महावीरचरितम् (महाकवि भवभूति - वीररस-प्रधान रामकथा नाटक सम्पूर्ण ७ अङ्क सटीक)

Introduction [lxxiv
Mālatī-Mādhava Bhavabhūti is, for the first time, truly creating character,
and developing it by making it react upon its environment. This will be
evident if we compare Mālyavant with Kāmandakī, Sītā with Mālatī.
Mālyavant, the diplomat of the Mahāvīra-charita, is purely an academic
figure. He chops logic rather too freely, and shows a preternatural
insight as to the future success or failure of his schemes. There is no
feeling in his strategy, and his very lamentations in act vi seem to be
'made to order'. Contrast with him Kāmandakī, who plays a similar rôle
in the Mālatī-Mādhava. In her we find a genuine old lady, shrewd and
resourceful, and full of learning and devotion and affection (see especially
act vi, end), although one often wishes that her knowledge had not been so
versatile.¹
Compare again Sītā, as she is depicted in the Mahāvīra-charita, with the
Mālatī of this play. Sītā, the moment she sees Rāma, feels a striking
partiality for him, just as Sītā's sister feels for Rāma's brother. All seems
to be pre-arranged: a sort of pre-natal relation, a falling in love at first
sight reduced to a wooden mechanism. The same is true of the passage of
love and tenderness in the second act of the Mahāvīra-charita, where Sītā
seems, in a few minutes, to grow from a demure bride into a matron of
phenomenal maturity of thought and sentiment. How different from her
is Mālatī—tossed in the conflict between her love (intense but never obtru-
sive) for Mādhava and her duty of submission to her parents' wishes, a duty
to which, in spite of all the artful machinations of Kāmandakī (§ 33, B)
and even after the incident in the temple of Karālā (§ 33, F), she holds
firmly, so that she is ready rather to commit suicide (cp. M. M. ii. 2, vi. 8¹⁻⁵)
than do anything unworthy of a modest, well-bred girl! The same traits of
her character are again brought out in that admirable love-scene² between
Mādhava and Mālatī in the beginning of act viii.
Among other merits of the Mālatī-Mādhava we may mention that the
language—particularly of the three or four best scenes in the play—is
extremely good, and we also find some genuinely poetic imagery and
feeling. The description of the cremation-ground at night (act v) and of
the forest scenery (act ix) are some of the best that the poet ever wrote,
although they may here and there seem to be overdrawn and out of place
¹ She had studied the Kāma-śāstra, and, what
is more, she liked to make a display of
her learning; or rather it is Bhavabhūti
who speaks through her and Lavaṅgikā
and Madayantikā. We will return to this
point presently.
² It does not seem to have been sufficiently
realized that Bhavabhūti is in this
scene following very closely the instruc-
tions in Kāma-sūtra, iii. 2, even to such
details as Mālatī's reply (nāhaṁ kiṁ
pi jānāmi: viii. 4¹³) and her earlier
gestures.