Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/306

Rh 28G SANSKRIT [LITERATURE. with her, and the queen tries to keep them apart from each other ; but, on learning the maiden's origin, she becomes reconciled, and recognizes her as a "sister." According to H. H. Wilson, "tin' manners depictured are not influenced by lofty pfaeiflla or pro- found reflexion, but they are mild, affectionate, and elegant. It m;iy be doubted whether the haratns of other eastern nations, either in ancient or modern times, would a fiord materials for as favourable a delineation." Very similar in construction, but distinctly in- ferior, is the Priyadariikd, in four acts, lately published in India, baring for its plot another amour of the same king. The scene of the third play, the Ndgdnanda, 1 or "joy of the serpents" (in five acts), on the other hand, is laid in semi-divine regions. Jimiitavahana, a prince of the Yidyadharas, imbued with Buddhist principles, weds Malayavati, daughter of the king of the Siddhas, a votary of Gauri (Diva's wife). But, learning that Garuda, the mythic bird, is in the habit of consuming one snake daily, he resolves to offer himself to the bird as a victim, and finally succeeds in converting Garuda to the principle of ahiinsa, or abstention from doing injury to living beings ; but he himself is about to succumb from the wounds he has received, when, through the timely intervention of the goddess Gaurl, he is restored to his former condition. The piece seems to have been intended as a compromise between Brahmanical (Saiva) and Buddhist doctrines, being thus in keeping with the religious views of king Harsha, who, as we know from Hwen-tsang, favoured Buddhism, but was . i-i-v tolerant to Brahmans. It begins with a benedictory stanza to Buddha, and concludes with one to Gauri. The author is gene- rally believed to have been a Buddhist, but it is more likely that he was a Saiva Brahman, possibly Bana himself. Nay, one might almost feel inclined to take the hero's self-sacrifice in favour of a N;iii as a travesty of Buddhist principles. Bhava- Bhavabhdti, surnamed Sri-kantha, " whose throat is beauty bhuti. (eloquence)," was a native of Padmapura in the Vidarbha country (the Berars), being the son of the Brahman Nilakantha, and his wife Jatukarni. He is said to have passed his literary life at the court of Yasovarman of Kanauj, who is supposed to have reigned in the latter part of the 7th and beginning of the 8th century. Bhavabhiiti was the author of three plays, two of which, the AfaMvlracluirita* ("life of the great hero") and the Uttarardma- charita* ("later life of Rama"), in seven acts each, form together a dramatized version of the story of the Jldindyana. The third, the Mdlati-mddhava,* is a domestic drama in ton acts, representing the fortunes of Madhava and Malati, the son and daughter of two ministers of neighbouring kings, who from childhood have been di-st tried for each other, but, by the resolution of the maiden's royal master to marry her to an old and ugly favourite of his, re for a while threatened with permanent separation. The action of the play is full of life, and abounds in stirring, though some- times improbable, incidents. The poet is considered by native pandits to be not only not inferior to Kalidasa, but even to have surpassed him in his Uttarardmacharita. But, though ho ranks deservedly high as a lyric poet, he is far inferior to Kalidasa as a dramatic artist Whilst the latter delights in depicting the gentler feelings and tender emotions of the human heart and the peaceful scenes of rural life, the younger poet finds a peculiar attraction in the sterner and more imposing aspects of nature and the human character. Bhavabhuti's language, though polished and felicitous, is elaborate and artificial compared with that of Kalidasa, and his genius is sorely shackled by a slavish adherence to the arbitrary rules of dramatic theorists. Bh.it tn Bhatta Narayana, surnamed Mrigaraja or Simha, "the lion," NVm'i- the author of the Ventsaijihdra* (the seizing by the braid of yana. hair "), is^ a poet of uncertain date. Tradition makes him one of the five Kanauj Brahmans whom king Adisura of Bengal, desirous of establishing the pure Vaishnava doctrine, invited to his court, and from whom the modern Beaglli Brahmans are supposed to be descended. The date of that evnt, however, is itself doubtful; while a modern genealogical work fixes it at 1077, Lassen refers it to the beginning of the 7th century and Grill to the latter part of the 6th. If it could be proved that the poet is identical with the vana whom Bana (c. 630) mentions as being his friend, the question would be settled in favour of the earlier calculations. The play, consisting of six acts, is founded on the story of the MaMbhd- rata, and takes its title from the insult offered to Draupadi by one of the Kaurava princes, who, when she had been lost at dice by Yudhishthira, dragged her l>y tin- hair into the assembly. The piece is composed in a style similar to that of Bhavabhuti's plays, though less polished, and inferior to them in dramatic construction and poetic merit. 1 Edited by Madhava Chandra Ghosha, and translated by P. Boyd, with a preface by E. B. Cowell. 2 Edited by F. H. Trithen (1848), and twice at Calcutta ; trans- lated by J. Pickford. 8 Edited at Calcutta ; transl. by H. H. Wilson and C. H. Tawney. 4 Edited by R. G. Bhandarkar, 1876; translated by H. H. Wilson. 8 Edited by J. Grill, 1871. The Hiiniumui-itd(iiL-((, is a dramatized version of the story of Rama, interspersed with numerous purely descriptive poetic pas- sages. It consists of fourteen acts, and on account of its length is also called the Mahd-n'daka, or great drama. Tradition relates that it was composed by Hanuman, the monkey general, and inscribed on rocks ; but, Yalmiki, the author of the Jlir, being afraid lest it might throw his own poem into the shade, Hanuman allowed him to cast his verses into the sea. Thence fragments were ultimately picked up by a merchant, and brought to King Bhoja, who directed the poet Damodara Misra to put them together, and fill up the lacunae ; whence the present composition originated. Whatever particle of truth there may be in this story, the " great drama " seems certainly to be the production of different hands. "The language," as Wilson remarks, "is in general very harmonious, but the work is after all a most disjointed and non- descript composition, and the patchwork is very glaringly and clumsily put together. " It is nevertheless a work of some interest, as compositions of mixed dramatic and declamatory passages of this kind may have been common in the early stages of the dramatic art. The connexion of the poet with King Bhoja, also confirmed by th&Bhoja-prabandha, would bring the composition, or final redac- tion, down to about the 10th or llth century. There are, however, two different recensions of the work, a shorter one commented upon by Mohanadasa, and a longer one arranged by Madhusudana. A Damodara Gupta is mentioned as having lived under Jayapida of Kashmir (755-86); but this can scarcely be the same author. The Hfudrdrdksfiasa, 6 or "Rakshasa (the minister) with the signet, " is a drama of political intrigue, in seven acts, partly based on historical events, the plot turning on the reconciliation of Rakshasa, the minister of the murdered king Nanda, with the hostile party, consisting of prince Chandragupta (the Greek Sandrocottus, 315-291 B.C. ), who succeeded Nanda, and his minister Chanakya. The plot is developed with considerable dramatic skill, in vigorous, if not particularly elegant, language. The play was composed by Vi^akhadatta, prior, at any rate, to the llth century, but perhaps as early as the 7th or 8th century, as Buddhism is referred to in it in rather complimentary terms. The Prabodha-chandrodaya, 7 or "the moon-rise of intelligence," composed by KrishnamiHra about the 12th century, is an allegorical play, in six acts, the dramatis personse of which consist entirely of abstract ideas, divided into two conflicting hosts. Of numerous inferior dramatic compositions we may mention as the best the Ancirghya-rdglutva, by Murari ; the Bdla-rdmdyana, one of six plays (three of which are known) by Rojasckhava ; and the Prasanna-rdgJuiva, by Jayadeva, the author of the rhetorical treatise Chandrdloka. Abstracts of a number of other pieces are given in H. H. Wilson's Hindu Theatre, the standard work on this subject. The dramatic genius of the Hindus may be said to have exhausted itself about the 14th century. 5. Lyrical, Descriptive, and Didactic Poetry. We have Lyric already alluded to the marked predilection of the mediaeval P etrv - Indian poet for depicting in a single stanza some peculiar physical or mental situation. The profane lyrical poetry consists chiefly of such little poetic pictures, which form a prominent feature of dramatic compositions. Numerous poets and poetesses are only known to us through such de- tached stanzas, preserved in native anthologies or manuals of rhetoric. Thus the Saduktikarndmritaf or "ear- ambrosia of good sayings," an anthology compiled by Sridhara Dasa in 1205, contains verses by fpur hundred and forty-six different writers; while the Sdrngad/iara- paddhati, another anthology, of the 14th century, contains some 6000 verses culled from two hundred and sixty-four different writers and works. These verses are either of a purely descriptive or of an erotic character; or they have a didactic tendency, being intended to convey, in an attractive and easily remembered form, some moral truth or useful counsel. An excellent specimen of a longer poem, of a partly descriptive partly erotic character, is Kalidasa 's Meglutrddta? or "cloud messenger," in which a banished Yaksha (demi-god) sends a love-message across India to his wife in the Himalaya, and describes, in verse-pictures, the various places and objects over which the messenger, a 8 Edited (Bombay, 1884) by K. T. Telang, who discusses the date of the work in his preface. 7 Translated by J. Taylor, 1810 ; by T. Goldstiicker into German, 1842. Edited by H. Brockhaus, 1845. 8 Rajendralala Mitra, Notices, iii. p. 134. 9 Text and transl., by H. H. Wilson; with vocabulary by S. Johnson.