Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/366

Rh moral qualities which an Indian genius can enumerate. To him falls not merely the very important function of introducing the play, but also of taking one of the chief parts; thus he plays Vatsa in the Ratnāvalī, and in the Mālatīmādhava Kāmandakī, the nun, who powerfully affects the current of the drama. He is normally the husband of one of the actresses (naṭī), who aids him in the opening scene, and who is compelled, poor woman, to combine the arduous life of an actress with the domestic duty of looking after her husband's material wants. She is represented as devoted to him, fasting to secure reunion in another life, preparing his meal and seeking to remove by her good works the dangers which threaten him, and compelled to play her parts, although anxious, as in the Ratnāvalī, over the difficulty of securing the marriage of her daughter to a fiancé who has gone overseas, or, as in the Jānakīpariṇaya, over the wickedness of another actor in seeking to take her daughter from her.

The Sthāpaka, according to the theory, is to resemble in his attributes the Sūtradhāra; as we have seen, to what extent he really in the dramas known to us was employed as distinct from the Sūtradhāra, it is impossible to say; the name suggests that he aided him in the structure of the stage, and then in his actor's duties. But there is no ground to assume that he really had disappeared as a living figure before the classical drama; the occasional mention of him in actual dramas as well as in the theory need not be artificial. We have, however, a much more common attendant of the Sūtradhāra in the Pāripārçvika, who appears in the prologue of many plays, and in addition acted the parts of persons of middle rank. He receives the orders of his master and passes them on to the other actors, and directs the operations of the chorus, as in the Veṇīsaṁhāra. He is addressed by his master as Mārṣa, and he greets him as Bhāva.

The other actors, of whom there must often have been many in pieces with crowds introduced, are to have the qualities of the Sūtradhāra in as generous a measure as may be; they are divided, however, according to their qualifications into superior, medium, and third-rate actors. The principal parts in any drama are, however, few; the king, the Vidūṣaka, the parasite, the heroine, and a companion are stock types. The division of