Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/334

Rh made by celestial maidens. Cheating (chala) denotes the use of words of seeming courtesy but boding ill, as in the inquiry for Duryodhana, their foe, by Bhīma and Arjuna in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act V. The repartee (vākkelī) produces comic effect in a series of questions and answers; but the same term is applied to the interruption of a sentence by Dhanamjaya, and by Viçvanātha to a single reply to many questions. Outvying (adhibala or atibala) applies to a dialogue in which those conversing vie with one another in violence, as in the discussion of Arjuna, Bhīma, and Duryodhana in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act V. The abrupt remark (gaṇḍa) is one which intervenes vitally in the tale; thus in the Uttararāmacarita Rāma has just declared that separation from Sītā would be unbearable, when the porteress announces Durmukha, the spy of the king, who comes to destroy the king's happiness. Reinterpretation (avasyandita) is the taking up of an expression which has escaped one in a different sense; thus in the Chalitarāma, Sītā carelessly tells her sons to go to Ayodhyā and greet their father, and seeks to remedy this slip by insisting that the king is father of his people. The enigma (nālikā) conceals the sense under joking words. Incoherent talk (asatpralāpa) is the speech of one just awake, drunk, asleep, or childish; such are the hero's words in Vikramorvaçī, Act IV. In another sense, admitted by Viçvanātha, it denotes good advice thrown away, as in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act I, Gāndharī's admonition of Duryodhana. Humorous speech (vyāhāra) is a remark made for the sake of some one else, which provokes a laugh, as when the Vidūṣaka in the Mālavikāgnimitra, Act II, by his chatter makes the damsel laugh, and permits the king longer to gaze on her charms. Mildness (mṛdava) denotes the turning of evil into good, or vice versa, as when in the Çakuntalā, Act II, the virtues of hunting, a vice in the eyes of the sacred law, are extolled.

It is an essential defect of Indian theory in all its aspects that it tends to divisions which are needless and confusing. Besides the elements of the garland we find thirty-three dramatic ornaments (nāṭyālaṁkāra) and thirty-six characteristics or beauties (lakṣaṇa), which cannot be distinguished as two classes on any