Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/272

Rh spread it out over four Acts; the characters are conventional; Rukminī the heroine is a nonentity, and neither Çiçupāla nor Rukmin, the objects of Kṛṣṇa's enmity, has any distinct characterization. Kṛṣṇa goes into a state of trance on the stage in Act IV to produce the presence of Tārkṣya to enable him to complete his victory. The female character, Subuddhi, uses Sanskrit in lieu of Prākrit.

Other dramas of this type are the late Viravijaya of Kṛṣṇamiçra, and the Sarvavinodanāṭaka of Kṛṣṇa Avadhūta Ghaṭikāçata Mahākavi.

To Vatsarāja also we owe a specimen of the Ḍima, the Tripuradāha in four Acts, which describes the destruction of the capital of Tripurāsura by Çiva. The idea of writing such a piece was doubtless given by the mention of a work of this name in the Nāṭyaçāstra, and the play is extremely insipid; the numerous figures who crowd the stage are lifeless, and the celestial weapons which overcome the Asuras lack reality; the convenances are duly observed; Kumāra in the full flight of his triumph is stayed by his father's commands, and Çukra delightedly records this act of courtesy on the part of the god, despite his anger with the Dānavas. The play closes with the homage paid by the gods and the seers alike to Maheça, who is bashful, and the benediction is pronounced by Indra, not by the hero of the drama.

Other Ḍimas are late; thus we have one by the ubiquitous Ghanaçyāma, the Kṛṣṇavijaya of Ven̄kaṭavarada, and the Manmathonmathana of Rāma, a drama of 1820.

Vatsarāja is also responsible for a Samavakāra, the Samudramathana, in three Acts, which again owes its existence doubtless to the naming of a work with a kindred title in the Nāṭyaçāstra as the model of a Samavakāra. Here again we find after a Nāndī of two stanzas the Sūtradhāra and the Sthāpaka engaged in conversation. The former and his eleven brothers seek simultaneously to attain wealth; how is this possible? The Sthāpaka suggests either homage to Paramardi or to the ocean, a statement duly caught up by a voice behind the stage, which asserts that from the ocean comes the fulfilment of wishes, followed by the entry of Padmaka. The play is based on the legend of the