Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/338

Rh ), harsh (paruṣā), and soft (komalā). But Mammaṭa reminds us that in drama very long compounds are undesirable, a rule ignored largely by the later dramatists.

More important than these technical details, which are illustrated often enough in the verses composed by the later dramatists, and no doubt possess considerable antiquity, is the changed view which brings the qualities in the new sense into relation with the sentiment. Sentiment is the very soul of poetry, and the relation of the qualities to it may be most effectually compared with that of such virtues as heroism to the soul of man. They serve to heighten the effect of the sentiment, and therefore they cannot be considered save in close relation to that sentiment. However soft and sweet the verbal form of a work, none the less it cannot be said to possess the quality of sweetness, unless it has a sentiment to which sweetness is appropriate. To give it the name of sweet, if the sentiment is incompatible with sweetness, is compared with regarding a tall man as brave on the strength of his appearance only. The sounds, therefore, produce the qualities only as instruments, for the real cause is the sentiment, even as the soul is the true cause of the heroism and other qualities of a man.

The case of figures, whether of sound or sense, is somewhat similarly handled; the figures are compared with the ornaments which, placed on a man's body, and through this union with him, gratify the soul; the figures adorn words and meanings which are parts of poetry by their union with them, and thus serve to heighten the sentiment, provided one exists. If there is no sentiment, through the defective ability of the poet, then the figures serve merely to lend variety to the composition, and even when sentiment exists the figures may fail to be appropriate to it. Both figures and qualities thus are in a very intimate relation with the sentiment, but that does not mean that the two are identical.

From this doctrine, which makes sentiment essentially the main element in poetry, the view of Vāmana, who laid down that style was the soul of poetry and that the qualities give the essential beauty or distinction (çobhā) to a poem, while the figures