Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/50

 Religion and the Drama 45 that the decisive impulse to dramatic creation was given. The importance of the epic is doubtless enormous, but the mere recitation of the epics, however closely it might approach to the drama, does not overstep the bounds. The element which fails to be added is that of the dramatic contest, the Agon of the Greek drama. That this was supplied by the development of such primitive vegetation rituals as that of the Mahavrata, until they assumed the concrete and human form of the Kṛṣṇa and Kansa legend would be a conjecture worth consideration, but without possibility of proof if we had not the notice of the Mahābhāṣya which expressly shows that the story of Kṛṣṇa and Kansa could both be represented by Granthikas, who coloured their faces and expressed vividly the emotions of those whom they represented, but also, in dumb show seemingly, by Çaubhikas. If there did not exist an Indian drama proper, in which these sides were combined when Patañjali wrote, it is fair to say that it would be surprising if it did not develop shortly afterwards, and we have perfectly certain proof that the Natas of Patañjali were much more than dancers or acrobats; they sang and recited. The balance of probability, therefore, is that the Sanskrit drama came into being shortly after, if not before, the middle of the second century B. C., and that it was evoked by the combination of epic recitations with the dramatic moment of the Kṛṣṇa legend, in which a young god strives against and overcomes enemies. The drama which was nascent in Patañjali's time must be taken to have been, like the classical drama, one in which Sanskrit was mingled with Prakrit in the speeches of the characters. The epic recitations of the slaying of Kansa which he records must have been in Sanskrit, but, if the drama was to be popular-and the Natyaçãstra in its tale of the origin of the art recognizes both its epic and popular characteristics, the humble people who figured in it must have been allowed to speak in their own vernacular; this accords brilliantly with the presence of Çauraseni as the normal prose of the drama of the classical stage. A different view is taken by Professor Lévi,¹ 1 JA. sér. 9, xix. 95 ff. If this had been the case, one would have found references freely to the literature in Hala, where only v. 344 alludes to the Purvarañga of the Nāṭaka (raināḍaapuvvaramgassa).