Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/131

126 in the Çakuntalā the lovers are reunited at the hermitage of the sage Mārīca, as in the Avimāraka they meet at the home of Nārada. There is a vague similarity also as regards many expressions in the two poets, but it would be unwise to lay any special stress on such testimony. But the more specific evidence given above of dependence is undeniable, and it is surprising to find it questioned by Professor Hillebrandt, especially when we have Kālidāsa's own recognition of Bhāsa's fame, and Bāṇa's reiteration of it.

The most valid argument which might be adduced against dependence is the fact that Kālidāsa's dramas as they stand do not seem to agree with the rule observed in those of Bhāsa regarding the beginning of the drama. In Bhāsa's works the Sūtradhāra appears on the stage at the close of a Nāndī, the text of which is not given, and recites a verse which obviously is not technically a Nāndī, though it is of the same type, containing a benediction. In the works of Kālidāsa the first verse is the Nāndī, and at the close of it the Sūtradhāra begins the play with a dialogue. But we cannot rely on the manuscripts as giving us the true practice of Kālidāsa's date, for we know that in the case of the Vikramorvaçī old manuscripts denied to the first verse the character of a Nāndī, and therefore presented the play in the form affected by Bhāsa, and the same style is sometimes followed in South Indian manuscripts of other plays. It is, therefore, impossible to hold that Kālidāsa rejected the practice of Bhāsa, or to base any argument on the facts.