Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/30

 in Vedic Ritual we actually find that sexual union as a fertility rite is permitted, though later taste dismissed the practice as undesirable. The ritual purpose of this abuse is undeniable; it is aimed at pro- ducing fertility, and has a precise parallel in the untranslatable language employed in the horse sacrifice during the period when the unlucky chief queen is compelled to lie beside the slaughtered horse, in order to secure, we may assume, the certainty of obtaining a son for the monarch whose conquests are thus celebrated.¹ 25 There are, however, nothing but elements here, and we have reasonable certainty that no drama was known. In the Yajurveda we have long lists of persons of every kind covering every possible sort of occupation, and the term Nata, which is normally the designation of the actor in the later literature is unknown. We find but one term 2 which later ever has that sense, Çailūṣa, and there is nothing whatever to show that an actor here is meant; a musician or a dancer may be denoted, for both dancing and singing are mentioned in close proximity. Professor Hillebrandt,3 on the other hand, is satisfied that we have actual ritual drama before us, and Professor Konow 4 insists that these are indeed ritual dramas, but that they are borrowed by the ritual from the popular mime of the time, which accordingly must have known dialogue, abusive con- versation and blows, but of which the chief parts were dance, song, and music which are reckoned in the Kausitaki Brah- mana as the arts, but of which the Paraskara Grhya Sutra disapproves for the use of men of the three higher castes. The evidence for this assumption is entirely lacking, and it is extremely significant that the Vedic texts ignore the Nața, whose activity belongs according to all the evidence to a later period. It is, of course, always possible to deprecate any argument from silence, though the value of this contention is diminished by the very remarkable enumerations of the different forms of occupation given in the Purusamedha sections of the 1 Keith, HOS. XVIII. cxxxv. 2 VS. xxx. 4; TB. iii. 4. 2. 5 xxix. 5. 6 ii. 7. 3. S AID. pp. 22 f. 7 The Prakritic form of the term as opposed to Vedic nrtu and nrtta is legitimate evidence for the development of pantomimic dancing in circles more popular than priestly. But it does nothing to show that such dancing was originally secular, or that it rather than religious dancing gave a factor to drama.
 * ID. pp. 42 ff.