Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/224

Rh 'Thou hast forgotten the love due to kindred blood, thou hast violated the law of the warrior, thou hast ignored the deep friendship between thy younger brother and Arjuna. Granted that thy love for both thy pupils may be equal, nevertheless what is the cause that thou dost show hostility to me in my misfortune?'

These and many other passages are cited by the writers on poetics who find in the Veṇīsaṁhāra an inexhaustible mine of illustration of the theory which doubtless deeply affected the author in his composition. They do not, however, eulogize him blindly; the love scene with Bhānumatī is definitely treated as out of place.

6. The Language and the Metres of the Veṇīsaṁhāra.

The Sanskrit and the Prākrits offer no special features of interest. The latter is mainly in Çaurasenī, but the speeches of the Rākṣasa and his wife at the beginning of Act III are clearly in Māgadhī; they show the characteristic signs of e for the nominative singular, both masculine and neuter, of a-stems; l for r, and ā in the vocative of a-stems. The suggestion of Grill that the dialect is more precisely Ardha-Māgadhī is not necessary, for the points enumerated – the presence of s beside ç, the variation of o and aṁ in the nominative for e, and the use of ij for ry, and not yy – can be explained readily by the error of the scribes or the mistakes of the author. The freedom with which those worthies acted is seen clearly enough in the fact that one representative of the Bengālī as opposed to the Devanāgarī recension of the text has systematically rewritten the Prākrit into Çaurasenī.

The metrical treatment is noteworthy for the almost equal use of Vasantatilaka (39), Çārdūlavikrīḍita (32), Çikhariṇī (35), and Sragdharā (20). There are 53 Çlokas, and a few stanzas of Mālinī, Puṣpitāgrā, Praharṣiṇī, and one each of Aupacchandasika, Vaitālīya, Indravajrā, and Drutavilambita, with 6 Āryās, and 2 Prākrit Vaitālīyas. The versification is thus decidedly of the later type.