Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/367

362 rôles is seldom shown in the prologues, whence are derived most of the details of our knowledge of actual performances. The Sutradhāra in the Ratnāvalī and the Priyadarçikā plays the part of Vatsa, his younger brother that of Yaugandharāyaṇa in the former play and that of Dṛḍhavarman in the latter; the Sūtradhāra and the Pāripārçvika take in the Mālatīmādhava the rôles of Kāmandakī and her pupil Avalokitā respectively. This taking of women's parts by men is not by any means the normal practice; the Naṭī normally plays an important female part; in the embryo drama in the Priyadarçikā we find that the heroine's part is played by Āraṇyikā, and the hero's part was to have been performed by another girl Manoramā, but Vatsa, without the queen's knowledge, insinuated himself into the scene in propria persona. In the legend of Bharata's exhibition of the Lakṣmīsvayaṁvara the nymph Urvaçī is represented as playing the chief

rôle, and in Dāmodaragupta's Kuṭṭanīmata, where an actual representation of the Ratnāvalī is described, we find a woman in the role of the princess. The Nāṭyaçāstra expressly admits of three modes of representation; the rôles may be filled by persons of appropriate sex and age; the rôles of the old may be taken by the young and vice versa; and the rôles of men may be played by women and vice versa. The taking of women's parts by men has, curiously enough, a very early piece of evidence, for the Mahābhāṣya mentions the word Bhrūkuṅsa, which was used to denote a man who made up as a female.

We are, it is clear, to conceive of the troupe of actors under the Sūtradhāra as ready to wander hither and thither in search of a favourable opportunity of exhibiting their powers as interpreters. The performance of a drama became, it is clear, in later times at any rate, a worthy adornment of a festive occasion such as a religious festival, the consecration of a king, a marriage, the taking possession of a town or a new estate, the return of a traveller, and the birth of a son. The best patrons of the actors might be kings, but there was evidently no lack of appreciation of their services among men of lesser rank but of large means. The later prologues give us details of the rivalry between different troupes. In the Anargharāghava the actor declares that