Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/351

346 a Brahmin, minister, or merchant, who has fallen on evil days and is seeking through difficulties to attain property, love, and the performance of duty, in which he at last succeeds. The heroine may be of three types, a lady of good family, as in the lost Puṣpadūṣita (°bhuṣita); a hetaera as in the lost Taran̄gadatta; or a lady of good family may share the honours with a hetaera, with whom, however, she may not come in contact, as in the Cārudatta and the Mṛcchakaṭikā. The drama offers an appropriate place for slaves, Viṭas, merchant chiefs, and rogues of various kinds. The erotic sentiment should dominate, though Dhanaṁjaya allows also the heroic, and the structure should include all five junctures. The number of acts should be as in the Nāṭaka, and the name be derived from the hero or heroine or both, as in the Mālatīmādhava and the Çāriputraprakaraṇa of Açvaghoṣa. It must, however, be noted that the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa has but four acts, and the Mṛcchakaṭikā, unlike the Cārudatta, does not follow the rule as to name.

The supernatural drama, Samavakāra, is described in our sources obviously on the basis of a single play, the Amṛtamanthana, the churning of the ocean to obtain the ambrosia, at which all participants attained their desires. The precise duration of each of its three acts is given, at twelve, four, and two Nāḍikās (of forty-eight minutes). The subject must be taken from a tale of the gods and demons. The juncture, pause, is omitted, and the expansion (bindu) as an element of the plot. The number of heroes may reach twelve, each pursuing an object which he attains. The heroic sentiment dominates. Each act exhibits one type of cheating, tumultuous action, and love. The graceful manner is excluded, or but faintly developed; the Uṣṇih, Kuṭila, and Anuṣṭubh metres are appropriate. The description fits but loosely Bhāsa's Pañcarātra, the only old drama to which that name may plausibly be applied.

The Īhāmṛga, of which no old example is known, owes its name, according to the Daçarūpāvaloka to the fact that in it a maiden as hard to attain as a gazelle (mṛga) is sought after (īhā). The subject is one partly derived from legend and partly