Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/297

292 which, with the precise definition of the time to be occupied by the acts, can be interpreted only as based on a single drama, and the Ḍima seems to have a similar origin. The elaborate description of the preliminary scene or Pūrvaran̄ga, which is practically non-existent in the classical drama, suggests a period of a less cultivated taste. A more definite result may be derived from comparison of the Nāṭyaçāstra with the works of Açvaghoṣa and of Bhāsa. The Prākrits recognized by the Nāṭyaçāstra are clearly later than those of Açvaghoṣa and more akin to those found in Bhāsa; again the Nāṭyaçāstra recognizes the use of Ardha-Māgadhī, found in these two dramatists, but not later, while, like them, he ignores the Māhārāṣṭrī of the later dramas. Moreover Bhāsa expressly alludes to a Nāṭyaçāstra, and it is most probable that both he and Kālidāsa had knowledge of the prototype of the present text. That Bhāsa by no means slavishly adheres to the rules of the Nāṭyaçāstra, either as regards the formal mode of terminating his dramas or the exclusion of scenes of death from the stage, merely shows that when he wrote the Çastra had not attained any binding force. There is nothing to contradict the date thus vaguely indicated, for the treatment of poetics in general is simple and early, and it is impossible to draw any conclusion as to date from the remarks on music, apart altogether from the constant possibility that incidental additions and alterations have been made in the work.

It was inevitable that the complicated and confused work of Bharata should be superseded for many purposes by something more accessible and easy to follow, and this need was supplied by the Dāçarūpa of Dhanaṁjaya, son of Viṣṇu, and protégé of the ill-fated king Muñja of Dhārā (974-95). The work takes its name from the ten primary forms of drama recognized in the Nāṭyaçāstra, which is followed closely by Dhanaṁjaya, his deviations being unimportant and trivial, such as a new division of types of heroine or of the erotic sentiment. On the other hand, Dhanaṁjaya omits by far the greater part of the topics of