Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/274

Rh by going to her father's house as a beggar. The presence of a narrative verse has suggested comparison with a shadow-drama, but for this there is inadequate evidence.

8. The Shadow Play

It is extremely doubtful at what date the shadow-drama appeared in India; the first play which we can be certain was represented in this way is the Dharmābhyudaya of Meghaprabhācārya, which in the stage direction mentions once clearly a puppet (putraka) and calls itself a Chāyānāṭyaprabandha. Unluckily the age of this work does not seem to be ascertainable with any certainty.

It is natural to suggest, as did Pischel, that the Dūtān̄gada of Subhaṭa, which is styled a Chāyānāṭaka, really was a shadow play. On the other hand, Rājendralālamitra suggested that the drama was perhaps simply intended as an entr'acte, and this may be justified on the interpretation of the term of drama in the form of a shadow: i.e. reduced to the minimum for representation in such a form. The play itself unluckily contains nothing to help us to a decision as to its real character. It was represented in A.D. 1243 in honour of the dead king Kumārapāla at the court of Tribhuvanapāla, a Caulukya of Aṇahilapāṭaka, and has come down to us in various forms. A longer and shorter recension may be distinguished, though not very definitely; in the longer form occur epic verses, and an introduction is prefixed in thirty-nine stanzas, partly placed in the mouths of Rāma and Hanumant, describing the finding of Sītā's hiding-place. The story is the simple one of An̄gada's mission as an ambassador to Rāvaṇa to demand back Sītā; Rāvaṇa endeavours to persuade An̄gada that Sītā is in love with him. An̄gada is not deceived, and leaves Rāvaṇa with threats, and we learn shortly afterwards that Rāvaṇa has met his doom. The merits of the work are negligible.

We have no other play of which we can say with even the slightest plausibility that it was a real shadow-drama. There are three works by Vyāsa Çrīrāmadeva from the fifteenth