A HISTORY OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE CLASSICAL PERIOD -3

A HISTORY OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE

CLASSICAL PERIOD

VOL. I

General Editor and

Contributors to this Volume:

S. N. DASGUPTA

and

S. K. DE,

We know from Arthatastra that all kinds of

teaching of fine arts and literature were encouraged

by the Mauryyas and that teachers of music, dancing,

acting, etc., were maintained out of the provincial

revenue.) The kings held in their courts from time to

time great exhibitions of poets and scholars, where they

wrangled with one another and vied for victory in

literary contests. There were often Poet Laureates -  

attached to the kingW's court. Srlharsa says that in the  

court of Jayacandra a seat was reserved for him and he

was offered two betel-leaves as a mark of honour,

of

^et us look at the autobiography of Bana who lived

in the court of Srlharsa in the J7th century. . He tells

us that his mother died when he was quite young and

his father also died when he was almost of the age of

fourteen. He was studying at the time and he had

sufficient wealth to maintain himself at home. But

with the beginning of youth he was impatient and got

into naughty habits. At this time he got a number

of associates and friends. (A little scrutiny into the

%k~oJL..associates that Bana had may give us an idea

of the sort of people that lived in the city and bow in

the city life all classes of people mixed together^ Thus

he says that he had for his associates Candasena and

Matrsena, who were born out of a Brahmin father and

a Sudra mother, the poet Isana, B^ra and NarayanaT

who were learned ^schdar^ Bharata^Jjhe composer of

Sanskrit songs, Vgyu-vikara, who was born in the

1 iha kalidasa-inenthav-atra'maiarfipa-sura'bhdravayah/

haiicandra-candraguptau parikitav'ilia vMlayam//

Myate ca pa^aliputre sastrakara-parlkfd,

atro-pavar$a-var<av-iha pdnini-pihgalav-iha vyadify/

varamci-patanjali iha parikfitah khyatim upajagmuh//

r-Kavyarolmarpss, Ch, Xt

INTRODUCTION lix

family of those who made songs in Prakrt, Anarigavana

and Sucivana, two ladies, Katyayanika and Cakravakika,

Ma^uraka the forester, Candaka the seller of

beteMeaves, Mandaraka the _jader,

"

Candaka the

gbysician, Sudrsji the artist, Siddhasena the go'dsmith

and jeweller, Govinda the writer, Vfravarmaja , the

painjgr, Kumaradatta the varnisher, Jlmuta the drummer,

Somila and Grahaditya Jhe singers. Kuramnka  

the independent artisan girl, the pipers, Madhukara

and Paravata, Darduraka the teacher of dancing,

Keralika the massage-girl, the dice-player Akhan<Jal#ka,

the dancing-master Tandavika, fhe actor Sikhandaka,

the nunJ3umati, the monk_yiradeva, the dancing-girl

Haramika, the' reciter Jayasena, the saiva Vakraghoija,

the enchanter Karalakesa, and the magician .Cakoraksa,

Being overcome by such an association he went out of

his home for seeing different countries in an irresponsible

manner and after a time returned to his country.

He then describes the atmosphere of Vedic studies and

sacrifices that prevailed among his relations. Their

houses rang always with the sound of Vedic recitations.

People had their forehead besmeared with ashes, their

long hairs were brown like fire. The children^^who

came to see the sacrificial ceremonies, sat on different

s^gs. There were little hollows which were softened

with the flowing soma-juice. The^ards were green

with grass. The signs "of dark deer were lying about

on wKiclT lay the sacrificial cakes and sacrificial rice.

"The nwara paddy were scattered about on the sands.

Hundreds of holy^d[scipies

were bringing the green

ku6a, thesacrificmljvood, qowdung;

the yard was marked

everywhere with the hoofs of cows that supplied

milk for the sacrificial W^|i- Many of the sacrificers

were busy besmearing their kamandalus with

mud. Heaps of branches of fig tree were lying about

ix

for sacrificial pegs. The whole ground was rendered

brown by the sacrificial offerings. The smoke of the

clarified butter had darkened the foliage of trees.

Gradual We have again in Harsacarita the description of

cit/We from splendour and magnificence of the capital ^and^ the

the tillages? court of a Hindu king and the description as to

how he encouraged scholars and poets, artists and

scientists as also the pleasures of a city-life, \ As we

read Kalidasa describing court scenes many centuries

before, we find that the ^court-Jife was not so far

removed by its splendour and majesty from the life

of ordinary people, the citizens, the members of the

hermitage, and the like.j Dillpa ju iisujourney to the

hermitage of Va&stha goes alone with his wife looking

at the village scenes and talking with the rustic* people

on the way. His personal greatness, strength and

vigour of character made such an appearance of his

great personality that though alone he appeared as if he

was in accompaniment of a host of retinue and army.

'There is a naive simplicity in the portrayal of Dillpa

and Du?yanta, of Vikrama and Pusyamitra which

we cannot find in Bana's portrayal. As we move up

to Bhasa, we find that life in general, whether^ in

court^^^outaide1 was more akin to the description

that we find in the Arthasastra, ^yith the difference

that performances of Vedic sacrifices have a greater

prominence in the lives of kings than what we find

in the portrayal of royal lives in Kalidasa or

Bana. } Already in Kalidasa the hermits from the forest

cannot regard the city-life and the court-life with

complacence. Sarngarava and Saradvata think of

the court of Dusyanta as a hall surrounded with fire.

Neither Vikrama nor Dusyanta performs any sacrifice

and when Pusyamitra does it, he does so with a sense

of majesty and greatness. Entirely different is the

INTRODUCTION Ixi

portrayal of the kings of the past age with whom

performances of sacrifices and gifts are almost a normal

routine. Even the great hero, Raghu, leaves up his all

after his conquering career in his sacrifice.

We thus see that as we move along the centuries,

the court-life becomes gradually separated from

the life of the people as a wholep With this

separation new types of characters and professionals

of diverse description began to grow up and the court

atmosphere and the city atmosphere gradually became

alienated from the life of the people as a whole. Yet

the older Vedic life and its ideals, as they became more

and more hazy and dreamy, began to assume almost a

supernatural hold consisting of fear and hope for the

people at large. The influence of the legal literature

with their injunctions and restrictions, became more

and more stringent and more and more stiffened and

inelastic as time went on. (li seems that the people as

a whole tolerated the court-life, but hardly assimilated

it in their blood. \ An artificial division was thus

created and more and more emphasised as we take a

long perspective through the centuries from a position

of an early eminence. With the inrush and settlement

of Islamic supremacy and the practical destruction of

Hindu court-life the breakage became almost complete.

In a climate like that of India, people indeed appreciated

the passionate side of life and even from the time

of the Mauryyas or even earlier than that, the courtesans

had almost an unrestricted importance and the

urban taste often descended into vulgarity. We have

the figure in terra cotta of a dancing girl discovered in

the Mauryya level in Patna, where the girl is wearing

shining apparels all over her body but her prominent

breasts are shown uncovered. /1\Iost of the womanfigures

in ancient art show the bosoms of young women

Ixii INTKObUCTIOfc

in an uncovered manner.) This tallies with the description

of women's breasts in so many of our Sanskrit

erotic verses which are shocking to our modern taste

.^

More than this, we find Sanskrit poets vying with one

another in the description of the most delicate acts of

sex-life illustrating, as it were, the descriptions in the

Kama-sutra. But be it as it may, the normal judgment

of tEe audience had most often a sound inclination

and in order to cater to this taste, we often find that

a drama or a kavya most often had a moral lesson to

impart, though it ran always as an undercurrent. It

is for this reason that stories from the Ramayana, the

Mahabharata and the Puranas played such an imporextenfliveij

tant-part for the formation of plots of Kavyas and

dramas. In decadent times, most of the dramas and

kavyas drew their inspiration from religious mythology.

In and through such religious mythology the poets

could gratify the expression of their erotic sentiments

and could also cater to kindred sentiments among the

audience without the fear of shocking their taste or

appearing irreligious. In Sanskrit and particularly

in Bengali poetry that flourished in the 16th and 17th

centuries we find that erotic sentiments displayed

through the divine personages of Krsna and Radha

became the religious creed of a particular sect of

Vaisnavism. Such expressions of eroticism were unrelated

to marital restrictions and it was supposed that

such dalliance between Krsna and Radha took place in

transcendental bodies to which criticisms from the standpoint

of ordinary mundane life were hot applicable.

They were the demonstrations of love in life divine and

a devotee may enjoy them from an upper sphere of

spirituality with which the carnal being is out of contact.

This idea of transforming eroticism into a religion

had not its beginniag only in the 15th or 16th century

INTRODUCTION

literature of Bengal but it can be traced in the Bhagavata

and other literature as early as the 5th or 6th

century A.D.

It may be pointed out in this connection that sex 8a*fk

v

r

e

it

m

liberty in fields other than marital were allowed in

society and accepted by the legal literature, though not

approved by the higher conscience of the people. The

existence and persistence of niyoga for a long time in

Hindu society shows that even in marital spheres sex

liberty was allowed in a restricted form. The existence

of various kinds of marriages and the legal rights allowed

to children produced in a non-marital manner also

illustrate the contention. In pre-Christian times, the

Gandharva form of marriage was regarded as quite

respectable and a girl of a certain age was given the

right to choose her own husband, if the parents had not

married her within a prescribed age. We find in

Kalidasa that Dusyanta says that tradition goes that

daughters of kings had married according to the

Gandharva custom and that such marriages were

approved by parents. This shows that in Kalidasa's

time at least the Gandharva marriage was going out of

fashion. But in the story of Vasavadatta in Bhasa and

also in Avimaraka, it appears that no exception was taken

to the Gandharva marriage. But for the restriction by

the Privy Council the law of Gandharva marriage still

holds according to Hindu Law. But as early as the

story of Vilhana we find that in spite of the provision

of Hindu Law the Gandharva form of marriage was not

recognised by the society.

But side by side with this liberty of marriage of

earlier times, the rules of Smrfci gradually made marriage

of women more and more binding before the attainment

of puberty. Thus, excepting in the case of nymphs or

daughters of nymphs, or girls of kings,, from older

INTRODUCTION

stories, like that of Gunadhya, themes of free love

between adult men and women are indeed very rare in

Sanskrit dramas. The Malatlmadhava is a pratyrana

or that type of drama where the plot is invented by the

poet. But though the story as a whole is new, elements

of it are mostly found in the Katha-sarit-sagara. In

Sudraka's Mrcchakatika we have a portrayal of love

between the courtesan Vasantasena and Carudatta*.

But yet we have a host of Sanskrit verses which

deal with the love of abhisarikas or those women who

themselves come to the houses of their beloved at night.

In the Kama-sutra also we find that the houses of the

nagaras were visited by the abhisarikas. But there is

hardly any instance, apart from the kathd literature,

wherein any respectable girl has been depicted as

playing the part of ao abhisarika. In the anthologies

and atakas we have almost a superabundance of love

poems which are apparently of a non-marital character.

But these are mostly single 61okas depicting a love

scene, portraying a passion, or a love situation, without

any reference to the sort of persons between whom this

love was carried on.

Mammata makes a distinction between rasa and

rasabhasa (semblance of rasa).

l When a woman has

many lovers or when illicit love is expressed, or when

love is not responded to, or if the expression of love be

with regard to intimate relations of a higher status, such

expression of love is shocking to the audience and is

called semblance of amorous sentiment (rasabhasa).

Thus, some of the best erotic poems have been counted

1 tadabhasd anaucitya-pravartitah Kdvya-prakdta IV. 49.

anaucityarp ca sahfdaya-vyavaharato jfleyarpi yatra te$am anucitamiti dhih.

tacca &fbgare bahu-viQayatvena upanayakadi-gatatvena nayaka-nayikanyataramatravi$

ayatvena guru-jana-gatatvena tiryagadi-gatatvadina ca nanaiva.

Uddyota commentary on the above as quoted in Jhalkikar's edition of Kavya>

prakdfa.

INTRODUCTION Ixv

by many critics as examples of rasabhasa. Saradatanaya

in his Bhava-prakatana of the 12th century

modified this definition to a considerable extent and

regarded that only when a description of love is such

that it creates laughter that it is called rasabhasa.

If we take the general sweep of the growth of

Indian civilisation and culture we find that Hindu

life in India opens with the pretty vast collection

of poems called the. Vedas, which are surcharged with

the impressions of Nature in its beautiful, tender,

terrific and tempestuous aspects produced upon the

extremely sensitive minds of the Indian people. The

Aryans when colonising in India came amongst people

who were either extremely barbaric and uncivilized,

or who, as in the Indus Valley and in the South,

were people who had a civilisation entirely different

from theirs. The Aryans clung to their social order

of the four varnas, to their Vedas and to their

original customs and rights in order to keep their

integrity amongst an alien and barbaric people. Their

original religion consisted of hymns to the Nature gods

as preserved in the Vedas along with certain simple

rites. It is difficult to reconstruct the nature of these

rites as they have become merged in the complexity

of rituals associated with the necessity of the preservation

of fire. The Vedic prose writings evolved by

way of elaborating and systematising these sacrificial

details. But as the Vedic families grew in number and

expanded in different directions in the East and the

South a separate secular life evolved and differentiated

from the original Vedic structure and it gave rise to

various professions as cities began to grow. The

original motive of the early Vedic hymns was religious

worship &nd as such Sanskrit literature has seldom been

able to free itself from the religio-raoral element. But

I-1348B

Growth of

Indian civilisation

from Vedic

literature.

INTRODUCTION

with the expansion of life two other motives differentiated

themselves in an absolutely clear and distinct form.

The Vedic religion had its magical element with reference

to supra-mundane happiness and all through the

development of Indian religion and philosophy it had

never been able to get rid of this magical element. The

philosophy of the Vedanta, the Buddhism, the Yoga and

the Samkhya have always to depend upon the concept of

magic and illusion as the fundamental pivot of the

superstructure of these philosophies.

Natural But with regard to the mundane affairs, the Indians

India. have always been absolutely definite, concrete and

realistic in their conceptions. There is no mysticism

whatsoever in Sanskrit poetry. They are all based upon

concrete and tangible emotions. The inexhaustible

wealth of natural phenomena in a country of tropical

climate girdled by great mountain ranges, deep and

extensive oceans interspersed with long and wide rivers ;

where the seasons appear in so marked a manner,

with glorious colours of the sky, the glowing sunshine,

silvery moonbeams, the pouring sonorous rains, the

sweet and green verdure, the blossoming fragrant

flowers of all hues and beauty ; where birds with brilliant

feathers and sweet chirpings and cooings and

animals of all description, the beautiful antelopes, the

fleet steed, the majestic elephants and the royal lions

are abundant in the forests ; all these captivated the

sensitive minds of the Indians as much as the gazelieeyed

damsels, with their ruddy cheeks and lips, the

flowing raven hair, and healthy physique of emphatic

outlines of figure.

Thecbarac- /Q the other hand, the Indian mind is subtle, deep,

Indian tem- logical to the extreme, imaginative and analytic.\ The

men.

jn(jjan m\n^ has as much appeal to passion and

emotion, desire for enjoying the world at its best as for

iNTfeODtJCTION Ixvii

making provision for future post-mortem welfare which

is as real to it as the world here on earth. At the

same time, the Indian mind takes infinite delight in

carrying on logical thoughts to their consistent conclusions

in analysing, classifying, naming and arranging

the data in any sphere of experience. Again, the

climatic conditions in which the Aryans in India

came to live were such that their very existence in life

often depended upon favourable showers which alone

could render their corn-fields fertile. They had thus to

depend upon fate and Providence as the fundamental

datum for their well-being. Yet they were fully conscious

and alive to the efficiency of human will and action

Human beings are not mere playthings in the hands o

Nature. (The Indians in the history of their civilisation

understood the value of human life and human existence

as the end and purpose of the whole of natural

existence. \ They therefore somehow believed that fate

or destiny, howsoever unknown and unknowable may

be its nature, can in reality be influenced and modified

by our actions. Herein they fell back on faith which

was an indispensable postulate for proper action. This

world is for our enjoyment and so we have the

world beyond the present, after death, which must be

for our happy existence and it is somehow given to

us that whatever may be the obstacles in the way of

destiny or fate or in the way of the vagaries of natural

phenomena, it lies in our power, which is itself a faith,

that we can modify its nature and method of working

in our favour. Early in the history of human civilisation

they discovered the existence of a supreme power which

not only controlled the phenomena of the external world

but also all the biological phenomena of life, the functions

of our cognitive and conative senses. They began

to search for the secret of this power in the external

Ixviii

The genius

and temperament

of

the race

shows itself

in the literature.

world and being disappointed therein, turned inwardly

to their own minds and discovered that the secret of

.this great power that ruled the life, the universe and

the man, was nothing but the self. Thus, side by

side with the development of the magical literature

which elaborated the sacrificial doctrine that sought

the source of all power outside man in his ritual

dealings with the external world, we have the secret

instructions of the Upanisads which reveal to us

the ultimate philosophy and secret of human life and

its place in Nature.

Literature is but a mode of the self-expression of the*

inner man. The external man is visible, the internal

man is invisible. We can look at the articles of civilisation,

the house, the furniture, the dress, the ordinary

marks of refinement or rusticity, energy or constraint,

customs and manners, intelligence, inventiveness and

coolness, but all these are but different roads, the visible

avenues that lead us to the invisible internal man as

these are but his ways of expression. The internal man

is but an organic unity of emotive and conative impulses

which unroll themselves in accordance with the influences,

physical and social, in which the person has to

evolve. The gifts of a particular race are its own.

The peculiarities of the Greek imagination that gave us

the twin sister of the Antigone of Sophocles and the

goddesses of Phidias are the peculiar expressions of the

Greek mind. As there are differences in anatomical

structure between the various species of animal and plant

lives, so there are essential anatomical peculiarities in

the structure of the different racial minds. If we take

the life of a man like Cromwell as depicted by Carlyle

, we may discover a secret organic unity within him and

an inner soul which would explain all his springs of

action. We find how a soul is working with the

IxiX

troubling reverses of a melancholic imagination but with

a tendency and temperament and instinct which is

English to its very core, unintelligible to those who

have not studied the peculiar English, climate and

still more the peculiarities of the genius of the English

race. In and through his letters and mutilated speeches

one may have the panorama of pictures that led

him from his farm and team to the general's tent

and the Protector's throne ; all through the changes

and vicfssitudes of life, in his freaks of conscience

and political conclusions, the entire machinery of

bis/ mind becomes directly visible ; and all through

his individuality we mark the peculiarities of the

insulated Englishman. In understanding the peculiar

transformation of the English life in the middle ages

we can perceive how from under the meaningless

theological discussions and monotonous sermons, how

from underneath the beating of living hearts, the convulsions

and apathies of monastic life, the unpredicted

genius of English life re-asserts itself in wavy turmoils

and how the inroads of surrounding worldliness and its

struggles with the monastic ideal, the true appreciation

of civic life in its exactness, balance and strength,

reveals itself, and how the iron determination of the

race shows itself through its constant struggle with

the neighbouring states. How this English genius is

well-contrasted with that of France, cultured and refined

with her drawing-room manners and untiring

analysis of character and actions, her keen irony and

ready wit, her finesse so practised in. the discrimination

of shades of thought, her turbulent and uncontrollable

emotions, can be judged by any one who would care to

study the representative literature of the two countries.

The idea of a supernatural world, of God and His

relation to man is indeed common to most civilised

1XX INTRODUCTION

human races, but it is the peculiar mode and appre*

hension distinctly unique in itself that has in one case

resulted in the architecture of the churches being thrown

down the old status, destruction of pictures and

ornaments, curtailment of ceremonies, shutting up of

worshippers in high pews and the like and in the other

case in the erection of temple-structures, installation of

images, abolition of windows, darkening of the inner

chamber, and at the same time in the provision for

individual worship for every person according to his

needs and also in the provision for conceiving God

as formless, graspable only in thought and devotion

and purity of character. While truth is regarded

as one in the European countries, the Indians have

always regarded the reality of grades and aspects of

truth. It is for this reason that evolution in Europe

has always taken place by destroying or modifying the

old, ushering in the new with a total disregard of the

old except in so far as its elements lay hidden in

the structure of the new. Indian genius, however, felt

no contradiction between the old and the new. The

development of Indian thought therefore is the ushering

in of the new without the annulment of the old. While

the development of the Upanisadic monism may ,on

one hand be regarded as the annulment of the pluralism

of Vedic sacrifices and rituals yet the latter persisted

side by side with the former through centuries. The

Indian always found such relations between the old and

the new that it regarded every aspect of the evolution

as true with reference to human history and the history

of truth in evolution. The European who does not

understand this peculiarity of the Indian genius, must

necessarily fail to have a proper perspective of the evolution

and development of Indian thought. The Indians

do not feel any contradiction in taking to Vedic forms

INTRODUCTION Ixxi

of rituals at the time of marriage and have the images

of Siva, Visnu and Sakti installed in his family temples

and at the same time regard the Brahman as the ultimate

truth as formless, causeless and yet the cause of all.

Many European scholars have discussed the question

of the secular or religious origin of dancing and

dramatic plays. They have failed to notice that the

origin is both religious and secular and in the same

performance even now both religious and secular value

is attached. The Vaisnava lyrics are tested from a

literary point of view as excellent poems of love and at

the same time they are enjoyed with deep religious

fervour developing into religious frenzy and unconscious

states of emotional depth.

When the Aryan settlers entered India in successive

hordes and found themselves amongst the aborigines of

India, the most important concern with them was the

maintenance of the integrity of their race and culture.

They were, however, somewhat humane in their temperament

and could not think of destroying absolutely

those of the aborigines who submitted to them against

the hostile ones, the Raksasas and the Asuras. They

carried on an interminable war against the hostile ones

until at least most of them were destroyed. It is not

impossible that the civilization of the people of the Indus

Valley which is almost universally admitted as being

pre-Vedic was so destroyed. At the same time it would

be unwise to think that even these hostile people had

not infiltrated some of their customs and religious

beliefs and other elements of their civilisation. The

Siva cult and the Yoga cult may be pointed out as

specific instances of such infiltration. A close analysis

and comparison of the elements of earliest Vedic civilisation

may in course of time reveal many more instances

of mutual contact and indebtedness,

Religious

and secular

ideas wedde

together.

Contact

with alien

races.

INTRODUCTION

The idea But along with the successful war and occupation of

of dnarma as to

.

social integ- the country and gradual extension of the civilisation

towards the East along the course of the Ganges and towards

the South beyond the Vindhyas, unobstructed at

the time by any foreign invasions, the principal problem

before these Aryans was to solve the question of social

synthesis consistent with absolute social integrity.

They felt that without such a social integrity their

unity and fraternity would be lost and their influence

and existence would be destroyed under the strange

influence of an alien land. They therefore fell back for

the preservation of their old customs and manners to

the religious practices as preserved in the oral traditions

of the Vedas and the subsequent Vedic literature as it

developed gradually in course of time. Their chief

motive urge was social preservation and social continuity

and maintenance of its integrity and solidarity,

which the term ' dharma '

etymologically means.

Such a problem need not arise in any appreciable manner

in the case of those Aryans who had migrated to the

Western countries for where -the Aryans were in large

multitude they destroyed the original aborigines and

the inter-marriage between the various hordes of Aryans

did not or could not lead to any disruption of their

social integrity as Aryans. In Iran the Aryans preserved

their integrity and thus their civilization till the advent

of the Moslems and when they could not withstand the

impact of Islamic invasion they largely lost their

integrity and their civilisation merged with the

civilisation of the Semitic people. But even there

the best literature and philosophy of the Islamic

world had been produced by the Persian converts.

No other nation has been known to produce literature

and philosophy of a standard higher than that of

the Aryans,

INTRODUCTION Ixxiii

As the preservation of the Vedic culture was thus

regarded upon as the only means of social preservation

and the maintenance of social integrity, and was thus

looked upon as dharma, the idea of dharma as conformity

to old customs and manners of Vedic times

became the main spring not only of the evolution of the

legal literature, the Purdnas and the Dharma-dastras,

but it became ingrained in the society as the fundamental

and indispensable structure and scheme of all its

cultural products. Nothing could be allowed to prevail

that would come into conflict with the dharma.

This dharma again was based upon a literature and

pre-eminently upon a poetic literature, viz., the Vedas.

Literature thus in one sense as a traditional storehouse

of past customs and manners, was the source of

dharma and it was dharma also that was in some

sense at least the dominant influence or guide in the

production and development of later literature. Practices

of a secular nature that prevailed in old Vedic times

became associated on the one hand with dharma and on

the other they continued to have a development on

secular lines such as would not be inconsistent with the

practice of dharma.

I shall give one instance. In the Rgveda I. 92.4

there is a passage which describes the dancing of a

courtesan (nrtu) adhi pe$amsi vapate nrtur-iva-pornute

vaksa ticchreva varjaham. Sayana in commenting on the

verse explains it as follows : nrtur-iva nartayantlyosidiva

pe&arrisi, rupa-namaitat sarvair-darfaniyani rupani

usa adhivapate svatmani adhikam dhdrayati vaksah

svaklyam urahpradefam pornute anacchaditam karoti

i.e., the Usas is like a dancing girl who carefully clothes

herself in her best raiments but keeps her bosom

uncovered in order to attract the eyes of all. Now,

a terracotta figure of a dancing girl with beautiful and

J 1843B

The concept

of

dharma

depends on

the Vedas.

Continuity

of even the

semi-secular

practices

through the

ages.

Ixxiv INTRODUCTION

Dharma,

the guiding

principle of

Hindu culture.

Secular

utlook and

be doctrine

f trivarga.

sparkling raiments over all her body but with bare bosoms

has been discovered in the Maurya level of excavation

near the site of the present Patna College. (See

A. Banerjee-Sastri's article, I. H. Q., 1933, p. 155.)

Now, we find that exactly the same kind of dancing girl

that used to dance before the audience in Vedic times

appears in the same kind of dress keeping her bosoms

bare and her body clothed in raiments before the

audience in Maurya times. The continuity of the

practice of the same kind of dancing with same kind of

clothes for more than thousand years, cannot but appear

to us surprising. Exactly the same sort of dancing of

the Devadasis may even now be noticed in many of the

temples of the South.

We thus notice a strange continuity of secular

practices and a strange association of these with religious

practices which has led many scholars to

conceive the development of Indian drama from religious

sources. The point, however, that we wish to lay stress

upon here, is that the motive ot dharma being essentially

of the nature of social preservation and maintenance

of social solidarity, had never been lost sight of in the

development of Indian literature. The importance of

this would be realised when we consider that even

to-day the indispensable definition of being a Hindu

consists in his participation in and loyalty to the Vedic

practices.

If we closely review the tendencies of the Vedic

culture', we find that in addition to the adherence to

certain Vedic customs and manners and the doctriues

of sacrifices, the Vedic people were anxious like other

Aryan people to provide for wealth and enjoyment in

this life &nd for making provision for happiness hereafter.

As a matter of fact, most of their prayers are

for mundane advantages, prosperity and happiness.

INTRODUCTION 1XXV

Even a cursory reading of the Atharva Veda will show

that these Vedic people would offer prayers even for the

meanest advantage and pleasure of vulgar types. The

idea of dharma was later on supplemented with high

moral ideals, self-control, control of passions and the

like? culminating in the desire for liberation, but the

idea of sense-enjoyment and the accumulation of articles

of prosperity, i.e., kama and artha, remained all through

the centuries more or less unaffected. The Hindu

culture thus has been motivated principally by four

impulses, the impulse of dharma, artha, kama and

moksa. Of these the moksa literature consists primarily

of the Upaniads, the works of the different philosophical

systems, the religio-philosopbical literature of the

Tantras and the like. The impulse of dharma is to be

found in the sacrificial literature and its accessories, the

Vedahgas. The motive of artha forms the content of the

Vartta literature which is now mostly extinct. The

motive of kama in its special application to sexology

has led to the development of a fairly large literature

on the Kama-tastra. The dharma, artha and kama

together are called the trivarga. The literature of

Political Science, the Kavya and the like are supposed

to have been motivated by the three fundamental

emotive tendencies, dharma, artha and kama. Of these

the huge stotra literature is motivated by the impulse of

dharma while the other forms of literature, viz., Epic

Kavyas, Lyric Kavyas, the Dramas, have been motivated

by three principles, dharma, artha and kama and

so also is the katha literature and the niti literature.

We have said above that the genius of the Indian

mind is at once extremely analytic and imaginative.

For this reason we have a fairly large literature of

Natya-tastra and Alamkara-astra, which not only analyses

in Jdetail the various elements that constitute the

1XXVI INTRODUCTION

complex act of dancing, acting and music, but which

has also tried to review in detail the structure and

technique of the Drama as well as the principles underlying

the display of sentiments through the histrionic

art as well as poetry in general.

Bharata in describing natya has characterised it

as productive of dharma and fame, as conducive to long

life and increasing the understanding and as instructive

to people in general. It is supposed to be the conjoint

result of all knowledge, wisdom, art and craft. Its

purpose is to produce a sort of imitation of human events

and character. It produces satisfaction and rest for the

suffering, the fatigued, the wretched and it consoles

those that are troubled by grief.

l Dramatic art is thus

regarded by Bharata, the author of the earliest work

on the science of dramaturgy now available, as the art

of reproduction by imitation. Consistently with it,

Dhananjaya has defined natya as the reproduction of a

situation and as the different characters are given visible

form (rupa) in the person of the actors, a drama is called

a rupaha. Among the commentators of Bharata there

are learned discussions regarding the sense in which a

dramatic performance may be regarded as a reproduction

in the sense of imitation and Abhinavagupta, the most

penetrating and distinguished critic of art, strongly

objects to the idea of imitation. He holds that through

music, dancing, acting and the dress, dyeing, and the

stage environment, the dramatic performance is entirely

1 nana-bhavopasampannaip nana-vasthanta<ratmakam \

hka-vrttdnukaranaw na}yametanmaya kftam II

dutykhartanam $ramartanarp $okartanarp tapasvinam \

viAranti-jananam kale natyametad bhavifyati II

dharmyatp yatasyamayuqyarp hitarp buddhi-vivatdhanam \

loko-padeta-jananarp natyametad bhavijyati II

no taj*jfianarp na tac-chilpaip na sa vidya na sa kala \

n&sau yogo na tat karma n&tye'smin yanna drSyate II

Bharata's Natyatastra.

INTRODUCTION IxXVJl

a new art for the production of aesthetic joy and it is

not imitation in any ordinary sense of the term.

Abhinavagupta says that imitation of other's movements

would produce the ludicrous and imitation of

other's feelings and emotions is impossible. The

influence of music, the sight of the other actors and the

stage environment produce in the actor an influence by

which he forgets his spatio-temporal, actual or local

personality and thus transfigures himself into his

dramatic personality and a new world consistent with

the spirit of the dramatic situation appears in him and

his performance produces in a similar manner a new

influence, and a new type of communication emerges out

of him and enlivens the mind of the audience. But we dramatic

shall not enter here into any details of the nature of arfc<

art-communication. We are only interested to point

out that dramatic performance becomes an art when

recitation in the form of dialogues associated with

suitable gestures, postures, movement, dancing, dress

and music, succeeds in giving expressions to sentiments

and passions so as to rouse similar sentiments in the

minds of the audience. Thus it becomes a dramatic

art. Thus Natyadarpana says : natakamiti natayati

vicitram ranjanat praveena sabhyanam hrdayam nartayati

iti natakam. 1 In this sense a dramatic performance

should be distinguished from mere recitation

which is not so effective. We have elsewhere in the

editorial notes tried to show the manner in which the

dramatic performance evolved through a combination of

recitation, dancing and acting and the fact that there

were at least in the 2nd century B.C. and in the time

of the Mauryyas, schools and teachers for the training

of the dramatic art.

1 yadyapi kathadayo'pi srotfhfdayatn natayanti tathapiahk opayadinavp

vaicitryahetunamabhavdt na tathd ratlfakatvam iti na te nfyakam I

Ixxviii INTRODUCTION

Keligious

value of

dramatic

performances.

The episode

of King

Kulasekhara,

We have said above that the kacyas and the natya

contributed to dharma, artha and kama and Bharata's

specification of the object of dramatic performance also

confirms the view. Not only is natya called a Veda for

universal instruction and the author of the Natyaastra

called a muni (saint) but dramatic performances were

generally held in times of religious festivities and when

they consisted in the reproduction of the great characters

of the Rdmayana and the Mahabharata, they had not

only an educative value in rousing noble passions but

they were regarded also as productive of merit, both for

those who performed them and for those who listened to

and witnessed them. Even to-day the Kamacarita is

played in a peculiar manner in the United Provinces in

India, where the players as well as the audience are

surcharged with a religious emotion. Again, when a

kathaka or a reciter would recite, say, the episode of

the marriage of Sita, religiously-minded persons would

have the impression in their minds that the marriage of

Sita was actually taking place before them and those

who can afford to do it, would willingly offer golden

ornaments and jewels as articles of dowry for Sita,

which of course, are received by the Brahmin reciting

as his fees. Even those who cannot afford to pay

much would offer whatever they can, fruits and flowers,

coins, grains, etc., on such an occasion. Here, again,

we must note the imaginative character of the Indians,

who can very easily lose their personality when they

listen to the imaginary description of deeds that are

dear to their hearts. I do not know if any other people

in the world have such imaginary susceptibilities.

In the Prapannamrta (Chap. 86) by Anantacarya

there is a curious episode of King Kula^ekhara who was

a Tamil king living in the 12th century, who was very

fond of listening to the recitation of the Ramayana.

INTRODUCTION Ixxix

When he listened to a verse to 'the effect that Kama was

alone to meet the fourteen thousand demons, he became

so much excited with the affair that he immediately

armed himself from head to foot and was on the point of

marching with all his arrny to meet Havana as an ally

of Rama.1 Such imaginative predilection of the Indian

people could easily be utilised by the poets by dealing

with characters of the Rdmdyana and the Mahabharata

and the Puranas as a means of rousing the religious

and moral interest of the audience and thereby contributing

to dharma. We know that the Rdmdyana,

which is definitely called a Mvya and the Mahabharata 9

which is called an itihdsa, are regarded as invested

with the holiness of the Vedas. Thus, there was an

easy bridge between what may be called dharma and

what may be called plain literature. We can also

assume that the Indian people in general were as a rule

religi'ously-minded and cared for that type of literature

which initiated them to religious principles and

strengthened their faith in a pleasurable manner

through amusements. This may be a very important

reason why most of the plots of Indian dramas and

kdvyas were taken from the Rdmdyana, the Mahabharata

and the Puranas. There are indeed some plots

derived either directly or indirectly from Gunadhya or

the floating materials used by him or from similar other

sources. In other cases, the lives of great kings or

saints also form the subject-matter of the kdvyas and

the dramas and in a few cases historical events have

tarn imam Slokam, bhaktiman kulatekharah |

caturdata-sahasrdni raksasam bhlma-kannanam \

ekatca rdmo dharmdtmd katharfl'yuddharp, bhaviqyati \

asahisnustato'dharmayuddharp 6ighram> skhalad-gatih \

dhanurvanaip samdddya khajgarii carma ca viryyavan

caturangabalopeto janasthdnam- kftatvarah I

pratasthe tatk$ane tasya saMyarthavp, haripriyah II

Religious

temperament

of the

people often

explains the

choice of

plots.

Ixxx INTRODUCTION

Idealistic

or religious

motives

sometimes

inspired the

poets in

framing the

plots.

also been made the subject-matter of literature. Side

by side with these historical kdvyas we have many

prafasti-kavyas in inscriptions which are of excellent

poetic merit, such as, the pratastis by Kavigvara

Rama (700-800 A.D.) and the LalitaSuradeva of the

9th century A.D. , &c.

Not only in the choice of subjects but also in the

framing of the plots, poets were sometimes guided by

idealistic motives. Thus Kalidasa described the physical

beauty of Parvati to its perfection in the Kumarasambhava,

but in the matter of the fruition of her love

for a great yogin like Siva, the fragile physical beauty

was not deemed enough. She must go through the

hardest penance in order that she may make her love

fruitful. It is only the spiritual glory and spiritual attainment

of spiritual beauty, beauty attained by self-control

and the attainment of moral height that can become

permanent and eternal. 1 In the case of the love of

Sakuntala, who in the intensity of her love had forgotten

her duties in the hermitage, she had to suffer cruel

rebuff and practical banishment in sorrow. The lusty

love of tTrva^I was punished by her being turned into a

creeper. Thus, the poet Kalidasa, when describing the

passion of love, is always careful to demonstrate that

hama should not in its intensity transgress the

dharma. But the same poet was not in the least

perturbed in giving us glowing experiences of conjugal

satisfaction that took place between Siva and Parvati, or

conjugal yearning in the case of the Yaksa for his

1

iye$a sd kartumabandhya-rupatam samddhimdsthdya tapobhirdtmanah

\

avdpyate vd kathamanyathadvayvm tathdvidham prema patisca tddrtah\\

Kumarasambhava 9 Canto V, 2.

INTRODUCTION Ixxxi

The ideal

beloved spouse. Kama in itself is not undesirable or

bad, but when it transgresses dharma it becomes

wicked. The kama of King Agnivarna in RaghuvaniSa

led to his destruction. It is for this reason

that the Sanskrit poets of India instead of portraying

mere characters or giving expression to ardent

love or other sentiments as such, or devising their

plots at random from their everyday sphere of experiences,

had to adopt a particular scheme, a framework

of types, within which limitations they had to

give vent to their poetic effusions. The scheme or

the frame should be such that the .fundamental principle

that dharma, artha and kama should not transgress

marga'

one another leading to disastrous results, may

be observed. But here again, with the exception

of Bhasa, most of the writers had conformed to the

poetic convention that no drama should end with

disastrous consequences. Here again, a drama as an

work of art was regarded as a whole, as a cycle complete

in itself. A drama ending with disastrous

consequences would be a mutilated piece from the

world of our experience it would merely mean that

the cycle has not been completed, or that it is only

a partial view and not the whole. Inspite of the

charge of pessimism often laid at the door of Indian

thought by the Westerners, it should be noted that

the Indians who admit, sorrow as a partial aspect of

things would regard it as negative in the conception

of the whole or totality. A drama in its totality must

aim at some realisation. It is for this reason that the

fully developed drama, viz., a nataka, should have in it

five critical situations called the mukha, pratimukha,

Ijarbha, vimarta and nirvahana. Thus in the drama

Ratnavali, the love of Sagarika at seeing the king

Udayana at first sight, introduces the main theme

Drama

an epitome

of life.

The five

critical

situations.

INTRODUCTION

of the drama which would culminate in the end in

the happy union of tldayana with Sagarika. This

is the seed, as it were, which would fructify in

the whole drama. This seed of first love was somewhat

obscured by the artifice of the king and other

events that followed, but its shoot is again manifested

when in Act II through the arrangement of Susangata

king Udayana and Sagarika met each other. This is

called the pratimukha-sandhi. The garbha-sandhi is

that in which there are obstructive events which lead

the reader to doubt whether the hopes raised would be

fulfilled or not. Thus, when in Sakuntala we have

the curse of Durvasa and later on, the repulsion of

Sakuntala by the king in the Court, and her disappearance,

we have the garbha-sandhi. Later on,

when at the sight of the ring the king is reminded of

Sakuntala, we have the vimarta-sandhi, or inspite of

the obstruction and doubt, the reader is again

encouraged to hope and is partially satisfied with regard

to the expected union. The last nirvahana-sandhi is

that in which the king Dusyanta becomes again united

with Sakuntala in Act VII. Thus the five critical

situations constitute a unity, an epitome of our life as

a whole. Life has its crises, its difficulties and

disappointments, but we have always to be hopeful

regarding the final fulfilment. The drama is thus the

reflection of life as a whole from the Indian point of

view and contains its own philosophy. The critics,

however, recommend further divisions of each of the

critical stages into which we need not enter. What

is important to note here is the general review of

life.

of Drama has several forms, viz., nataka, prakarana?

nfitifefl, prakarani, vyayoga, samavakftra, bhclna,

dttna, utsrtikahka, lhamrga, vlthi and prahasana. The

INTRODUCTION Ixxxiii

ptakarana deals with the plot consisting of the

characters of ordinary people, such as the minister,

Brahmin, merchant and the like and the plot generally

is the poet's own invention, or taken from historical

episodes. Thus Malatlmadhava is a prakarana. The

heroine may either be a wife or a courtesan. In Mrcchakatika

we have a courtesan as a heroine and in Malatlmadhava

a wife. The other characters belong also

to the sphere of common people. Among the women

characters we have the procuresses and other common

women. In a prakarana there are generally troublous

events and the principal hero is of a patient and

peaceful temperament (dhiratanta) . The natika is

a mixture of nataka and prakarana. The principal

sentiment is generally love and the hero is generally

of a soft and amorous temperament. It generally

deals with the characters of kings. The hero king

is always afraid of the queen in carrying on his amorous

adventures. There are more heroines than heroes.

It may be of one, two, three or four Acts. A bhana

portrays the character of a knave or rogue (dhurta),

wherein only one person acts in imaginary dialogues,

i.e., behaving as if the actor was responding to the

question or speech of another and it consists only of

one Act and it may include dancing as v^ll. Though

there is but only one actor, he carries on dialogues

with imaginary persons not present on the stage. It

may also include singing. Sometimes one may sit and

recite with gestures. It generally portrays the amorous

sentiment and sometimes heroism, The prahasana

consists in portraying the sentiment of the ludicrous

generally at the expense of the religious sects ; the

actors and actresses are generally courtesans and their

associates and the members of the sects at whose

expense the fun is being enjoyed. It generally consists

INTRODUCTION

of one Act. A dima portrays the behaviours and

characters of ghosts and ghostly beings, Gandharvas,

Yakas and Baksasas. It generally portrays the sentiment

of anger and that of the loathsome and disgusting

and treats of dreadful things like the eclipse, the

thunder and the comet. It generally consists of four

Acts and has four critical situations. As examples of

this, one may refer to the Tripuradaha, Vrtroddharana

and Tdrakoddharana . A vyayoga has for its hero either

gods or kings and has but few actors, three, four or

five, but not exceeding ten. The two critical situations,

garbha and vimar$a are absent. It describes

generally deeds of violence and fighting, but the

fighting is not for the sake of any woman. It generally

deals with the happenings of one particular day. A

samavakara deals with legendary episodes of the conflict

between the gods and demons. It generally deals

with the sentiment of heroism and generally consists

of three Acts of three different times. It portrays siege

of cities or battles or stormy destructions or destructions

through fire. The Samudramanthana by Vatsaraja is

a good illustration of samavakara. A mthi consists

of one Act, like the Vakulavithi. It generally portrays

the sentiment of love and is sometimes accompanied

with dancing and amorous gestures and generally there

is one or two actors. The utsrstikdhka deals with

a known legend or a fairy tale and portrays cruel deeds

and battles. Many young women are introduced as

weeping and sorrowing. Though full' of dreadful

events, it would end in peace. Generally it contains

three Acts. Actual killing should not be shown on the

stage though sometimes violation of this rule is seen,

as in the utsrstikanka called the Nagananda, where

Jimiitavahana dies on the stage. An lhamrga portrays

fighting for the sake of women and the hero may be

INTRODUCTION ixxxv

godly or human and there may be great fights for the

possession of heavenly nymphs. There are generally

four Acts and the plot is derived from well-known stories

modified by the dramatist.

A review of these various forms of dramatic performance

sheds some new light upon the problem of the

evolution of the drama. Of these various forms of the

drama it is only the ndtaka and the prakarana that

may be regarded as full-fledged dramas. Of these two,

again, the ndtaka should be based upon a well-known

story and the hero, who is generally a king, should be

possessed of all kingly qualities. Though the story should

be derived only from legends, yet whatever may be improper

or undesirable should be left out. There should

be many characters in it and there should be the

five sandhis and a proper balance between the various

Acts. The sentiment to be portrayed should be either

heroic or amorous and nothing that may be shocking,

dreadful or shameful should be shown on the stage.

It should consist of at least five Acts and it should not

have more than ten Acts and each Act should contain

the event of one day or half a day. The Vikramorvasl

is a five-Act drama, the Rdmdbhyudayaa, six-Act drama,

the Sakuntala a seven-Act drama, the Nalavikrama an

eight- Act drama, the Deviparinaya a nine-Act drama and

the Bdlardmdyana a ten-Act drama. The ndtaka form

of drama is regarded as the best and it is supposed to

contribute todfearma, artfeaand kdma inconsistency with

each other. 1 The prakarana resembles the ndtaka, only

ato hi nfyakasya'sya pr&thamyarp parikalpitam I

wafj/o-fledan* vidhayadavwin&ha pit&mahalj, I

dharmadi-sadhanavp natyarp, sarva-duhkhd-panodanam I

dsevadhvam tadrsayas tasyotthanam iu nafakam I

divya-manufa-saipyogo yatrdhkairavidfyakaih II

BhAvapraltaiana of Sarsdatanaya VIII, pp. 287.238.

Om Tat Sat
                                                        
(Continued...) 

(My humble salutations to Sreeman S N Dasgupta ji and Sreeman S K De ji for the collection)