Chapter VIII: Act V: shows us Kaṅsa plotting the overthrow of the youths. A herald (1)

reports the arrival of Dāmodara, and his great feats of strength, the mocking of the elephant let loose on him, the making straight of a female dwarf, the breaking of the bow of the guardsman. The king orders at once the boxing to begin; Kṛṣṇa, however, easily overcomes Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra, the king’s chosen champions, and completes his victory by a sudden onslaught which leaves the king dead. His soldiers would avenge him, but Vasudeva announces Kṛṣṇa’s identity with Viṣṇu, and appoints Ugrasena king in Kaṅsa’s place, freeing him from the confinement in which his son had placed him. Nārada with Apsarases and Gandharvas appears to glorify Kṛṣṇa, who graciously permits Nārada to return to heaven, and a benediction, spoken apparently by the actor, closes the play.

The precise source of the drama is unknown; it differs in detail widely from the stories of Kṛṣṇa in the Harivaṅça, Viṣṇu, and Bhāgavata Purāṇas, but none of these works, as we have it, is probably older than Bhāsa. The erotic element, which is so closely associated with Kṛṣṇa in later tradition, is lacking here as in the Harivaṅça and the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, and similarly the figure of Rādhā is missing.

The merits of the Bālacarita are not reproduced in Bhāsa’s treatment of the other chief Avatāra of Viṣṇu. The Pratimānāṭaka shows us the death of Daçaratha, when he realizes the departure of Rāma, deprived of his inheritance by Kaikeyī’s wiles, with Sītā and Lakṣmaṇa into the forest; his statue is added to those of his predecessors in the statue (pratimā) hall. Bharata returns from a visit, learns of the news, pursues Rāma, but is induced to return to rule, bearing with him Rāma’s shoes as token that he regards himself but as viceroy. Rāma decides to offer the sacrifice for the dead for his sire; Rāvaṇa appears under the guise of an expert, and bids him offer a golden antelope, by this device securing Rāma’s absence when Sītā is stolen by him, slaying Jaṭāyu who seeks to protect her. Rāma goes to Kiṣkindhā, and makes alliance with Sugrīva against Vālin. Bharata learns that Kaikeyī’s ruse had been induced by the curse of an ascetic, whose son Daçaratha had unwittingly slain, and that she had but meant to ask for a banishment of fourteen days, but had by a slip said years. He sends his army to aid Rāma, who ultimately defeats Rāvaṇa, and recovers Sītā. He brings her with him to Janasthāna, where he is begged to resume his kingdom; all then go by the magic car Puṣpak to Ayodhyā. The seven acts of the play are matched by the six of the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, [172] the drama of the consecration of Rāma which follows, like its predecessor, the Rāmāyaṇa. It tells of Vālin’s death at the hands of Rāma; Hanumant’s success in reaching Lan̄kā and in comforting Sītā and affronting Rāvaṇa. Vibhīṣaṇa advises the coercion of the ocean to attain a passage for the army; Rāvaṇa vainly seeks to win Sītā, showing her in appearance the heads of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa, but she repudiates his advances; he is compelled to fight, and the play ends with Rāma’s coronation. The epic apparently has weighed too heavily on the author, whose resource in incident is remarkable by its absence.

A far more favourable opportunity is afforded to Bhāsa when he derived his story from the Kathā literature, [173] as is doubtless the case in the Avimāraka, a drama in six acts. The daughter of king Kuntibhoja, the young Kuran̄gī, is saved from an elephant by an unknown youth, who, in reality son of the Sauvīra king, is with his father living as a member of a degraded caste for a year, as the outcome of a curse. His low status forbids his aspiring to the princess, but love triumphs, and the maidens of Kuran̄g, arrange a secret meeting to which the youth comes in the guise of a thief. But the news leaks out and he must fly; in despair of reunion he seeks death in the fire, but Agni repulses him; he would have thrown himself from a rock, but a Vidyādhara dissuades him, giving him a ring which enables him unseen to re-enter the palace and save Kuran̄gī, likewise desolated, from suicide. The way for a happy issue from the impasse is found by the fact that Nārada reveals the true history of Avimāraka; he is not in fact the son of the Sauvīra king; he is the son of the god Agni by Sudarçanā, the wife of the king of Kāçi, who gave him over on his birth to Sucetanā, her sister, wife of the Sauvīra king. The marriage thus takes place with the approval of all those connected with the pair.

Equally from the Kathā literature, and in this case from a source known to us, the Bṛhatkathā of Guṇāḍhya, which, written in Paiçācī Prākrit has vanished, but is preserved in a version from Nepal and two from Kashmir, is the subject of the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, [174] styled in the prologue a Prakaraṇa, which has four Acts and resembles in part that form of drama as recognized by the theory, though its hero is the minister of Udayana, the Vatsa king. The latter goes on an elephant hunt, armed with his lyre to charm his prey, but is taken prisoner by a clever trick of his enemy, Pradyota Mahāsena, of Ujjayinī, a counterfeit elephant being employed for his overthrow. Yaugandharāyaṇa determines to revenge the king. In Ujjayinī Mahāsena discusses with his wife the question of the marriage of their daughter Vāsavadattā, when the news of the capture of Udayana arrives. They decide that she shall take lessons in music from the captive, and, not unnaturally, the two fall in love. Yaugandharāyaṇa comes to Ujjayinī in disguise with his friends, and through his machinations the king is enabled to escape with Vāsavadattā, though the minister is himself, after a gallant fight, captured. Mahāsena, however, appreciated the minister’s cleverness, and has the marriage of the pair depicted. [175]

The play is criticized severely, though not by name, by Bhāmaha, [176] on the score that Udayana could never have been deceived by an artificial elephant, and if deceived his life would not have been spared by the enemy forces. The contentions are obviously of little value in this form; the essence, of course, is that such an incident which may pass in a tale seems too childish for a drama, but, if this troubles us, we may console ourselves with the reflexion that the trees were thick, and Udayana ardent in the chase. Vāmana [177] cites the end of verse 3 in Act IV which occurs also in the Arthaçāstra, [178] a work which need not be older than Bhāsa, and may be a good deal later.

The Svapnavāsavadattā, [179] or the Svapnanāṭaka, in six Acts forms in substance the continuation of the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa. The minister is anxious to secure for Udayana an extension of his power by wedding him to Padmāvatī, daughter of the king of Magadha. But Udayana will not leave his beloved Vāsavadattā, so that strategy is needed. The minister induces Vāsavadattā to aid in his scheme, and, taking advantage of a temporary separation, he spreads the rumour that the queen and he have perished in a conflagration. The king is thus induced to consider marriage with Padmāvatī, in whose care the minister has entrusted the queen, giving out that she is his sister. Padmāvatī is willing to accept the love of the king, but, learning that he has never ceased to cherish the memory of his beloved, she is seized by a severe headache, and the king comes to comfort her. He does not find her, and lies down, sleep overcoming him; Vāsavadattā who had come to aid Padmāvatī sits down beside the sleeping form which she mistakes for that of her new mistress, but, as he begins to speak in his sleep she rises and leaves him, but not before he has caught a glimpse of her, in a dream as he thinks. He is summoned to the palace, and finds the good news that his foes have been defeated, and a messenger has come from Mahāsena and his wife to console him, bearing the picture of the nuptials of himself and Vāsavadattā. Padmāvatī recognizes in the lady the features of the sister left in her care by Yaugandharāyaṇa, who arrives to explain to the satisfaction of all the plan he has devised to secure Udayana’s ends.

The fame of the work in Rājaçekhara’s time is attested, and already before him the imaginary conflagration of the queen had excited the imitation of Harṣa in the Ratnāvalī; Vāmana [180] cites from it, and Abhinavagupta [181] knew it. Nor is there any doubt that it is the poet’s masterpiece and the most mature of his dramas. Great promise, however, in a different vein is shown in the Cārudatta, of which we have only a fragment in four Acts without beginning or final verses. Cārudatta, a merchant whose generosity has impoverished him, has seen a hetaera Vasantasenā at a festival, and they have fallen in love. Pursued by the king’s brother-in-law, Saṁsthāna, Vasantasenā takes refuge in Cārudatta’s house, and, when she goes, she leaves in his care her gold ornaments. She generously ransoms from his creditors a former servant of Cārudatta, who then renounces the world and becomes a monk. In the night the ornaments, which she had deposited, are stolen by a thief Sajjalaka who breaks into Cārudatta’s house, in order to gain the means to purchase the freedom of a slave of the hetaera with whom he is in love. Cārudatta is overcome with shame at learning of the theft of goods deposited in his care, and his noble wife sacrifices a pearl necklace, which she gives to the Vidūṣaka to hand over to Vasantasenā in lieu of her lost jewels. He takes it to the hetaera, who has learned of the theft, but accepts it to have the excuse of visiting the merchant once more. She therefore hands over the slave girl to Sajjalaka, and starts out to Cārudatta’s house. At this point the play ends abruptly, but it seems as if Cārudatta were accused of theft, and that Vasantasenā herself is in grave danger of her life.

A verse of this play is cited by Vāmana [182] and another, [183] found also in the Bālacarita [184] and the Mṛcchakaṭikā, [185] is quoted by Daṇḍin in the Kāvyādarça. [186] We need not doubt that Bhāsa is his source, especially as there is possibly elsewhere in the Kāvyādarça an allusion to the dream scene of the Svapnavāsavadattā and its sequel. The Daridracārudatta mentioned by Abhinavagupta is most probably the same work. From it are derived the first four Acts of the Mṛcchakaṭikā. [187] The source of the drama is not certain; we have the motif of the love of a merchant and a hetaera elsewhere, but not with the special developments given by Bhāsa.

Verses attributed to Bhāsa are also found which are not contained in the extant dramas, so that, even allowing for misquotation and confusion, it is probable that he may have written further plays, or he may have illustrated the book of the dramatic art which he is credited with writing, [188] by inserting examples of his own composition. Why his plays should have fared so badly as to disappear from popular use apparently for centuries does not appear. The most plausible view is that he was a poet of the south, and that his dramas suffered from the general Mahomedan objection to everything Hindu, and especially to the dramas of an earnest devotee of Viṣṇu such as Bhāsa was. But this is mere conjecture.

4. BHĀSA’S ART AND TECHNIQUE

The number of Bhāsa’s dramas, and the variety of their themes, indicate the activity and originality of his talent. Even the limitations imposed by the choice of epic subjects are often successfully surmounted. In the Rāma dramas only is there lacking any sign of his ability; the Abhiṣekanāṭaka is a somewhat dreary summary of the corresponding books (IV–VI) of the Rāmāyaṇa, nor is the Pratimānāṭaka substantially superior. The variations are in the main few and unimportant; the two struggles between Sugrīva and Vālin are condensed into one, which leaves the treacherous slaying of Vālin without shadow of excuse, and casts a blemish on Rāma’s character which later dramatists avoid. The pathetic scene of the epic in which Tārā, his wife, laments Vālin’s death is omitted, Vālin forbidding any woman to gaze on him in his fall. The two efforts of Rāvaṇa to deceive Sītā, first by showing her Rāma’s head, and later Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa bound and seemingly dead, are reduced to one, the showing of the heads of both, and Sītā’s constancy is made inhuman by denying her the comfort of a consoler. To secure a happy ending, Agni is made to vindicate Sītā by the test of fire, and to hand her over to Rāma as Lakṣmī and his fit mate. The characters remain stereotyped and dull; Rāvaṇa is nothing more than a miles gloriosus, if not comic, and Lakṣmaṇa cuts a very poor figure. [189]

The pieces based on the Mahābhārata shows more invention and interest. The Madhyamavyāyoga exploits neatly the theme of Hiḍimbā’s longing to see her husband of many years before, and the obedience of a son to a mother exemplified both by Ghaṭotkaca and by Madhyama; a mother’s bidding outweighs even that of a father. The struggle of father against son, both unknowing, is original, though not tragic. In the Karṇabhāra the nobility of the haughty Karṇa is emphasized; in the epic he surrenders his armour to Indra, but demands a price, the lance that never fails; in the play it suffices the prince that he has conferred a boon on the god himself. There is the same martial spirit, evoking the sentiment of heroism in the audience, in the Dūtaghaṭotkaca where the joy of the Kurus is contrasted effectively with the doubts of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, and the grave warning which Ghaṭotkaca brings of the revenge to be wreaked by Arjuna for his son’s death. The Dūtavākya is admirable in his contrast between the character of Duryodhana and the majesty of Kṛṣṇa; the picture motif is effectively elaborated, and the deep admiration of the poet for Kṛṣṇa as the embodiment of the highest of gods Viṣṇu, of whom he was an adorer, is plainly manifest. In the Ūrubhan̄ga Duryodhana’s hauteur to the highest of gods meets with its just punishment; Duryodhana is the chief subject, but not the hero, of the piece which manifests the just [190] punishment of the impious. The death of Duryodhana is admirably depicted; his child who loved to sit on his knees comes to him, but must be repulsed; the touch that brought joy aforetime would now be an agony. [191] But Duryodhana, with all his demerits as a man, remains heroic in his death.

The Bālacarita reveals the originality of Bhāsa’s genius; the entr’acte to the second Act is extremely effective in its terrors, and the poet has no hesitation in asking the audience to conceive for themselves the strange figures of the attendants of Viṣṇu or the host of the goddess Kārtyāyanī, or the bull Ariṣṭa, or the snake demon Kāliya, all of whom appear on the stage, but doubtless in costumes which left most to the mind’s eye. The miracles of the light emanating from the child Kṛṣṇa, the crossing of the Yamunā, and the water springing from the ground, are innovations on the tradition, as is the apparent death and revival of the child of Yaçodā. Kṛṣṇa is heroism incarnate, Kaṅsa without merit, and his slaying just, but the heroic sentiment is blended with the erotic, and with that of wonder. As a drama, however, the play suffers unquestionably from the wholly undeniable disparity between the two opponents; Kṛṣṇa is never in danger, and his feats are too easily achieved to produce their full effect.

The Avimāraka is a drama of love, primitive in its expression and intensity; Bhāsa’s love for rapid action is here, as always, strongly marked, as is also his willingness to repeat incidents and situations; the hero twice seeks suicide, and the heroine does so once. The dénouement is artificial, though something of the kind was necessary to secure the possibility of the marriage of the pair. There is a far more interesting hint of youthful love in the amours of Udayana and Vāsavadattā in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, where the rapidity of action is in entire harmony with the skill attributed to the minister, whose address, courage, and loyalty, make him an attractive figure. The Svapnavāsavadattā itself reveals Udayana as a faithful and devoted husband, very different from the careless if courteous gentleman of Harṣa’s dramas. His love for the queen he imagines lost ennobles and elevates his character, while motives of statecraft and the affection shown him by Padmāvatī easily explain his wooing of that maiden. Vāsavadattā herself is not the jealous if high-minded wife of Harṣa’s plays; she is the devoted and self-sacrificing lover who is willing to postpone her own feelings and wishes to the good of her husband. The king and queen are the finest products of Bhāsa’s characterization of lovers. In the Cārudatta, however, we have clever studies in the hetaera, the merchant and the minor figures, though the value of the play must seem less to us than when completed and elaborated in the Mṛcchakaṭikā.

Bhāsa undoubtedly excels in suggesting heroism; this characteristic is admirably depicted in Yaugandharāyaṇa, and above all in Duryodhana, who in the Dūtaghaṭotkaca effectively replies to the menaces of the envoy by promising an answer in deeds, war, not in harsh words. But his power is not confined to heroism, love, pathos, or the marvellous. The Vidūṣaka in his hands attains the characteristics which mark him in the later drama, and, though much was doubtless traditional, it may safely be assumed that he tended by his example to stereotype the figure. In the Avimāraka [192] he distinguishes himself by devotion to his master; he is set on finding him, dead or alive, when he is missing, and he is prepared if need be to follow him beyond the grave. Avimāraka himself portrays the character of his friend; he places first, doubtless deliberately, the amusement he produces in social intercourse (goṣṭhīṣu hāsyaḥ), but he describes him also as brave in battle, a wise friend, a comforter in sorrow, a violent foe to his enemies. If in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa [193] he seems to abandon the idea of succouring his master, it is only because he is convinced that Vatsa is dead, and that nothing can be done to save him. The other side of his character is his devotion to the pleasures of the table and his feeble attempts at wit and humour. Vāsavadattā he remembers fondly because she used to see that he never lacked sweetmeats. [194] When in the Avimāraka [195] the heroine weeps in love-sorrow, he would like to weep also in sympathy; but no tears come, and he recalls that, even when his own father died, he could hardly weep. When addressed as a man, he insists that he is a woman. He is, however, a Brahmin in his prejudices; he will not drink brandy, a pleasure which he permits to the Gātrasevaka, the disguise assumed by one of Yaugandharāyaṇa’s following in the attempt to rescue Udayana. This worthy favours us with a eulogy of drink, which is an interesting fragment of the drinking songs which must have existed in ancient India: [196]

dhaṇṇā surāhi mattā dhaṇṇā surāhi aṇulittā;
dhaṇṇā surāhi hṇādā dhaṇṇā surāhi saṁñavidā.

‘Blessed those that are drunk with drink, blessed those that are soaked with drink; blessed those that are washed with drink, blessed those that are choked with drink.’ Amusing also is the figure of Yaugandharāyaṇa as an Unmattaka, devoted to eating and dancing, and of Rumaṇvant in his guise of a Çramaṇaka. There is genuine humour in the scene in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa [197] between the Gātrasevaka and the servant, when the former makes ready the elephant Bhadravatī, which is to be the means of carrying off the king and Vāsavadattā beyond the reach of all pursuit, without raising any suspicion on the part of the entourage of Mahāsena. Quiet humour is shown in the episode of the bringing of Bhīma by Ghaṭotkaca to his mother Hiḍimbā; Ghaṭotkaca has difficulty in describing his victim, and is much amazed to find his mother, whose curiosity is aroused by his lack of precision, finding him to be his deity and hers in his capacity as husband and father. [198] In the same vein is the compliment paid by Rāma to Sītā, when the latter accurately predicts the action he would take when his father offered him the throne: ‘Thou hast guessed well; few pairs are there of like character in the world (suṣṭhu tarkitam alpaṁ tulyaçīlāni dvandvāni sṛjyante)’. [199] Quite distinctly amusing is the scene at the close of the Avimāraka, [200] where the facts of the relationships are being disclosed to the king Kuntibhoja. That sovereign may be justly excused his difficulty in apprehending the situation; he is reduced to such confusion that he is dubious about his own capital Vairantya, but finally, when assured that the hero is the son-in-law of Kuntibhoja, asks who that worthy may be, to be reminded politely that he himself is Kuntibhoja, father of Kuran̄gī, son of Duryodhana, and lord of Vairantya. This power explains the description of Bhāsa as the laughter (hāsa) of poetry given to him by Jayadeva in the Prasannarāghava, a title which is also merited by such verses as one cited in the anthologies, [201] though not found in the extant dramas:

kapāle mārjāraḥ paya iti karāṅl leḍhi çaçinas
tarucchidraprotān bisam iti karī saṁkalayati
ratānte talpasthān harati vanitāpy aṅçukam iti
prabhāmattaç candro jagad idam aho viplavayati.

‘When its rays fall on its cheeks the cat licks them, thinking them milk; when they are caught in the cleft of a tree the elephant deems them a lotus; when they rest on the couch of lovers the maiden seizes them, saying, “’Tis my robe”; the moon in truth, proud of its brilliance, doth lead astray all this world.’

Of deeper sentiments we need expect nothing from Bhāsa; in this respect he sets the model for his successors. From Kālidāsa he differs in being a devotee of Viṣṇu rather than Çiva, but he is equally an admirer of the established Brahminical order. In the Pañcarātra, [202] the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, [203] and in the character of Nārada in the Avimāraka, [204] we find clearly expressed his appreciation of the high rank of the Brahmin, and the obligations due to him from kings and other classes.

Care in the delineation of even minor characters is normally displayed; the number of these is considerable; sixteen each in the Svapnavāsavadattā and the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, about twenty in the Avimāraka, Abhiṣekanāṭaka, and Pañcarātra, twelve in the Cārudatta, and about thirty in the Bālacarita. But there are traces of the anxiety of Bhāsa to avoid adding needlessly to the number of those appearing; in the Avimāraka neither the king of Kāçi nor Sucetanā appears on the scene despite their part in the play. The silence of Sītā, though at the close of the Abhiṣekanāṭaka she appears on the stage, is doubtless explicable by the same dramatic touch which makes Euripides refuse to assign any words to Alkestis on her return from the dead.

In technique Bhāsa does not accord entirely with the later rules of the theorists. The Nāṭyaçāstra, it is true, when it forbids the exhibition of battle scenes contradicts itself, and Bhāsa freely permits them, as must have been the case in the primitive drama in which Kṛṣṇa slew Kaṅsa. The maidens, however, he bids watch the mortal combat of Ariṣṭa and Kṛṣṇa from afar. Daçaratha’s death he admits; the bodies of Cāṇūra, Muṣṭika, and Kaṅsa lie on the stage, and Vālin perishes there as well as Duryodhana, but all these are evildoers, and their death evokes no sorrow. The same simplicity doubtless accounts for the introduction of the mythological figures of the Bālacarita, whom we need not imagine to have been elaborately costumed; they announce their nature or are described, [205] and the spectator supplies the imagination requisite to comprehend them.

We find already in Bhāsa the formal distinction of introductory scenes into Viṣkambhakas of two kinds, according as Sanskrit alone or Sanskrit and Prākrit are used and Praveçakas; in the former the number of interlocutors is three in two [206] cases against one or two as usual later; there are other signs of his fondness for triads. [207] The introduction normally is styled Sthāpanā, [208] not as later Prastāvanā, and it is extremely simple; after a Nāndī, not preserved, has been pronounced—perhaps behind the scene—the director enters, utters a benediction, and is about to make an announcement when a sound is heard which leads up to the actual drama. No mention of the poet’s name or the work is found, but these we may suggest were left to the preliminaries which even in the Nāṭyaçāstra were elaborate, and which doubtless were performed before Bhāsa’s plays, as they were essentially religious rites in honour of the gods. On the other hand, the close, the Bharatavākya, of the later theory is varied in Bhāsa. The conventions as to the use of speech, aloud, aside to another, or to the audience alone are well known, and effective use is made of the voice from the air or behind the scene, as in the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, when Rāvaṇa taunts his prisoner and asks, who can set her free when her rescuers are dead; the voice replies, ‘Rāma, Rāma’. [209]

There are unquestionably primitive traits in Bhāsa’s art; he uses with dangerous freedom the device by which some one departs and returns straightway, to narrate what must have taken long to happen; thus in the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, Çan̄kukarṇa is bidden send a thousand men against Hanumant; he departs at once, to return and tell that they have fallen. Free use is made also, as in the epic, of magic weapons in the conflict, as in the battle of Duryodhana and Kṛṣṇa in the Dūtavākya. So also in the Madhyamavyāyoga we find Ghaṭotkaca employing his magic power to produce water from a rock; then he binds Bhīma in a magic noose, from which he is delivered by a magic formula. In the Dūtavākya the discus of Kṛṣṇa secures water from the heavenly Ganges by magic means; it has the power to move the mountains of the gods, to set the ocean in motion, and to bring down the stars to earth, ideas which are less unintelligible when we remember the wide-spread Indian beliefs in the powers of magicians, which we find later in Harṣa’s Ratnāvalī, and which are earlier recorded of those who have attained high degrees of intuition in both the Upaniṣads and Buddhism. In the Avimāraka we have the magic ring of the Vidyādhara playing a decisive part in the action, since by its use the hero can enter unseen the harem and visit his wife Kuran̄gī in secret. It is clear that both in the epic and in the popular tale Bhāsa found adequate precedent for the stress laid on these means of evoking in his audience the sentiment of wonder.

The use of the dance as an ornament to the drama which is seen in Kālidāsa is frequently resorted to in Bhāsa. In Act III of the Bālacarita there is a performance of the Hallīçaka dance, in which both the herdsmen and the cowherdesses take full part; the dance is accompanied by music and song, and the maidens are gaily attired. A similar dance is mentioned in Act II of the Pañcarātra, [210] a reflex no doubt of the ritual dance of the winter solstice in the Mahāvrata rite. It is conceivable also that the conception in the Bālacarita of the appearance of Viṣṇu’s weapons as figures on the stage in the dress of herdsmen is a reminiscence of a cult dance in honour of Viṣṇu, but this idea must not be pressed unduly, for the poet there invents also the figures of the Curse and the King’s Fortune as personae dramatis. There is, it is clear, a certain similarity between the personification of these abstractions and the allegorical figures of the Buddhist drama, which come again into being in the Prabodhacandrodaya of Kṛṣṇamiçra. Song as an important element in the drama again appears in the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, where the Gandharvas and Apsarases sing the praises of Viṣṇu. [211]

There are clear traces in the dramas of the overwhelming influence of epic tradition and of epic recitation in the tendency to introduce the description of battle scenes at great length in lieu of dramatic action, while a certain lack of skill is apparent in the attempt to transform the tale into a drama. Thus in the Avimāraka the facts essential for a full understanding of the story come out only in the last Act, and the adventures of the hero are there recounted with distinct lack of propriety, as they have formed the subject of the earlier acts of the drama. Neither the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa nor the Svapnavāsavadattā is constructed in so clumsy a manner, but in both cases the working out of the plot is certainly open to criticism. Thus even in the last Act of the latter drama, which in many respects is effective, the stage directions assume that the queen appears on the stage with Vāsavadattā as her attendant, but that the king either does not see, or does not recognize the latter, both obviously very improbable suppositions; possibly it is assumed that the presence of Vāsavadattā, though obvious to the audience, is concealed from the king in some manner by the use of the curtain, but this is left to be imagined, [212] and it would have been much simpler to invent some ground for securing the entry of Vāsavadattā by herself later on. On the other hand, in Act I of the play, the facts regarding the supposed death of Vāsavadattā and the minister in a fire are effectively brought out by the device of using a Brahmacārin, who arrives at the hermitage at the same time as Yaugandharāyaṇa and Vāsavadattā in their disguise, and tells the tale of the disaster as explaining why he has left that place in sorrow at the event, dilating at the same time on the effect of the news on the unhappy king. The mode in which Vāsavadattā in Act V mistakes the king for Padmāvatī is quite naturally evolved, for the place where he is resting is poorly illuminated and she was naturally unwilling to arouse her mistress from the slumber into which she hoped she had fallen. In Act II of the Abhiṣekanāṭaka the conversation of Hanumant with Sītā is made possible only by the somewhat implausible device of assuming that the Rākṣasīs who guard her fall asleep at their post.

A rather marked fondness is shown by Bhāsa for the repetition of the same incident. Thus in the Avimāraka we have the twice repeated attempt of the hero at suicide followed by the attempt of the heroine in the same sense, from which he saves her. At the close of the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa we have again the idea of the attempted suicide of the heroine’s mother, which is obviated by the king’s good sense in showing her that the marriage of the runaway pair was quite proper in their rank and in arranging for marrying them in a painting. The dying Vālin in the Abhiṣekanāṭaka has a vision of the Ganges and the other great rivers. Urvaçī and the Apsarases, and the chariot drawn by a thousand swans, which bears away the dead, coming for his spirit; Duryodhana in the Ūrubhan̄ga has a similar vision, and Avimāraka, when on the point of committing suicide he sees the Vidyādhara beside him, imagines that this is a vision such as comes often to dying men. Again in the prologues there is almost a monotonous adoption of the device by which the director is interrupted in making a proposed announcement by a voice from behind the scene, which enables him by a clever transition to lead the audience into the dramatic action proper.

5. BHĀSA’S STYLE

The rapidity and directness of the action of Bhāsa’s plays is reflected in his style. More than any other dramatist, he uses the verse to further the progress of the play, in lieu of devoting it to descriptions rather poetic than directly aiding the drama, and it is characteristic that he freely employs monostichs, which are rare later. On the other hand, he is ready to resort to monologue; that on the third Act of the Avimāraka suggested perhaps the monologue of Çarvilaka in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, whose author must have known Bhāsa’s works intimately.

The dominating influence on Bhāsa’s style was clearly that of the epic and in special of Vālmīki, whose great work inevitably impressed itself on the minds of all his successors. The effects are visible not merely in the dramas with epic subject-matter, but extend throughout Bhāsa’s plays. The results of this influence are all to the good; the necessities of the drama saved Bhāsa from the one great defect of the epic style, the lack of measure, which permits the Rāmāyaṇa to illustrate by twenty-nine similes the sorrows of Sītā in her captivity, while in the Abhiṣekanāṭaka the dramatist is content with one. On the other hand he owes to it the relative simplicity of his diction, and his freedom from the excesses of the poetic equivalent of the nominal style, which comes to dominate later Sanskrit literature. The use of long compounds is obviously and plainly undramatic; carried to excess it must have rendered a Sanskrit drama unintelligible even to a highly cultivated audience as far as the verses were concerned, and it is an essential dramatic merit in Bhāsa that his expression is far easier to follow than in much of later dramatic poetry. He possesses in fact that clearness, which is theoretically a merit of the Kāvya style, but which is signally neglected by the average Kāvya writer in his anxiety to display the complete familiarity which he possesses with every side of the art of poetry. As far as we can judge from the scanty fragments of Açvaghoṣa’s dramas, that poet was more complex than Bhāsa, and certainly so in his epics, which aided powerfully in the formation of Kālidāsa’s epic and dramatic style.

Bhāsa, of course, is not in the slightest degree akin to a poet of the people; he is an accomplished master of the art of poetry, but one whose good sense and taste preserve him from adopting in drama the artifices which are permitted in the court epic and lyric which were intended to be studied at leisure. The simple and sententious is beloved of Bhāsa: thus Karṇa repels the objections of Çalya to his parting with armour and earring to the disguised Indra: [213]

çikṣā kṣayaṁ gacchati kālaparyayāt: subaddhamūlā nipatanti pādapāḥ
jalaṁ jalasthānagataṁ ca çuṣyati: hutaṁ ca dattaṁ ca tathaiva
tiṣṭhati.

‘Learning decayeth with the passing of time; though firm their roots, trees fall; the water of a lake drieth up; but sacrifices and gifts endure.’ When Sītā is forced to undergo the ordeal by fire Lakṣmaṇa exclaims: [214]

vijñāya devyāç çaucaṁ ca çrutvācāryasya çāsanam
dharmasnehāntare nyastā buddhir dolāyate mama.

‘I know the queen’s chastity; I have heard the bidding of our preceptor; like a swing, my mind doth move ’twixt duty and love.’ When Rāma falls at his father’s feet on the order being given for his coronation, he tells us: [215]

samaṁ bāṣpeṇa patatā tasyopari mamāpy adhaḥ
pitur me kleditau pādau mamāpi kleditaṁ çiraḥ.

‘My father’s feet were wet with tears I let fall on them, and my head was wet with tears he let fall over me.’ When Devakī must yield, for the sake of saving it, her child, it is said of her: [216]

hṛdayeneha taran̄gair dvidhābhūteva gacchati
yathā nabhasi toye ca candralekhā dvidhā kṛtā.

‘She is divided; her heart remaineth here, her body goeth yonder, as in cloud and water the digit of the moon is divided.’ Rāvaṇa’s contempt for Rāma as a foe is forcibly expressed: [217]

kathaṁ lambasataḥ siṅho mṛgeṇa vinipātyate
gajo vā sumahān mattaḥ sṛgālena nihanyate?

‘Can the deer bring low the lion with flowing mane? Can the jackal slay the mighty elephant in his wrath?’ In the Cārudatta [218] the darkness is happily described:

sulabhaçaraṇam āçrayo bhayānāṁ: vanagahanaṁ timiraṁ ca tulyam eva
ubhayam api hi rakṣyate ’ndhakāre: janayati yaç ca bhayāni yaç ca
bhītaḥ.

‘Affording easy refuge, yet abodes of fear, the forest depths and darkness are akin; for the shadows guard alike him who feareth and him who causeth fear.’ More ambitious is a verse given in the Subhāṣitāvali: [219]

kaṭhinahṛdaye muñca krodhaṁ sukhapratighātakam
likhati divasaṁ yātaṁ yātaṁ Yamaḥ kila mānini
vayasi taruṇe naitad yuktaṁ cale ca samāgame
bhavati kalaho yāvat tāvad varaṁ subhage ratam.

‘Hard-hearted maiden, lay aside the anger that doth impede our joy; death entereth on his register every day as it goeth, disdainful one; not meet is this in thy tender youth, for love is fleeting; rather spend in love the time we lose in this quarrel.’

The simple figures of speech are freely used by Bhāsa, and he shows as usual a marked fondness for the accumulation of similar sounds, as in sajalajaladhara, sanīranīrada, or kuladayaṁ hanti madena nārī: kūladvayaṁ kṣubdhajalā nadīva. More interesting are instances of his power, which is specially manifest in the Svapnavāsavadattā and the Pratimānāṭaka, of expressing strong emotion adequately and forcibly. Thus we have the indignant upbraiding of Kaikeyī by the angry Bharata: [220]

vayam ayaçasā cīreṇāryo nṛpo gṛhamṛtyunā
pratataruditaiḥ kṛtsnāyodhyā mṛgaiḥ saha Lakṣmaṇaḥ
dayitatanayāḥ çokenāmbāḥ snuṣādhvapariçramair
dhig iti vacasā cogreṇātmā tvayā nanu yojitāḥ?

‘Hast thou not brought upon me disgrace and dishonour, on my noble father’s death at the hands of his dearest, on all Ayodhyā ceaseless lamentation, exile on Lakṣmaṇa, sorrow on the noble ladies, who love their children, for the cruel journey imposed on thy daughter-in-law, and on thyself the hateful reproach of a shameful deed?’ Equally effective is Lakṣmaṇa’s protest against Rāma’s acquiescence in his exclusion from the throne: [221]

yadi na sahase rājño mohaṃ dhanuḥ spṛça mā dayā
svajananibhṛtaḥ sarvo ’py evam mṛduḥ paribhūyate
atha na rucitam muñca mām ahaṁ kṛtaniçcayo
yuvatirahitaṁ kartuṁ lokaṁ yataç chalitā vayam.

‘If thou wilt not endure the king’s infatuation, take thy bow, show no pity. Hidden among his own folk every weakling is thus overborne. But, if thou wilt not, leave me free at least; my mind is intent to make this world free of that youthful one, since cheated we have been.’ Bharata’s devotion is expressed happily enough: [222]

tatra yasyāmi yatrāsau vartate Lakṣmaṇapriyaḥ
nāyodhyā taṁ vināyodhyā sāyodhyā yatra Rāghavaḥ.

‘Thither will I go where dwelleth Lakṣmaṇa’s beloved; without him Ayodhyā is not Ayodhyā; where Rāghava is, there is Ayodhyā.’ A martial spirit breathes in Virāṭa’s words: [223]

tāḍitasya hi yodhasya çlāghanīyena karmaṇā
akālāntaritā pūjā nāçayaty eva vedanām.

‘Instant fame destroys the pangs of the warrior stricken in performing a deed of valour.’ There is manly indignation and pathos in Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s mourning over Abhimanyu’s death: [224]

bahūnāṁ samupetānām ekasmin nirghṛṇātmanām
bāle putre praharatāṁ kathaṁ na patitā bhujāḥ.

‘How could these cruel men bear to raise their arms to smite one young boy, alone against such a concourse?’ The necessity of toil to achieve any end is well brought out in a verse in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, [225] which has a curious parallel in Açvaghoṣa: [226]

kāṣṭhād agnir jāyate mathyamānād: bhūmis toyaṁ khanyamānā dadāti
sotsahānāṁ nāsty asādhyaṁ narāṇām: mārgārabdhāḥ sarvayatnāḥ
phalanti.

‘Fire ariseth from the rubbing of timber; the earth when dug giveth water; nothing is there that men may not obtain by effort; every exertion duly undertaken doth bear fruit.’ A profound truth, the rareness of gratitude, is emphasized in the Svapnavāsavadattā: [227]

guṇānāṁ vā viçālānāṁ satkārāṇāṁ ca nityaçaḥ
kartāraḥ sulabhā loke vijñātāras tu durlabhāḥ.

‘There are many to show conspicuous virtue and to do constant deeds of kindness, but few are there who are grateful for such actions.’ The heavy burden of the duties of a king is effectively described in the Avimāraka: [228]

dharmaḥ prāg eva cintyaḥ sacivamatigatiḥ prekṣitavyā svabuddhyā
pracchādyau rāgaroṣau mṛduparuṣaguṇau kālayogena kāryau
jñeyaṁ lokānuvṛttam paracaranayanair maṇḍalam prekṣitavyam
rakṣyo yatnād ihātmā raṇaçirasi punas so ’pi nāvekṣitavyaḥ.

‘First there must be consideration of the injunctions of the law, then the train of the minister’s thought must be followed; desire and anger must be concealed; mercy and harshness must be applied as expediency demands; the temper of the people must be ascertained through the aid of spies as well as the demeanour of neighbouring kings; one’s life must be guarded with every care, but in the forefront of battle heed for it must be laid aside.’ The position of a minister is no enviable one: [229]

prasiddhau kāryāṇām pravadati janaḥ pārthivabalam
vipattau vispaṣṭaṁ sacivam atidoṣaṁ janayati
amātyā ity uktāḥ çrutisukham udāraṁ nṛpatibhiḥ
susūkṣmaṁ daṇḍyante matibalavidagdhāḥ kupuruṣāḥ.

‘If policy succeeds, the people acclaim the prince’s might; if disaster ensue, it condemns the incompetency of the minister; poor fools, puffed up by their strength of intellect, they receive from kings the noble and sweet sounding style of “counsellor” only to be punished sharply for any failure.’

Bhāsa is fond of expressing typical feelings in simple language which later poets would deem lacking in ornament; thus he expresses a mother’s feelings regarding her daughter’s marriage in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa: [230]

adattety āgatā lajjā datteti vyathitam manaḥ
dharmasnehāntare nyastā duḥkhitāḥ khalu mātaraḥ.

‘Shame were it if she be not betrothed; yet if betrothed sorrow is one’s lot; between duty and love mothers are sore vexed in heart.’ The responsibility of a teacher is set out by Droṇa in the Pañcarātra: [231]

atītya bandhūn avalan̄ghya mitrāṇy: ācāryam āgacchati çiṣyadoṣaḥ.
bālaṁ hy apatyaṁ gurave pradātum: naivāparādho ’sti pitur na mātuḥ.

‘A pupil’s fault passes over relatives and friends and settles on the teacher, for it is no wrong in father or mother to hand over a young child to a preceptor.’

Bhāsa’s power of depicting irony is specially prominent in the Svapnavāsavadattā, [232] where Vāsavadattā is driven to weave the garland for the new queen’s marriage, on the score of her skill in this art. Rāvaṇa shows the heads which he represents as those of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa to Sītā, only to hear the announcement that his son is slain in the battle, by the very two whose death he has feigned. [233] Effective is the contrast between Vālin’s splendour and his fall in his son An̄gada’s lament: [234]

atibalasukhaçāyī pūrvam āsīr harīndraḥ: kṣititalaparivartī
kṣīṇasarvān̄gaceṣṭaḥ.

‘Soft indeed thy couch aforetime as lord of the apes, who now dost lie on the ground, thy every movement stilled in death’, and Duryodhana’s fall is not less effectively described. [235]

A characteristic of Bhāsa is his fondness for pithy proverbial phrases, ‘Everything suits a handsome figure’, ‘Misfortunes never come singly’, ‘Good news sounds more pleasant from a friend’s mouth’ (piaṇivediamāṇāṇi piāṇi piadarāṇi honti), ‘Man’s fate is as mobile as an elephant’s trunk’, ‘There are many obstacles in the road to fortune’, ‘A small cause begets grave misfortune’, are found in the Avimāraka alone. An idea once expressed fascinates Bhāsa and is repeated again and again in the same terms, a fact which incidentally helps to assure the genuineness of the plays. For some phrases he has a special fondness; mā with the instrumental is normal in lieu of the ordinary alam, which he also uses; aho tu khalu to introduce a stanza; kiṁ nu khalu in a question; āma and bādham to indicate assent; sukham āryasya as a phrase of greeting. Especially is he devoted to the term vara, sometimes before, usually after, the noun whose quality it intensifies; the use occurs even twice or thrice in a single stanza.

The harmony and melody of Bhāsa’s style, added to its purity and perspicuity, have no better proof than the imitations of his verses which are unquestionably to be traced in Kālidāsa, who attests thus his practical appreciation of the merits of the dramatist, with whose established fame his nascent genius had to contend.

6. THE LANGUAGE OF THE PLAYS

Bhāsa’s Sanskrit [236] is in the main correct according to the rules of the grammarians, but his dependence on the epic is revealed by the occasional use of epic irregularities, almost always for the sake of the metre, which in the epic also is the cause of many deviations from classical grammar. We have thus the irregular contractions putreti and Avantyādhipateḥ, and a number of middle forms in lieu of active, gamiṣye, garjase, drakṣyate, pṛcchase, bhraçyate, ruhyate, çroṣyate. In other cases the active replaces the middle, āpṛccha, upalapsyati, pariṣvaja. There is confusion between the simple and the causative verb in sravati and vījanti, and in vimoktukāma. The forms rudantī and gṛhya have many epic parallels. Irregular compounds are sarvarājñaḥ in verse, and Kāçirājñe in prose; vyūḍhoras and tulyadharma occur in verse. The use in one clause of both ced and yadi is found in verse and also in prose, as in the epic. Mere blunders perhaps may be styled pratyāyati, a haplological form of the causative with the meaning of the simple verb, samāçvāsitum with causative sense, and yudh as a masculine noun. There are other seeming irregularities, but they are either sanctioned by usage or possible of explanation by reference to variant interpretations of Pāṇini’s rules.

The Prākrits [237] found in Bhāsa are normally Çaurasenī, which is present in all the plays save the Dūtavākya, which has no Prākrit; Māgadhī found in two different forms; and what may be styled Ardha-Māgadhī. The distinctive feature of his language is its transitional aspect as compared with Açvaghoṣa on the one hand and Kālidāsa on the other. Açvaghoṣa never softens—save in one instance—hard consonants, but both ṭ and t are changed to ḍ and d in Bhāsa. Açvaghoṣa never omits consonants, but, though this is less often carried out than in Kālidāsa, we find cases of the loss of k, g, c, j, t, d, p, b, v, and y when intervocalic. y itself suffers frequent change to j, contrary to Açvaghoṣa’s usage. The change of n initial and medial to ṇ is regular, while it is unknown to Açvaghoṣa. The aspirates kh, gh, th, dh, ph, and bh are all often reduced as later to h, but never in Açvaghoṣa.

In the case of conjunct consonants we find that jñ gives in Bhāsa either ññ or ṇṇ, possibly the latter by error; Açvaghoṣa has ññ only, Kālidāsa ṇṇ. For ny and ṇy Bhāsa has always ṇṇ as against Açvaghoṣa’s ññ. The eliding of a consonant, with the compensatory lengthening of the vowel as in dīsadi, is unknown to Açvaghoṣa, where the omission of the consonant twice occurs but without lengthening; it is frequent in Bhāsa and regular in Kālidāsa. The analogous use of a short vowel and a double consonant to represent a long vowel with a single consonant is unknown to Açvaghoṣa, but Bhāsa has it in evva, evvaṁ, jovvana, devva, ekka. On the other hand, like Açvaghoṣa, for ry he has yy only in lieu of Kālidāsa’s jj. For the later metta matta is always found, and the epenthetic vowel is u, not i, in purusa, and puruva is normal.

In inflection we have, in the nominative and accusative plural of neuter stems in a, āni in Açvaghoṣa, āṇi in Bhāsa, while both āṇi and āiṁ are allowed later. The accusative plural masculine has also, analogously to āni in the Ardha-Māgadhī of the Açoka inscriptions, [238] āṇi, and the locative singular feminine is in āaṁ, not as later āe. For the later attāṇaaṁ we have attāṇaṁ. For ‘we’ Açvaghoṣa has vayaṁ, Kālidāsa amhe; Bhāsa both and vaaṁ. In the genitive plural Bhāsa has both amhāaṁ and the only form later amhāṇaṁ, while Açvaghoṣa would doubtless have used amhākaṁ. kissa is kept for later kīsa, and kocci (kaccid) disappears later. The root darç is represented by dass and daṅs, grah by gaṇhadi against the later geṇhadi, which, however, is found in Açvaghoṣa. The older forms karia and gacchia or gamia, are found in lieu of kadua and gadua, but the last occurs once. mā is used with the gerund in the sense of alam.

Many of these peculiarities mark also the Māgadhī, which appears in two slightly varied forms, the first in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa and the Cārudatta, the second in the Bālacarita and the Pañcarātra; in the two latter we have ṣ and o for the ç and e of the former. As in Açvaghoṣa there is no trace of obedience to the rules of the grammarians which require sṭ for Sanskrit ṣṭh or ṣṭ, çc for cch, sk or ẖk for kṣ. For ‘I’ we find ahake, which is an intermediate stage between Açvaghoṣa’s ahakaṁ and the later hage. ny becomes ṇṇ, not ññ, and the use of y to denote a dropped consonant is not carried out.

The only passages that can claim to be anything like Ardha-Māgadhī are the remarks of Indra in disguise in the Karṇabhāra, where the characteristic signs, the use of r, s, and e, are found; in the speeches of Muṣṭika and Cāṇūra in the Bālacarita we have the use of l and a locative in ammi. A single passage in the Pañcarātra suggests Māgadhī Apabhraṅça, but is probably corrupt.

7. THE METRES OF THE DRAMAS

It is characteristic of Bhāsa’s close dependence on the epic that his dramas should show a far more frequent use of the Çloka, 436 out of 1,092 verses. No later writer save Bhavabhūti in his Rāma dramas approaches this frequency, which, it must be noted, is not confined to the epic plays, for the Svapnavāsavadattā has 26 Çlokas out of 57 verses. In some plays, it is true, such as the Madhyamavyāyoga or the Pañcarātra, long series of Çlokas suggest incomplete command of the dramatic art on Bhāsa’s part, but his general preference is clearly an outcome of his desire for rapid movement and simplicity; it is the later love for elaborate descriptions that encourages the use of sonorous and complex metres. The Çlokas are remarkably regular in construction; the diiambus in the second Pāda is insisted on rigidly; the Vipulās [239] are rare, the fourth is unknown, the second sporadic, the first twice as frequent as the third, and the prior foot is rarely [240] ⏓ - ⏑ -. The sparing use of the irregular forms is doubtless due to the comparatively small number of Çlokas used consecutively, which minimises the desire for change of form.

Of the more elaborate metres, in which each syllable has a fixed length, the favourite is the Vasantatilaka, which occurs 179 times, while the Upajāti occurs 121 times. Next comes the Çārdūlavikrīḍita (92), Mālinī (72), Puṣpitāgrā with the scheme ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ - ⏑ - - | ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ ⏑ - ⏑ - ⏑ - - (66), Vaṅçasthā (35), Çālinī (2), Çikhariṇī (19), and Praharṣiṇī (17). Other metres are purely sporadic; they include the Sragdharā, Hariṇī, Vaiçvadevī, [241] Drutavilambita, [242] Pṛthvī, [243] and Bhujan̄gaprāyata, [244] while the Suvadanā occurs four times. There is one example of the Upagīti with 12 morae in the first and third Pādas, and 15 in the second and fourth, and one of the Vaitālīya with 14 and 16 in the two sets respectively. There is also one example of the shortest form of Daṇḍaka metre, with six short syllables followed by seven amphimacers, while there is also one shorter metre with six amphimacers. The rarity of the Āryā is remarkable; beside the one Upagīti, which is in Prākrit, there are only eleven, of which five are in Prākrit. Contrast the frequency of the Āryā in Kālidāsa where there are 31 out of 163 in the Vikramorvaçī, and 35 out of 96 in the Mālavikāgnimitra.

Generally the rules of classical prosody are faithfully observed; there is one hiatus between Pādas and once Sandhi; in niyatī and maulī, as in anūkarṣa, the lengthening is probably metrical. The Çlokas show a great fondness for epic tags, such as acireṇaiva kālena, prasādaṁ kartum arhasi, and kampayann iva medinīm. Especially frequent is the breaking up of a verse between different speakers or by interruptions of one kind or another.

8. BHĀSA AND KĀLIDĀSA

There is prima facie the probability that Kālidāsa should be strongly affected by a predecessor so illustrious and of such varied achievement, and the probability is turned into certainty by the numerous coincidences between the two writers. [245] Inevitably, of course, with such a genius as Kālidāsa’s, the matter which is borrowed is transformed and normally improved in the change, and this fact renders strict proof of indebtedness impossible. But the evidence is sufficient to induce conviction to any one accustomed to weighing literary evidence of borrowing.