Chapter XXIV: Act III: The swing scene contains really effective lines of (3)

For the dramatists the favour of a king was the chief object to be aimed at, and kings were evidently very willing to lend their names to dramatic and other compositions, whatever part they actually took in their production. The persistence of the rumour which regards Harṣa as winning his fame in part at the expense of Bāṇa, may be unjust to the king, but at any rate it expresses what was popular belief in the possibility of such a happening in poetical circles, and it is indeed incredible that a king should have been so scrupulous as to refuse any aid in his literary toils from his court poets. Competitions in exhibitions of poetry were in favour with monarchs, but they were not the only patrons; their actions excited imitation, [591] and even in Buddhist and Jain circles the desire to adopt the expedient of drama in connexion with religion was evinced. But even when applied by Brahmins, Buddhists, or Jains to philosophy or religion, the drama bore throughout the unmistakable stamp of its original predominance in circles whose chief interest was gallantry: the Nāgānanda bears eloquent evidence of this for Buddhist ideas, the Prabodhacandrodaya for Brahmin philosophy, and the Moharājaparājaya for Jainism.

A society of this kind was certain to encourage refinement and elegance in poetry; it was equally certain to lead to artificiality and unreality. But we may be certain that true poetic taste existed; it is attested not merely by the existence and fame of such dramas as those of Kālidāsa, but in the kindred sphere of music it has an interesting exposition in the third Act of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, in which, following with slight changes the precedent of Bhāsa, Cārudatta is made to express to the unresponsive ears of Maitreya, his one faithful friend, the effect produced on his ears by the sweet singing of Rebhila, which has come to console him in the midst of his sorrow: [592]

The notes of love, peace, sweetness, could I trace,
The note that thrills, the note of passion too,
The note of woman’s loveliness and grace,
Ah, my poor words add nothing, nothing new.
But as the notes in sweetest cadence rang,
I thought it was my hidden love who sang.
The melody of song, the stricken strings,
In undertone that half unconscious clings,
More clearly sounding as the passions rise,
But ever sweeter as the music dies.
Words that strong passion fain would say again,
Yet checks their second utterance—in vain;
For music sweet as this lives on until
I walk as hearing sweetest music still.

To Rājaçekhara [593] we owe a full account of the studies which went to make up the finished poet, who had the choice of Sanskrit, Prākrit, Apabhraṅça, and Paiçācī, or the speech of the goblins (bhūtabhāṣā), as his modes of composition. Knowledge of grammar, of the dictionary, poetics, and metrics are demanded, as well as skill in the sixty-four acts; purity of mind, speech, and body are requisite, as well as most attractive surroundings. The poet’s male attendants are to speak Apabhraṅça, the female Māgadhī, while those within the harem itself are to use Prākrit and Sanskrit, and his friends to exercise themselves in all forms of speech. With pardonable lack of historical truth, we are told anecdotes of kings who forbade the use in their harems of certain letters, and combinations of sounds, on grounds of euphony, and the poet may imitate their usage. We also learn that Sanskrit was affected among the people of Bengal, in Lāṭa Prākrit, in Mārwār, and by the Ṭakkas and Bhādānakas, Apabhraṅça, while in Avantī, Pariyātra, and Daçapura Bhūtabhāṣā prevailed. The people of Surāṣṭra and the Travaṇas are credited elsewhere [594] with intermingling Sanskrit and Apabhraṅça, while unkind comments are made on the mode of pronouncing Sanskrit among the excellent poets of Kashmir, and on the nasal accent of the north as opposed to the music of that in Pañcāla. We learn also [595] that poets were wont to make journeys, and to utilize the knowledge of other places thus gained in their works.

Rājaçekhara [596] is also emphatic regarding the capacity of women: daughters of kings or ministers, courtesans, and wives of jesters, were skilled as poets, the capacity which brings about the ability to compose being a matter affecting the soul, and not, therefore, bound up with sex. To Rājaçekhara the ability to write poems is largely due to experiences in previous births, and he logically denies that sex can affect this. But though verses are cited from the poetesses in the anthologies, and not a few names are known, and Avantisundarī, Rājaçekhara’s own wife, appears to have been an authority on poetics, it is certain that no drama of importance has come down to us which is written by a woman. The explanation for this would seem rather to lie in social conventions, as in Greece, for there is no reason to suppose that the clever women mentioned by Rājaçekhara, and doubtless not rare in the courts, could not have composed plays of merit.