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

HARVARD ORIENTAL SERIES
EDITED
WITH THE COÖPERATION OF VARIOUS SCHOLARS
BY
CHARLES ROCKWELL LANMAN
PROFESSOR AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY OF
BENGAL, THE SOCIÉTÉ ASIATIQUE, THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY (LONDON), AND
THE DEUTSCHE MORGENLÄNDISCHE GESELLSCHAFT; CORRESPONDING
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF SCIENCES AT GÖTTINGEN, THE
IMPERIAL ACADEMY OF RUSSIA, AND THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE
Volume Twenty-one
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Harvard University Press
1915

RAMA'S LATER HISTORY
OR
UTTARA-RAMA-CHARITA
AN ANCIENT HINDU DRAMA BY BHAVABHUTI
CRITICALLY EDITED IN THE ORIGINAL SANSKRIT AND PRAKRIT
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION
AND NOTES AND VARIANTS, ETC., BY
SHRIPAD KRISHNA BELVALKAR
GRADUATE STUDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ASSISTANT TO THE PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT AT DECCAN COLLEGE
POONA, INDIA
PART 1: INTRODUCTION AND TRANSLATION
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Harvard University Press
1915

The volumes of this Series may be had, in America, by addressing Messrs. GINN
AND COMPANY, at New York or Chicago or San Francisco, or at the home-office,
29 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.; in England, by addressing Messrs. GINN & Co.,
9 St. Martin's Street, Leicester Square, London, W.C.; and in Continental Europe, by
addressing Mr. Otto Harrassowitz, Leipzig.—For the titles and descriptions and prices,
see the List at the end of this volume.

[Seal: ACADEMIAE HARVARDIANAE IN NOV ANG SIGILLVM CHRISTO ET VERITAS ECCLESIAE]

PK
3791
B58 U8
1915
pt. 1

[Stamp: LIBRARY / JUN 22 1964 / UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO / 908648]

PRINTED FROM TYPE AT THE
UNIVERSITY PRESS, OXFORD, ENGLAND
BY HORACE HART, M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

First edition, 1915, One Thousand Copies

महाकविश्रीभवभूतिप्रणीतम्
उत्तररामचरितम्
तत्र
उपोद्धातानुवादादिसंवलितम्
प्रथमं दलम्
बिल्वावलिकरोपनाम्ना कृष्णात्मजेन श्रीपादाह्वेन
हारवर्डविश्वविद्यालयनिर्देशेन
प्रकाशतां नीतम्
संवत् १९७१

TRANSLATION OF THE DEDICATORY STANZA
That nectar of learning which [by your favour] I drank day after day
for two years in succession—to make for it an adequate return is not
indeed my part nor have I the power; and yet, this wreath of the three-
petaled bilva-leaves your pupil Bilvāvalikara lays here at your feet in
loyal regard.
Bilvāvalikara is a Sanskritization of the name Belvalkar, literally, one who has in his
hand a wreath of bilva. The bilva is a ternate or a compound leaf of three leaflets (dala),
to which the three parts (dala) of this work (Translation, Text, Notes) are here likened
in poetic word-play. The floret on the Sanskrit title-page is meant to represent the bilva.

TO
CHARLES ROCKWELL LANMAN
MY HONOURED TEACHER
निपीतं यद्विद्यामृतमनुदिवं वर्षयुगलं
न तत् कामं प्रत्यर्पयितुमधिकारो न विभवः ।
तथापि त्वद्भक्त्या त्रिदलयुतबिल्वावलिमिमां
निधत्तेऽन्तेवासी पुरत इह बिल्वावलिकरः ॥

The three parts of this work upon Rāma's Later History form volumes
21 and 22 and 23 of the Harvard Oriental Series. The contents of the
three parts are distributed as follows:
Part 1: Introduction and English Translation.
Part 2: Text in Sanskrit and Prākrit; Indexes of stanzas, metres, &c.;
Parallel passages; Extracts from sources; Prākrit glossary.
Part 3: Critical account of the critical apparatus; Notes, exegetic,
critical, aesthetic, &c.; Variants; Appendixes.
Part 1 was printed at the University Press, Oxford, England.
Part 2 was printed at the Nirṇaya Sāgara Press of Bombay, India. A number of
copies of the Text alone, for use in the colleges and universities of India, will be pub-
lished at a nominal price. Applications may be made to Professor Belvalkar, Deccan
College, Poona, India.
The work upon Part 3 was far advanced at the time of Dr. Belvalkar's departure
from Harvard in June, 1914, on his way home to India. His manuscript material for
Part 3 and his books were dispatched by the steamship Fangturm, which is now (June,
1915) interned at a port of the Balearic Islands. That material included his collation-
sheets, which give the readings of the various codices of this drama. On account of the
great difficulty of getting those codices together again, it seems best to await the release
of the steamship.

CONTENTS
PAGE
NOTE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR OF THIS SERIES . . . xiii
A METHOD FOR CITING SANSKRIT DRAMAS. PROPOSED BY THE
GENERAL EDITOR
Method of citing the metrical parts of a play . . . . xvii
Method of citing the prose parts of a play . . . . xvii
Examples of the use of this method . . . . xvii
Appeal to future editors to use this method . . . . xvii
Importance of a good method of citation . . . . xviii
Two aspects of the method: logical character, typographical expression . xviii
Logically essential features of a good method . . . . xviii
Canon 1: It should utilize the logical divisions of the text . . xix
Canon 2: The numbering should start anew with each division . . xix
Discord results from numbering stanzas in one sequence for entire play . xix
Canon 3: The citations should be precise . . . . xix
Canon 4: They should apply at once to text and translation and notes . xx
Canon 5: And be such as to need little change for new editions . . xx
The elements of the citations: There should be: xxi
For verse and prose alike, a first element, an act-number . . . xxi
For verse, a second element, a stanza-number . . . xxi
And, if need be, a third element, namely, a letter (a, b, c, d) . . xxi
For prose, a second element, the number of the last preceding stanza . xxii
And always a third, an Arabic number, to show the subdivision . . xxii
The subdivision of the prose passage should be the printed line . . xxiii
Typographical devices for making this system usable . . . xxiv
Additional device for making this method easy: corner-citations . . xxiv
Minor typographic details . . . . . xxv
Inconveniences resulting from lack of system or bad system . . xxv
Lack of system, good or bad . . . . . xxv
Citation by pages and multiple sequences of pagination . . . xxv
Combinations of bad system and systemlessness . . . xxvi
Examples from editions of the Mṛichchhakaṭika . . . xxvi
b [H.O.S. 21]

Contents [x
PAGE
PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . xxix
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . xxxv
Bhavabhūti, his life, and his date . . . . . . . . xxxv

1. Bhavabhūti's account of himself . . . . . . . xxxv
2. His family-home, Padmapura in the Berars . . . . . . xxxvi
3. Its identity with Padmāvatī (of the Mālatī-Mādhava) unproved . . xxxvi
4. Further biographical details . . . . . . . . xxxvii
5. Bhavabhūti's personality as inferred from his writings . . . xxxviii
6. His date: traditional story about Kālidāsa and Bhavabhūti . . xxxix
7. His works certainly influenced by Kālidāsa . . . . . xl
8. Bhavabhūti probably later than Bāṇa (about A. D. 610) . . . xli
9. Bh.'s identity with 'a pupil of Kumārila' (say 700–750) unproved . xli
10. Bhavabhūti certainly earlier than Rājaśekhara (about A. D. 900) . xlii
11. Date of Yaśovarman of Kanauj as determining that of Vākpatirāja . xliii
12. Date of Vākpatirāja's Gaüḍavaho not far from A. D. 736 . . . xliii
13. Bhavabhūti probably a little earlier than Vākpatirāja . . . xliv
14. Bhavabhūti probably flourished near the close of the seventh century . xlvi
    Bhavabhūti's works . . . . . . . . . . xlvi
15. Lost works of Bhavabhūti . . . . . . . . xlvi
16. Bhavabhūti's extant works . . . . . . . . xlvii
    Excursus: History of the Rāma-story . . . . . . . xlvii
17. Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa: its present form . . . . . . xlvii
    18, A to 18, Q. Rāma-story as given in Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa . . xlviii
18. Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa not the sole source of our play . . . lv
19. Three forms of the Rāma-story in the Padma-Purāṇa . . . lv
20. The later history of Rāma as given by the Padma-Purāṇa . . lvii
21. Sources of the Rāmāyaṇa: historical element . . . . lviii
22. The Rāmāyaṇa a blending of history and allegory . . . . lix
23. Later modifications of the Rāma-story: 1. Buddhistic form . . lx
24. Later modifications of the Rāma-story: 2. Jain forms . . . lx
    26, A to 26, F. Later modifications of the Rāma-story: 3. Hindu forms . lxi
    Bhavabhūti's early plays: Mahāvīra-charita, Mālatī-Mādhava . . lxiii
25. The Mahāvīra-charita . . . . . . . . lxiii
26. Bhavabhūti's departure from the Rāmāyaṇa . . . . lxiv
27. Technical significance of these changes . . . . . lxv
28. Merits of the Mahāvīra-charita . . . . . . . lxvi
29. Its defects . . . . . . . . . . lxvi

xi] Contents
PAGE
32. The Mālatī-Mādhava . . . . . . . lxvii
33, A to 33, G. Analytic statement of its plot . . . . lxviii
34. Criticism of its plot . . . . . . lxxi
35. Technique of the Mālatī-Mādhava . . . . . lxxiii
36. Its advance over the Mahāvīra-charita . . . . lxxiii
37. Defects of the Mālatī-Mādhava . . . . . lxxv
The present play : Uttara-Rāma-charita . . . . . lxxvi
38. Transition to the Uttara-Rāma-charita . . . . lxxvi
39. Special features of the Uttara-Rāma-charita . . . lxxvii
40. Technical perfection of the opening act . . . . lxxviii
41. The Uttara-Rāma-charita as a psychological study . . . lxxx
42. The Recognition-scene in the sixth act . . . . lxxxii
43. Other merits of the play . . . . . lxxxii
44. Defects of the play . . . . . . lxxxiv
45. Some common characteristics of the three plays . . . lxxxv
Bhavabhūti as a poet . . . . . . lxxxvi
46. His shortcomings . . . . . . lxxxvi
47. His merits . . . . . . . lxxxvii
48. Conclusion . . . . . . . lxxxviii
TRANSLATION OF THE PLAY UTTARA-RĀMA-CHARITA . . 1
Dramatis personae . . . . . . . 2
Main characters . . . . . . . 2
Interlocutors . . . . . . . 3
Synoptic analysis of the play . . . . . . 4
Prologue . . . . . . . . 4
Synoptic Analysis of Acts i to vii . . . . . 5
Translation of the play . . . . . . 15
Translation of Act i, The Picture-gallery . . . . 15
Translation of Act ii, Daṇḍakā revisited . . . . 31
Translation of Act iii, The Shadow . . . . . 41
Translation of Act iv, Kausalyā and Janaka . . . . 60
Translation of Act v, Princes in combat . . . . 73
Translation of Act vi, Princes recognized . . . . 82
Translation of Act vii, Reunion . . . . . 94

इस पृष्ठ पर कोई मुद्रित पाठ उपलब्ध नहीं है (यह पृष्ठ रिक्त है)।

NOTE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR OF
THIS SERIES
WITHIN the last decade, the West and the Far East have become
virtually near neighbours. From the responsibilities of such neighbourhood
there is no escape. We must have to do with the East, and as members
of the world-family of nations we must treat the East aright. To treat the
people of the East aright, we must respect them; and to respect them,
we must know them. And in order that we may know them, competent
scholars must study their history and make it accessible to the Occident.
The business of the Orientalist is something that is in vital relation with
the practical and political needs of to-day.
It is a fact of happy augury that scholars of the East are joining hands
with those of the West in the great work of helping each to understand
the other. The work calls for just such co-operation, and above all things
else for co-operation in a spirit of mutual sympathy and teachableness.
There is much of great moment that America may learn, for example, from
the history of the peoples of India, and much again that the Hindus may
learn from us. But the lessons will indeed be of no avail, unless the spirit
of arrogant self-sufficiency give way to the spirit of docility, and the spirit
of unfriendly criticism to that of mutually helpful constructive effort.
The relation of teacher and taught is here, in an eminent degree, a reciprocal
one, for both East and West must be at once both teacher and taught.
The whole spiritual and material background of the life of the East
differs so completely from that of the West that neither can ever understand
the other from a mere study of the other's literary monuments. Such study
is indeed inexorably necessary, and it must be fortified by broad and
rigorous training in the many-sided methods of to-day. But that is not
enough. An Occidental who would faithfully interpret the East to the West
must also know the life of the East from actual observation and experience,
and must look at it from the Eastern angle of vision. Accordingly, for
example, the Sanskrit professor of the next generation must have resided

Note by the General Editor [xiv]
in India, have mixed (so far as possible) with its people, and have mastered at
least one of the great modern vernaculars, such as Marāṭhī or Bengālī. And,
on the other hand, since the Hindus themselves are already actively engaged
in interpreting the East to the West, it is needful also that they visit us, not
merely to learn our way of doing things, but also to look at life as we look
at it, and thus to find out what things—such, let us say, as repose of spirit
or the simple life—the West most needs to learn of the East.
Sir William Jones and Henry Thomas Colebrooke, illustrious pioneers
of Indic philology, are ideal examples of the spirit and methods that were
and are and must ever remain exemplary. They went to India and learned
of the Hindus, and to the work of making the East known to the West
they gave, with heroic devotion, all that they had to give. And ever since
their day, the business of the East India Company or of the Imperial
Government has taken men to India who have proved to be not only
faithful officials, but also Indianists of large achievement. With the spread
of Sanskrit studies upon the Continent in the second third of the last
century, there arose men who, like Eugène Burnouf or the lexicographers
Böhtlingk and Roth, accomplished great things without ever visiting the
Land of the Rose-apple. More recently, the ease and speed of ocean-travel
have brought it about that the Indianists who have not visited India are
few indeed. They feel that they must go; for thus, as so often in modern
life, do greater opportunities make obligations greater.
But it is not only for a better understanding of each other's hopes and
aspirations that the Indianists of the two hemispheres must join forces.
They must realize, far better than they now do, the importance of turning
to account the modern methods of organization and business efficiency, and
the modern progress of the graphic arts. The value of organization, and
of combining the labours of isolated scholars for well-considered ends, is
illustrated by the Kāvya-Mālā of Bombay and the Ānandāçrama Series
of Poona. Moreover, as regards wide circulation and usefulness, complete
works issued in such large groups or series as those, and in such form as only
an adequate printing establishment can give them, have an enormous
advantage over works issued singly or in incomplete parts, and at some
obscure press, and in a small edition. Let me add that the work of eminent
printers, such as the late Jāvaji Dādāji of Bombay, seems to me to be
a very real service to science, and as such to deserve generous recognition
from scholars.

xv] Note by the General Editor
His Excellency the Prime Minister of Nepal sent lately to Oxford,
to be copied photographically for the use of scholars, seventy manuscripts
of the Nepal Durbar Library. Such enlightened co-operation between East
and West deserves mention, not only by way of grateful acknowledgement,
but also as an admirable example which—let us hope—may be followed
by others. It suggests the establishment, perhaps at the Nirṇaya Sāgara
Press in Bombay, of a central agency to which Hindu Librarians may
safely entrust manuscripts for mechanical reproduction, without sending
them to Europe. The requirements for such an establishment are by no
means too hard to provide. They are (1) a safe place of storage, (2) the
photographic apparatus, and (3) a competent operator.—See Postscript on
the next page.
It is with hope and with gladness that I lay before students of the
history of the East the work of Doctor Belvalkar. I am glad that a Hindu,
well versed in the learning of his native land, should think it worth while
to learn of the West. And I hope that his residence in America may make
his Eastern learning vastly more fruitful for us Occidentals than it ever
could be, if he had not come hither to find out (as I said) what lessons from
his country's past may best be taught to us. And I hope again that
many in the coming years may follow his example, establishing thus most
valuable relations of personal friendship and co-operation between Indianists
of the Orient and the Occident.
Aeschylus—as Athenaeus¹ reports—said that his dramas were fragments
of the great banquet of Homer's table. And so of Sophocles: his Ajax,
for example, is essentially the Ajax of the Iliad. In like manner, the
material of the greatest Hindu dramatists, Bhāsa and Kālidāsa and
Bhavabhūti, is in large measure taken from the Hindu epics.² Thus the
play before us, Rāma's Later History, is, as appears from its title, a
dramatization of the Rāmāyaṇa. Its author, Bhavabhūti, for knowledge
¹ viii. 39 . . . Αἰσχύλου, ὃς τὰς αὑτοῦ τραγῳδίας τεμάχη εἶναι ἔλεγε τῶν Ὁμήρου μεγάλων δείπνων.
² The Mahā-Bhārata itself, using the very same metaphor as Aeschylus, declares (i. 2. 389)
that 'all the best poets live upon this story' of the Bhāratans. And it adds (385, 388) that
'the inspiration of the poets comes from this incomparable narrative', and that 'there is not
a story in the world that does not go back to the Bhārata'.
इदं कविवरैः सर्वैराख्यानमुपजीव्यते ।
इतिहासोत्तमादस्माज्जायन्ते कविबुद्धयः ।
अनाश्रित्यैतदाख्यानं कथा भुवि न विद्यते ॥

Note by the General Editor [xvi]
of what was to him the classics, and for his use of that knowledge, may
justly be compared with John Milton; and for the exquisite finish of his
diction, we might call him the Thomas Gray of India. For the student of
comparative literature, in particular of literary genetics and the history
of the drama, this play has many aspects of interest which I hope the
editor has not failed to put in a clear light. But it is for the student of
the history of religions that the Rāma-legend is especially instructive: its
hero has become a pattern, often quite divine, of all that is good and noble;
Sītā is wifely fidelity incarnate; and the Rāmāyaṇa—translated from
Sanskrit into the great vernaculars, Bengālī, Hindī, Marāṭhī, and so on,
and especially the Rāmāyan of Tulsīdās—has become to untold millions
literally a Bible to which they look for examples of virtue and for
inspiration to righteous living.
Our drama is accordingly one of the many forms into which the Indian
genius has cast the story of its greatest popular hero, its deified hero;
one of the many expressions of its loftiest ideals. May the knowledge of
those ideals so enlarge our minds and our sympathies that, when we pass
judgements on the East, we shall realize the truth of the Sanskrit proverb,
‘The whole world is one family’.
C. R. Lanman.
Harvard University,
December, 1914.
Postscript.—The prism-process was described by K. Krumbacher in an article entitled
‘Die Photographie im Dienste der Geisteswissenschaften’. This appeared in 1906 in the Neue
Jahrbücher für das klassische Altertum, 17. 601–659, and was also published separately by Teubner,
price marks 3.60. For further articles on the photographic reproduction of manuscripts,
see The Nation, of New York, for March 5, 1908 (procédé Graffin), for March 19, 1908 (excellence
of ‘good ordinary photographs’, and ease of making them), and for December 30, 1909
(apparatus of Carl von Arnhard of Munich).
The Photostat, manufactured by the Eastman Kodak Co., is sold by the Commercial
Camera Co. of Rochester, New York, for $500 or $750 or $1,100 according to the size. The
Camera Co. issues a pamphlet entitled ‘The Photostat and its operation’. ‘The photostat is
a simple and practical apparatus for the rapid photographing of printed or written docu-
ments...directly upon the surface of sensitized paper with the image in correct position....
No previous knowledge of photography is necessary.’ For a great library or scientific society
which is not too painfully hampered by lack of funds, and in which the apparatus will be
much used, the photostat is unquestionably the best and in the long run the cheapest
apparatus.

A METHOD FOR CITING SANSKRIT DRAMAS
PROPOSED BY THE GENERAL EDITOR OF THIS SERIES
Method of citing the metrical parts of a play.—These are cited by act,
and by stanza as numbered from the beginning of that act, and by quarter
or pāda, the pāda being indicated by a or b or c or d.
Method of citing the prose parts of a play.—The prose lines between
any two consecutive stanzas are numbered from the prior to the latter
stanza, starting always anew from the prior stanza. A given line is cited
by number of act and by number of prior stanza (counted as above) and by
number of line as counted from said prior stanza.—If there is no prior
stanza (that is, if the act begins with prose), a zero is put in place of
the stanza number.
Examples of the use of this method.—Thus, for this play, the Uttara-
Rāma-charita, the citation iii. 2ᶜ means quarter or pāda 3 of stanza 2 of
act iii, mohe mohe Rāmabhadrasya jīvam. Thus again iii. 2³ means
prose-line 3 as counted from stanza 2 of act iii, Muralā—Katham iva.
And iii. 0³ means prose-line 3 at the beginning of act iii, Muralā—
Bhagavatī Tamase, &c.
Appeal to future editors to use this method.—We might suppose a
method of citation to be a matter wholly unworthy of the serious con-
sideration of a great scholar, if we judge by the way in which such great
scholars as Böhtlingk or Pischel have failed to consider it. And from the
brevity of the foregoing three paragraphs, one might suppose the matter of
a method of citation to be so simple as to call for no elaborate discussion.
It is simple, but the simplicity is the outcome of a laborious consideration
of complexities arising from bad methods or lack of method, which com-
plexities are a constant annoyance to the scholar and a hindrance to his
progress. The essentials of a good method are discussed on the following
pages, and the need of a good method is made clear by showing the faults
of some bad ones. A bad method puts the student to a deal of worse than
useless trouble, and wastes his time, just as a good method saves it. A
c [H.O.S. 21]

A Method for citing Sanskrit Dramas [xviii
good method should be so good as to commend itself to general acceptance
by scholars and future editors, since uniformity is in itself highly
desirable.
For these reasons I earnestly hope that this system will be widely
accepted and followed by scholars of India and the Occident.
Importance of a good method of citation.—‘A simple and sufficient
means of citation is absolutely indispensable for any text of mingled verse
and prose that is of consequence enough to be studied and cited at all.
The editor who fails to provide such means is guilty of flagrant neglect of
plain duty and of gross disregard for the time and convenience of students
and of his colleagues. By way of punishment he may count upon the
seriously circumscribed usefulness of his book and the silent maledictions
of those who are forced to use it.’—This was my plea, in 1900, before the
court of intending editors, on behalf of a good method of citation, and
made in the preface of the translator of Konow’s Karpūra-mañjarī, Harvard
Oriental Series, vol. 4, p. xvi. The system tried by me in 1900 proved
unsatisfactory in one particular, the method of citing the prose-passages.
The one now proposed is substantially the same as that of 1900, excepting
the feature which concerns the prose-passages.
Two aspects of the method : its logical character and its typographical
**expression.—**A good method must be good in that it is logical and there-
fore easy to understand and to remember, and good also in that the
typographical devices for its expression are simple and are easily and
quickly caught by the eye. These general requirements are so obvious as
to need no argument. Nobody disputes them—chiefly (I fear) because
nobody stops to think of them. Hence the need of bringing them to the
attention of future editors.
The excellences of a good method appeal in part to the mind and in
part to the sense of sight, and the means for securing them will accordingly
be treated under two heads (which, however, cannot be wholly separated
in discussion), namely, The logically essential features of a good method,
and (p. xxiv) Typographical devices for making this method usable.
**Logically essential features of a good method.—**A good method should
utilize the native divisions of the text so far as these are natural or logical
or generally accepted.—To illustrate. For the English Bible we have the
generally accepted divisions into books and chapters and verses. These are
always accordant among the innumerable editions, while the pagination
(unless by some strange chance) is always discordant. To cite the English
Bible by pages, ignoring those divisions, would be futile folly. And it
is no less wrong in principle to ignore the natural divisions of a Sanskrit
play. Hence

xix] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series
Canon 1. A good method should utilize the logical divisions of the
text—that is, the divisions of the play into acts, and the divisions of
the acts into stanzas and prose-passages. Canon 1 forbids us to cite the
play by pages, since this ignores the division into acts, and results in
endless discord as between different editions. Again, it forbids us to
number either the speeches or the lines from the beginning of the act,
since this ignores the division of the act into prose and verse, and results
in the very undesirable possibility of citing the same verse in more than
one way (by stanza-number or speech-number or line-number).
Canon 2 (corollary to canon 1). The numbering should start anew
with each division.—The numbering of stanzas should start afresh at the
beginning of each act; and the numbering of prose-lines should start afresh
from the last stanza preceding the prose-passage.
Discord from numbering stanzas in one sequence for entire play.—
The numbering of all stanzas in one sequence from beginning to end of
the play has this result : that any differences in the number of stanzas
in prior acts as between different editions become operative or even
cumulative for any later act or acts. The serious disadvantages of this
bad practice are strikingly illustrated by four European editions of the
Śākuntala, namely Böhtlingk's of 1846, Williams's of 1876, Pischel's of
1877, and Cappeller's of 1909. In all these four editions act vii has thirty-
five stanzas (no more and no less), and these stanzas (apart from mere
variants) are identical. In Böhtlingk they are numbered from 160 to 194;
in Williams, from 165 to 199; in Pischel, from 187 to 221; and in
Cappeller, from 155 to 189. This is confusion worse confounded, and
(with all deference to these honoured names) it is the more inexcusable
because it is wholly needless.
The discord results primarily from the fact that the numbering of
stanzas goes in one sequence from the beginning of the play to the end,
and secondarily from the fact that, for example, act iii contains twenty-four
stanzas in one text (so Böhtlingk, Cappeller) and forty-one in another (so
Pischel). This wholly wrong method of numeration continues the discord
of act iii through all the remaining four acts. If only the numeration
began anew with each act, the stanza-numbers of act vii would be wholly
accordant in all four editions, and the same references would have been
precisely correct for each and all. The discord in the other acts is on the
whole so slight as to cause little trouble, and even that little is avoidable
(see below, p. xx).
Canon 3. The citations should be precise.—A citation which makes it
necessary to search an entire page or long prose-passage is not precise.
It should be so precise that you can instantly find the exact word intended.

A Method for citing Sanskrit Dramas [xx
It should therefore consist of three elements, and, if possible, of not more
than three. A citation consisting of two elements only (act-number and
stanza-number) may be used to designate an entire stanza, but not to
designate a prose-passage.
Canon 4. They should apply at one and the same time to text and
translation and notes.—The system should be such that the same citation
will serve equally well for finding either a passage in the text or the
corresponding passage of the translation or of an appurtenant native com-
mentary or the corresponding exegetical or critical notes. Thus a given
matter may be found by the same reference in any one of three or four
different places. The method here proposed by me is usable at once in
these three or four ways, and this is a very great convenience.
Canon 5. The system should be such that the citations will need
little change for new editions.—That is, it should be applicable to edition
after edition of the same play with the very least possible change and
inconvenience. This requirement also is met by the system here proposed.
First as to the stanzas. If a stanza rejected from the text of an earlier
editor is to be inserted in the text of a later editor, let the later editor
insert it in its place and (without changing the number of all the subsequent
stanzas) assign to it the number of the preceding stanza and distinguish
the repeated number by a star. On the other hand, if a stanza inserted
by an earlier editor is to be rejected by a later editor, then let the later
editor leave out not only the stanza but also the number.
For example, act ii of the Śākuntala has, in each of the four above-
named editions, the same eighteen stanzas, all numbered with the utmost
possible discord. Next after the stanza śamapradhāneshu (ii. 7) some
MSS. give a stanza nirākṛita-, &c. Böhtlingk and Williams give this in
their notes, while Pischel receives it into his text, and Cappeller rejects it.
If the stanza-numbering had begun anew with each act, Pischel might
have inserted nirākṛita- with the numbering ii. 7*; or, if Pischel’s edition
had been the editio princeps and he had numbered nirākṛita- as ii. 8,
Cappeller might have left the stanza out and have numbered śamapra-
dhāneshu as ii. 7, and (skipping ii. 8) have numbered his next stanza as ii. 9.
In this way, even in spite of the difference in the total number of stanzas, the
numbering of them could very easily have been kept entirely harmonious.
As to the prose-passages, this may be added. Although the prose-
passages are occasionally long, they are for the most part short. As
between different editions of the same play, the numbering of the prose-
lines will not correspond exactly; but since the numbering starts anew
with each new prose-passage, the discordances will never be cumulative and
thus they will usually be so slight as to cause very little inconvenience.

xxi] Proposed by the General Editor of this Series
At this point a word in defence of Mr. Belvalkar's procedure in giving,
immediately after a Prākrit passage, its explanation in Sanskrit (or chhāyā),
set off by double verticals and by a difference of type. It is true that this
increases the length of the prose-passages, and consequently the possible
discord in the line-numbers as between one edition and another. But this
disadvantage is seldom considerable, and it is more than offset by the
convenience of always having the explanation just where it is needed,
instead of having to search for it at the bottom of the page or the end
of the volume. Moreover the breaking up of one printed page into two
or three or four typographically varying parts for text and chhāyā and
variants and comments is very unsightly.
The elements of the citations.—These may now be discussed in
systematic order. It is only the second and third elements of the citations
for the prose-passages that occasion doubts or difficulties.
For metrical and prose-passages alike, the first element of the citation
should of course be the act-number, as canon 1 requires.
For metrical passages, the second element should of course be the
stanza-number as counted from the beginning of the act. The stanzas are
short, and of a length (two or four printed lines) which is uniform as
compared with that of the prose-passages, so that stanzas are precisely
indicated and easily found by a single number.
For metrical passages, the third element should indicate the natural
subdivisions of the stanza. A Sanskrit stanza consists of four quarters or
pādas. A quarter of a stanza may therefore be indicated by a letter
(a, b, c, d). If an entire stanza is intended, the third element, the letter,
should be omitted. In this edition, anushṭubh and āryā stanzas are printed
as two lines, each line consisting of two undivided pādas; and in referring
to such a line, the letters ab are used together without any comma¹ between
them, or else cd.
Metrical passages containing interjected prose.—Prose-lines some-
times intervene between parts of a stanza. This complication is met in
a manner so logical and natural as hardly to need description: namely,
the stanza-number and pāda-letter together are treated as one element
of the citation, that is, as the second element, and the letter is not set
as a 'superior'. Thus between iv. 24ᵇ and iv. 24ᶜ of Uttara-Rāma-charita
a prose-passage of two lines and a complete stanza (iv. 25) intervene.
The prose-lines are cited as iv. 24 b¹ and iv. 24 b². The prose-lines fol-
lowing iv. 24ᵈ are cited as iv. 24 d¹, iv. 24 d², and so on (although iv. 25
precedes them !).
¹ If there is a comma (e. g. ii. 25ᵃ, ᵇ), the ferred to are not printed in the same
punctuation indicates that the pādas re- line (are not anushṭubh or āryā).