Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/130

Rh the treatment of watering the garden as an act of penance on the maiden's part; an idea which occurs in a closely parallel passage in Act V of the Pratimānāṭaka. Bhāsa treats it as bearable, illustrating it by the adduction of an example in the technical form of an Arthāntaranyāsa, while Kālidāsa is more severe in his condemnation, using the technical figure Nidarçanā, clearly a deliberate variation of the idea. In the same Act of the Pratimanāṭaka we find Rāma bidding Sītā take farewell of the fawns and the trees, which are her foster-children, and of her dear friends, the Vindhya mountain and the creepers; in the departure of Çakuntalā from the hermitage the trees and the fawns as well as the creepers share in the grief of her departure; of the deer is expressly used the term 'foster-child' found in the Pratimānāṭaka. Again in Act VII of that play Sītā is reminded of the distrust felt by the deer in Bharata, just as Çakuntalā describes their distrust of Duḥṣanta. There is a parallel in the Svapnavāsavadattā, Act I, where Vāsavadattā is received kindly by the lady of the hermitage, and thanks her for her courteous words, to the scene at the opening of the Çakuntalā, in which the king assures Anasūyā that her speech of welcome is sufficient hospitality (bhavatīnāṁ sūnṛtayaiva girā kṛtam ātithyam). The parallel is completed by the instruction given by the chamberlain in Bhāsa's play to the servant to avoid disturbance to the hermitage with the commands of the king to the commander-in-chief. Similar also is the scene in Act II of the Svapnavāsavadattā, in which during the play of Padmāvatī and Vāsavadattā in disguise reference is made to the former's approaching marriage, to the talk of Çakuntalā's friends with her in Act I. We have also in the sixth Act of either play a parallel treatment of the lute lost by Udayana in the one case, and the ring lost by Çakuntalā in the other; the verses in which these innocent objects of censure are attacked are similar in spirit and taste.

Other traces of Bhāsa's influence are also to be found. The motif of the curse of Durvāsas which in the Çakuntalā explains the sufferings of the heroine suggests the curse of Caṇḍabhārgava in the Avimāraka which reduces the hero to a humble rank, and