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286 to them, and they are reduced to the banality of the intrigue between the king and the damsel who is destined to be his wife, but who by some accident has been introduced into his harem in a humble position.

For the dramatists the favour of a king was the chief object to be aimed at, and kings were evidently very willing to lend their names to dramatic and other compositions, whatever part they actually took in their production. The persistence of the rumour which regards Harṣa as winning his fame in part at the expense of Bāṇa, may be unjust to the king, but at any rate it expresses what was popular belief in the possibility of such a happening in poetical circles, and it is indeed incredible that a king should have been so scrupulous as to refuse any aid in his literary toils from his court poets. Competitions in exhibitions of poetry were in favour with monarchs, but they were not the only patrons; their actions excited imitation, and even in Buddhist and Jain circles the desire to adopt the expedient of drama in connexion with religion was evinced. But even when applied by Brahmins, Buddhists, or Jains to philosophy or religion, the drama bore throughout the unmistakable stamp of its original predominance in circles whose chief interest was gallantry: the Nāgānanda bears eloquent evidence of this for Buddhist ideas the Prabodhacandrodaya for Brahmin philosophy, and the Moharājaparājaya for Jainism.

A society of this kind was certain to encourage refinement and elegance in poetry; it was equally certain to lead to artificiality and unreality. But we may be certain that true poetic taste existed; it is attested not merely by the existence and fame of such dramas as those of Kālidāsa, but in the kindred sphere of music it has an interesting exposition in the third Act of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, in which, following with slight changes the precedent of Bhāsa, Cārudatta is made to express to the unresponsive ears of Maitreya, his one faithful friend, the effect produced on his ears by the sweet singing of Rebhila, which has come to console him in the midst of his sorrow:

The notes of love, peace, sweetness, could I trace, The note that thrills, the note of passion too,