Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/333

328 two persons who end by fighting (sampheṭa), as do Mādhava and Aghoraghaṇṭa in the Mālatīmādhava; and a scene of tumultuous disturbance (avapāta), such as that when the monkey escapes in the Ratnāvalī or of the attack on Vindhyaketu in the Priyadarçikā, Act I.

The verbal manner is based on sound, as the other three are on sense. The voice only is its means of expression; women may not use it, and the men must speak Sanskrit; these actors bear the name Bharata, which is appropriated to this manner. It is adapted to all the sentiments, or, according to the Nāṭyaçāstra, only to those of heroism, wonder, and fury. Its elements are, in true scholastic fashion, likewise reckoned as four; two of them, the propitiation (prarocanā), and the introduction (āmukha, prastāvanā), essentially belong to the prologue of the drama, and will be considered in that connexion; the other two are given as the garland (vīthī) and the farce, which are species of drama. But the theorists agree that the elements (an̄ga) of the garland are applicable in any part of the drama, especially the first juncture, and they are evidently an essential part of the verbal manner.

The first element is the abrupt dialogue (udghātya), which takes either the form of a series of questions and answers in explanation of something not at once anderstood, or a monologue of question and reply. The second is continuance (avalagita) of one section by another in substitution, as where, when Sītā has decided to go to the forest for pleasure, Rāma is persuaded to let her go indeed, but into exile, or, according to Dhanaṁjaya alone, where there is a sudden turn in an event in progress. The third is the Prapañca, which passes for a comic dialogue, in which two actors frankly set out each other's demerits, or, according to Viçvanātha, such a clever ruse as that of Nipuṇikā in the Vikramorvaçī, Act II, where she worms out from the Vidūṣaka the king's infatuation. The triple explanation (trigata), a term which is used in a different sense in the rule regarding the prologue, seems to denote guesses made at the cause of a sound, which in its character is ambiguous and may be, e.g. the hum of the bees, the cry of the cuckoo, or the music