, Sarvārthasiddhi, retired to an ascetic life, and Rākṣasa left to weave plots elsewhere. His effort by a poison maiden to slay Candragupta miscarried; instead, Parvateça fell a victim through Cāṇakya’s cunning. This so far aided Rākṣasa that his son Malayaketu left Candragupta and is now his ally, preparing with the aid of a host of motley origin, including princes of Kulūta, Malaya, Kashmir, Scind, and Persia to attack the capital. Act I shows Cāṇakya’s schemes; in a monologue he expresses his detestation of the Nandas and his determination to secure Rākṣasa as minister for his lord, for he is convinced of Rākṣasa’s worth and has no desire himself to rule. Nipuṇaka, his spy, enters; he has found a Jain Jīvasiddhi hostile to the king—he is in reality Cāṇakya’s agent; the scribe Çakaṭadāsa is a real enemy, as is the jeweller Candanadāsa, in whose house are Rākṣasa’s wife and child; by good fortune he has secured the signet ring of Rākṣasa, dropped by the former in pulling indoors the child. Cāṇakya sees his chance; he writes a letter, has it copied in good faith by Çakaṭadāsa and sealed with Rākṣasa’s seal; Çakaṭadāsa is then arrested, but on the point of impalement is rescued by Siddhārthaka, another spy of the minister’s, who flees to Rākṣasa; Jīvasiddhi is banished in ignominy to the same destination, and Candanadāsa is flung into prison, to await death for having harboured Rākṣasa’s family, which has escaped. Finally, it is reported that Bhāgurāyaṇa and others of the court are also fled, news received by Cāṇakya with admirable composure, for they are also his emissaries.