Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/46

Rh prose language of the drama is Çaurasenī Prākrit, and we can only suppose that it is so because it was the ordinary speech of the people among whom the drama first developed into definite shape. Once this was established, we may feel assured, the usage would be continued wherever the drama spread; we have modern evidence of the persistence of the Brajbhāshā, the language of the revival of the Kṛṣṇa cult after the Mahomedan invasions in the ancient home of Çaurasenī, as the language of Kṛṣṇa devotion beyond the limits of its natural home. Mathurā, the great centre of Kṛṣṇa worship, still celebrates the Holi festival with rites which resemble the May-day merriment of older England, and still more the phallic orgies of pagan Rome as described by Juvenal. It is an interesting coincidence with the comparison made by Growse of the Holi and the May-day rites that Haraprasād Śāstrin should have found an explanation of the origin of the Indian drama in the fact that at the preliminaries of the play there is special attention devoted to the salutation of Indra's banner, which is a flagstaff decorated with colours and bunting. The Indian legend of the origin of drama tells that, when Bharata was bidden teach on earth the divine art invented by Brahmā, the occasion decided upon was the banner festival (dhvajamaha) of Indra. The Asuras rose in wrath, but Indra seized the staff of his banner and beat them off, whence the staff of the banner (jarjara) is used as a protection at the beginning of the drama. The drama was, therefore, once connected with the ceremonies of bringing in the Maypole from the woods at the close of the winter, but in India this rite fell at the close of the rainy season, and the ceremony was converted into a festival of thanksgiving for Indra's victory over the clouds, the Asuras. The theory in itself is inadequate, but the preliminaries of the drama are sufficient to show the extraordinary importance attached to propitiation of the gods, a relic of the old religious service, which would be quite out of place if the origin of the drama had been secular.

The importance of Kṛṣṇa must not cause us to ignore the prominent place occupied by Çiva in the history of the drama.