Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/374

Rh praise of the world guardians (dikpālastuti), and the reverence paid to Indra's banner. A reed with five knots is selected which is called Jarjara; the five sections are painted white, blue-black, yellow, red, and a mixture of hues; banners of every colour are tied to it, and the supplication is made to Gaṇeça, the god who removes obstacles and favours literature, and to the guardians of the quarters of the world.

A religious aspect is given also to the mingling of the pigments, the materials employed being yellow arsenic, lamp black, and red among others. The arsenic is formally addressed as being created by Svayambhū for the purpose of serving as a pigment; then it is placed on a board with fragments of brick, the whole reduced to fine powder, and mingled, and then used as pigment.

The time of the performance is not in many cases stated, but in a number of plays, including the Mālatīmadhava, Karṇasundarī, and the embryo drama in the Priyadarçikā, we find it assumed to be the moment when the sun is just appearing. The beat of drum announces the beginning of the drama, the preliminaries, often reduced to little more than a vocal and instrumental concert of brief duration, are completed, and the benediction pronounced, to be followed by the prologue proper and the drama.

4. The Audience

A drama like the Sanskrit demanded the full attention of a cultivated audience, and it is assumed or expressly asserted, as in the dramas of Kālidāsa, Harṣa, and Bhavabhūti, that the spectators are critical and experienced. The Nāṭyaçāstra requires from the ideal spectator (prekṣaka) keen susceptibility and excellent judgement, with ability to make his own the feelings and emotions of the characters depicted by the actors. But it is admitted that there are the usual degrees among the spectators, good, medium, and indifferent; the question of the success of a drama depends on the judgement of the critic