Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/258

Rh spouses. The appearance of Trust (bḥakti) in Viṣṇu to applaud the result terminates the drama.

No one can doubt the cleverness with which the strife of races of one stock in the Mahābhārata and the plot and love interest of the usual Nāṭikā are combined, nor the ingenuity of fitting in the Vedānta doctrine of the Absolute and the devotion of the Vaiṣṇava creed. There is certainly some comedy in the exchange of views of Egoism and Falsity, who are perfect examples of hypocrisy, and the scenes between Buddhism, Jainism, and Somism are distinctly funny. None the less it would be idle to pretend that the play has any dramatic force. Its chief merits are its effective and stately stanzas of moral and philosophical content. Kṛṣṇamiçra is an able master of the Çārdūlavikrīḍita, his favourite metre; he has also effective Vasantatilakas, and rhymed Prākrit stanzas.

Kṛṣṇamiçra's example has caused the production of numerous dramas of the same type, but of much less value. The Saṁkalpasūryodaya of Ven̄kaṭanātha of the fourteenth century is excessively dreary, but it is better than the famous Caitanyacandrodaya of Kavikarṇapūra, which is an account of Caitanya's success, but which wholly fails to convey any suggestion of his spiritual power. He turns out as a long-winded discourser of a muddled theology, surrounded by obedient and unintelligent pupils. Two Çaiva dramas are the Vidyāpariṇayana and Jīvānandana written at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. They have no merits.

An example of a Jain allegory of comparatively early date is afforded by the Moharājaparājaya, the conquest of King Confusion, describing the conversion of the Caulukya king of Gujarāt, Kumārapāla, to Jainism, his prohibition of the killing of animals, and his cessation from the practice of confiscating the property of persons dying without heirs in the realm, as a result of the