Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/318

Rh tions and are respected on that score. There are also the princess, ingénue and modest, and the duenna (mahattarā), who among other things sees to the punctual performance of auspicious rites, and the more humble adepts in the dance, in song, in handicrafts, in acting, and in the favourite amusement of swinging the ladies of the harem. The hetaera is painted in attractive colours; she is thoroughly well educated, exempt from the normal defects of women, kind of heart, adroit, active, a born coquette, and seductive in every way. Special importance among these feminine rôles attaches to that of the heroine's messenger, the counterpart of the hero's agent. She may be a friend, a slave, a foster-sister, a neighbour, a workwoman, or an artiste, or strangely enough, a nun, usually of Buddhist connexions, a curious and interesting sidelight on Indian views of the devotees of that faith. The doorkeeper (pratihārī) has the function of announcing to the king such political events as the declaration of war and the conclusion of peace.

The neuter rôles are filled by men who have either taken vows of chastity, or have been deprived of virility in order to permit of their employment in the harem. The Snātaka is a Brahmin, who has completed his course of religious study, is familiar with religious and social affairs; he resides within the palace. The chamberlain (kañcukin) is an old Brahmin, worn out in the service of the king, but still mentally alert and skilled in his business of conveying the royal orders in the palace. The eunuchs (varṣadhara, nirmuṇḍa, upasthāyika) are effeminate and cowardly but not lacking in savoir faire; they find employment in the king's amours.

The nomenclature of the characters is in some measure regulated by rule; the name of a hetaera should end in dattā, senā, or siddhā, as does that of Vasantasenā in the Carudattā; that of a merchant in datta as in Carudattā; that of the Vidūṣaka from spring or a flower, but in the Avimāraka he is styled Saṁtuṣṭa; that of a servant, male or female, should be derived from some object, which occurs in descriptions of the seasons, &c., as in the names Kalahaṅsa and Mandārikā in the Mālatīmādhava; those of Kāpālikas, a species of ascetics, should end in ghaṇṭa as in Aghoraghaṇṭa in the same play.