Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/371

366 stocks of grass, bamboos, and lac may be made to serve, and naturally gestures served in lieu of hard blows.

The dress of the actors is carefully regulated, especially as regards colour, which evidently was regarded as an important item in matters of sentiment. Ascetics wear garments of rags or bark; those in charge in the harem red jackets, kings gay garments or, if there are portents described, garments without colour. Ābhīra maidens wear dark blue clothes; in other cases dirty or uncoloured garments are prescribed. Dirty clothes indicate madness, distraction, misery, or a journey; uncoloured garb, one engaged in worship or some solemn religious service, an interesting survival of antique custom, while gods, Dānavas, Gandharvas, Uragas, Yakṣas, and Rakṣases, as well as lovers and kings, normally wear gay clothing.

Colour, however, is by no means confined to garments; the actors are expected to adorn themselves with paint of hues appropriate to the rôles they play. There are, on one theory, four fundamental colours, white, blue-black, red, and yellow, from which others are developed, for instance pigeon colour by mixing the first two; a reddish yellow (gaura) from mixing the last two is also recorded. It or dark (çyāma) is given as suited for kings, while happiness is indicated by it. Kirātas, Barbaras, Andhras, Draviḍas, the people of Kāçi and Kosala, Pulindas, and the people of the Deccan are to be black (asita); the Çakas, Yavanas, Pahlavas, and Bālhikas are to be reddish yellow; Pāñcālas, Çūrasenas, Māhiṣas, Uḍras, Māgadhas, An̄gas, Van̄gas, and Kalin̄gas are to be dark (çyāma), as also Vaiçyas and Çūdras in general, while Brahmins and Kṣatriyas are to be reddish-yellow.

Naturally the hair attracts attention; Piçācas, madmen, and Bhūtas wear it loose; the Vidūṣaka is bald; boys have three tufts of hair, and so also servants if it is not cut short; the maidens of Avantī, and usually those of Bengal, wear ringlets, in the case of women of the north it is worn high on the head, and otherwise plaits are usual. The beard may be bright in hue, dark, or bushy. There is also the same tendency to stereotype