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

Introduction. [lxxviii
in The Winter's Tale it is a much grosser insult and far too unkind
a treatment which Hermione receives, and yet she is reconciled to her
husband on the evidence of hearsay reports of Paulina, and possibly
his expressions of remorse in the statue-scene. Apparently, Bhavabhūti
was not satisfied with such inadequate motivation: he was not content
to bring somehow the estranged pair together and then leave them to
settle their causes of dispute later—amicably or otherwise. He felt that
a reunion, to be perfect, must first be a reunion of hearts; and this was
the psychological problem which he deliberately proposed to himself in
this play, especially in the first three acts. The complicated chain of
events leading to the actual reunion and the recognition of the princes
forms the burden of the last four acts.
40. Technical perfection of the opening act of the Uttara-Rāma-
charita.—Nothing can show more clearly the advance which Bhavabhūti
had made in his technique than a careful study of the first act of the
Uttara-Rāma-charita in relation to its significance for the final dénouement.
This is the act in which Rāma abandons Sītā. The prologue has already
informed us (i. 6) of the circulation of a rumour which, when it reaches
Rāma, makes him decide upon the abandonment of his wife. Before the
rumour actually reaches him, however, it was necessary for the poet to
make clear to the audience several essential points. (1) That Rāma
himself would put no faith in the rumour; this is effected by U. R. C.
i. 12⁸–i. 14. Lakshmaṇa might just as well have said that the pictures
ended with ‘our return from Laṅkā’, or ‘our meeting with Bharata in
Nandigrāma’; but he (unintentionally) happens to mention Sītā’s fire-
ordeal, and that gives the poet his chance. (2) That in nevertheless
abandoning his wife on the basis of this false rumour, Rāma was obeying
the higher call of what he owed as a king to his subjects. A king and his
affairs must be above even the faintest possibility of suspicion. This stern
conception of duty, and the readiness to sacrifice everything for it, is
illustrated not only by i. 12 or i. 41, 42, 44, but even in the very first
speech that Rāma makes (i. 7⁴–i. 8). We here get the first distant echoes,
as it were, of a storm that is brewing. (3) That Sītā would understand
Rāma’s higher motive, and would have gone herself voluntarily into exile
if necessary (i. 12¹). What Sītā did resent was not that she was abandoned,
but that she was abandoned in so heartless a fashion (i. 49) without her
having the faintest inkling of whither she was being led and why.
symbolically this difference in atmo-
sphere.
It is for a similar purpose that Bhavabhūti
has placed the great reconciliation scene
of U. R. C. act iii in the Pañchavaṭī,
‘every spot in which, unto those manifold
expressions of our unreserved endear-
ments, can bear testimony.’