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

lxix] Early Plays: Mālatī-Mādhava
It was dangerous to refuse the king's request; so Kāmandakī advises
Bhūrivasu to assent to the king's wish, but to word his assent in such
a way as to leave himself a loophole or chance of evasion in case of need
(ii. 2¹⁰), herself undertaking to contrive to bring the young people together
and arrange for a private marriage. Bhūrivasu could in that case plead
that he was in no wise a party to this clandestine affair, and the king—the
marriage once solemnized—would have no choice but to submit. With
the help of friends, Kāmandakī manages to throw the young people together
in chance encounters on the road or at the spring festival of the God of
Love, or in the city garden; while,—by praising to Mālatī the person and
family and accomplishments of Mādhava, by painting with contrasting
touches the ugliness and stupidity of Nandana, and finally by narrating to
her some ancient stories of girls in like circumstances¹ who chose their
husbands without regard to their parents' wishes,—Kāmandakī so works
upon Mālatī's feelings that when the opportunity comes she is ready to
elope with Mādhava and marry him in a place prepared by Kāmandakī.
33, C.—Such is the main plot. Interwoven with it is a by-plot, also
a love-story, namely between Nandana's sister Madayantikā and Mādhava's
friend Makaranda. This by-plot is clearly intended to be a foil for the main
plot, an element of contrast with it. Thus the first meeting of Mālatī and
Mādhava occurs at the spring festival in a most natural way. The first
meeting of Madayantikā and Makaranda takes place under most exceptional
circumstances: A tiger has broken loose, has killed his keepers, and is
running amuck in the streets, when Madayantikā, who happens to pass by,
is saved from deadly peril by Makaranda.² A second notable contrast
appears in the characters of Mālatī and Madayantikā. Mālatī is a modest
obedient girl whom Kāmandakī finds it hard to persuade to disobey her
father's wishes; while Madayantikā, the sister of the court-favourite, is
a flighty passionate girl who elopes with Makaranda at the very first
opportunity. Further, as compared with Mādhava's love, that of Makaranda
is frankly sensuous. There was nothing to prevent Makaranda from going
in straightforward fashion to Nandana and asking for the hand of his
sister (whom moreover he had saved from the tiger). The actual method
adopted is an elopement under cover of darkness.
33, D.—The story is further complicated and diversified by the intro-
duction of two episodic elements: 1. the marriage of Nandana to Maka-
randa disguised as Mālatī; 2. the two hairbreadth escapes of Mālatī, one
before and one after her marriage. The purpose of the first episode is
¹ Such as Śakuntalā, Urvaśī, and Vāsavadattā.
² His opportune presence is adequately motivated (iv. 0²⁸). The rescuer is wounded.

Introduction [lxx
to link the main plot more closely to the by-plot, since it is the event
of which the union of the two pairs of lovers is the immediate sequel.
The purpose of the second episode is merely to thrill the audience and
to satisfy the human craving for the marvellous and even the gruesome.
The first episode comes about in this way. A clandestine marriage
between Mālatī and Mādhava having been decided upon, Kāmandakī
secures the opportunity as follows: It was announced that the marriage
of Mālatī and Nandana would be celebrated in the evening; and, according
to the custom, Mālatī was to go just before the marriage to one of the
city temples and there duly worship the Goddess. It is prearranged that
Mādhava and Makaranda should go beforehand into the temple and there
remain hidden. Mālatī, who however is quite in ignorance of what was to
follow, approaches; the attendants stand outside, only her trusty com-
panion and confidante, Lavaṅgikā, going with her into the interior. Then
after a scene (act vi) which is one of the best in the play, the whole plot is
revealed. Makaranda was to put on the dress of Mālatī¹ and join the
marriage procession and be married to the unsuspecting Nandana, Mādhava
in the meantime taking the real Mālatī with him to a place prepared for
them and being formally married to her.
33, E.—The same stratagem was to give Makaranda his wife—Mada-
yantikā, sister of Nandana. For, after the marriage of the pseudo-Mālatī
with Nandana, when the latter meets his supposed wife and makes her
advances of love, he receives a cold rebuff, and finally a kick. The bride-
groom walks away in high dudgeon. Now Madayantikā, the bridegroom's
sister, hearing of the infamous treatment her brother received at the
hands of the new bride, comes to her room to expostulate with her. What
follows is easily imagined. Makaranda throws off his disguise and elopes
with Madayantikā. Had he been able to reach the appointed place in
safety and solemnize the marriage, the play would have ended smoothly
but much too early (end of act viii). The only difficulty then would have
been to pacify the king, which would not have been very difficult perhaps.
What actually happens is that, as Makaranda is escaping from Nandana's
house, he unexpectedly comes upon certain night-watches who challenge
him. A skirmish ensues. More guards are sent, and Mādhava, hearing of
the news, runs to his friend's rescue. The two friends fight so bravely
that the king, who was aroused and was watching their valour, is moved to
pardon them; and, coming to know of all the facts, he even acknowledges
the two marriages.
¹ In judging the verisimilitude of this inci- Mālatī herself was very probably taken
dent, we must consider that the part of by a man (see appendix 11).

lxxi] Early Plays : Mālatī-Mādhava
33, F.—Here at any rate the play might very naturally end ; but no.
The poet wants (see i. 6) to make as diversified an appeal as he can, and so
he has introduced the second episode. It seems that at Padmāvatī, in the
cremation-ground close by the river, there was a temple of the Goddess
Karālā (the Terrible). This Goddess is very fond of blood, and her votaries
wear garlands of skulls, and offer her animal sacrifices (sometimes even
human sacrifices), and in return she grants them magic powers, such as
flying through the air, rendering oneself invisible, and so forth.¹ On the
very night of the day when Mālatī and Mādhava meet in the garden, and
Makaranda kills the tiger—it being the uncanny night that precedes
the new moon—a certain Kāpālika, Aghoraghaṇṭa by name, has arranged to
offer a human sacrifice, and Mālatī is chosen as the victim. Kapālakuṇḍalā,
the female disciple of Aghoraghaṇṭa, has all in readiness, and they are
about to immolate Mālatī, when Mādhava, hearing Mālatī's cry, appears
on the scene and rescues her. The opportune presence of Mādhava in the
dead of night, and upon the cremation-ground, was, the poet frankly
admits (v. 28), the merest chance. Mādhava was there trying to propitiate
in some occult way the ghouls and other uncanny beings who infest such
places. Mādhava kills Aghoraghaṇṭa, though he permits Kapālakuṇḍalā—
as she was a woman—to escape.
33, G.—Out of this escape comes the second hairbreadth escape of
Mālatī. Kapālakuṇḍalā longs to avenge the death of her master ; and just
when everything seems to be going well—Mādhava married to Mālatī,
Makaranda securely in possession of Madayantikā, and even the king
himself induced to pardon the two lovers,—she finds an opportunity to
pounce upon Mālatī and lead her off with intent to kill her. There is
general grief and lamentation, which fills the whole of act ix and a part of
act x. This time Mālatī is saved by another fortuitous coincidence. We
have already spoken (§ 33, A) of Saudāminī, the pupil of Kāmandakī.
She apparently had become an adept in occult sciences, and having by
chance come upon Kapālakuṇḍalā, she reproves her, rescues Mālatī from her
hands, and restores her to her sorrowing relatives, and the play ends happily.
34. Mālatī-Mādhava : criticism of the plot.—It would be easy, of
course, to criticize the plot by saying that it is no more than a loose
patchwork : it lacks the consistency, the inevitableness, that should belong
to every dramatic action. The poet evidently wishes to represent Kāman-
dakī as an expert in underhand diplomacy. She is in fact the arch-plotter
¹ Bhavabhūti, like other people of his time
(see Bāṇa, Harsha-charita, iii, story of
Bhairavāchārya), implicitly believed in
these powers, so that we cannot reason-
ably charge him with an illicit intro-
duction of the supernatural.

Introduction [lxxii
in the play; but her own scheming contributes far less to the ultimate
result than does mere chance. In this connexion the Kapālakuṇḍalā
episode is what is most frequently criticized. It gives the poet the chance
to describe the cemetery-scenes, or to indulge (acts ix and x) in a pathetic
outpouring of song, but it serves no other purpose.
Some go so far as to suppose that this entire episode is a later addition
by the poet, prompted by a desire to emulate Kālidāsa (see § 7 above): it
did not belong to the poet's original conception of the plot. It would seem
that a good case could be made in favour of this theory, especially if we
take into account the number of lines and stanzas and parts of stanzas
that we find common¹ to this play and to the Uttara-Rāma-charita, after the
completion of which latter play Bhavabhūti is believed to have reverted to
the former play and enlarged it.
Now although it be true (see appendixes 6 and 8) that Bhavabhūti did
revise his own plays, I

lxxiii] Early Plays : Mālatī-Mādhava
been inserted later into the M. M. But we must remember that much
of the talk of love and grief in the M. M. is purely conventional, and it
need not surprise us if the stanza after all did originally belong to it.
Compare in this connexion M. M. act i, stanza 34ᶜ, where the hero talks of
the moon, when it is full day.
35. Technique of the Mālatī-Mādhava.—From the preceding analysis
of the plot it is clear that in sheer inventiveness of incidents Bhavabhūti
has now attained considerable power, although he does not quite realize
that a mere string of incidents, however exciting or dramatic, does not
necessarily lead to a climax nor give a real unity of plot. Secondly,
the poet recognizes the value of suspense, but it is the sort of suspense
which results from an incipient fatalism. Neither in the situation, nor in
the characters, nor again in the background on which they are thrown in
the early part of the play, is there a foreshadowing of the final dénouement
as a thing inevitable or even antecedently probable.
In defence it may be urged that, after all, chances do occur in the world
as it is constituted, and that the dramatist has really no right to rule
chance entirely out of his creation and make the latter a rational system
conformable to the demands of his own philosophy. Consider, for instance,
Shakespeare's Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. It is not antecedently necessary
for the dénouement of these plays that Ophelia should die, or that Friar
John be ‘stay'd by accident’ and not deliver the letter. Laertes might
just as well have avenged the death of his father without Ophelia's
drowning, and the Capulets and the Montagues might just as well have
been induced to join hands and merge old feuds at the wedding of their
children as at their funeral. But these irrational accidents came to
Shakespeare as parts of the story proper, and the audience was willing
to accept the dramatist’s statement, just as we should accept that of
a traveller, provided it did not overtax our credulity.
More important it is to inquire if there is any dramatic justification
for these accidents: any attempt, in other words, to place us in that
frame of mind in which we instinctively seem to scent dangers long
before they come—scent dangers that do not come. Bhavabhūti has
done something of the kind. Compare, for instance, passages like iv. 4ᵇ,
iv. 7; v. 27³, v. 28; viii. 10, viii. 14; ix. 8ᵈ, ix. 39, ix. 49; x. 13; &c. Here
the poet seems to be purposely dwelling on the fickleness of Fortune, the
instability of all mundane existence. This gives us the necessary mood.
Stanza viii. 10 is particularly significant in this connexion.
36. Mālatī-Mādhava : its advance over the Mahāvīra-charita.—We
found (see § 31) the Mahāvīra-charita weak in characterization. In the
k [H.O.S. 21]

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.

lxxv] Early Plays: Mālatī-Mādhava
in a play proper.¹ Taken as a whole the play may unhesitatingly be
pronounced to be, both in substance and in form, a decided advance over
the Mahāvīra-charita. It was written with the distinct purpose of avoiding
some of the faults of his earlier work (see M. M. i. 8), and its technique is
much more conscious and deliberate.
37. Defects of the Mālatī-Mādhava.—We have already commented
upon the defects in the structure of the plot. In a word the play
may be said to give us a particularly vivid form of story-telling, with
a number of conscious critical approaches to dramatic technique. What
the poet needs now is practice and, as a natural result of it, a toning down
of the youthful exuberances that still mar the play. Thus we find here
a constant tendency to exaggerate, to over-emphasize so as to drive a thing
home, and this cannot have been wholly the result of the dullness, the tardy
responsiveness, of his audience; a part of it at least must be charged to the
poet's lack of restraint. He gives us dozens of long descriptions, full of
lengthy compounds and mouth-filling phrases, where his delight in words
as words is quite evident. It may be that his audience also shared his
delight, and if only the passage as a whole conveyed an emotional mood and
if that mood was adequately interpreted in suitable action, they did not
care what the passage really meant. We may also note that the compounds
though long are not usually involved, so that on the whole it is fairly
smooth sailing.
Another characteristic defect of the play is its sentimentality. In the
first act, for instance, Mādhava's love seems to be a purely intellectual
affair. He loves being in love and talking about his love; and throughout
the play he seems to be intent on showing how ‘we that are true lovers’²
love and run into risks and get separated and weep and even commit
suicide à la mode de Kāma-śāstra or some other Śāstra. The long Prākrit
descriptions (iii. 12⁸⁻⁴³, vii. 0⁷⁹⁻⁹¹, vii. 1²⁰⁻⁴⁷, and elsewhere) might just as well
have been, like the love-scene in act viii, taken bodily over from some
ancient treatise;³ and it is quite conceivable, seeing that the descriptions
are in the vernacular, that they were expressly meant for the ‘groundlings’
who perhaps had a special relish for such topics; and in that case the long

¹ We must, however, remember that such
descriptions have a value and a purpose,
especially if the stage-properties be
meagre. To me Hamlet's '’Tis now the
very witching time of night' (iii. 2. 406 ff.)
is more blood-curdling than all the stage-
effects that electricity and modern science
can produce. For a detailed statement
as to the stage-conditions in Ancient
India, see appendix 11.
² As You Like It, ii. 4. 55.
³ Such as that of Aṅgiras which Bhavabhūti
quotes in M. M. ii. 2¹⁵. Vātsyāyana’s
Kāma-sūtra gives the quoted passage as
an anonymous view in iii. 1 (Durgāpra-
sāda's ed., p. 194). We have already
(§ 31) commented upon the poet’s fond-
ness for displaying his learning.

Introduction [lxxvi
compounds would rather show that Bhavabhūti did not care to make the
thing too easily understood. The standards and limits of propriety as well
as of prudery are different for different people, and for different epochs in
the social development of the same people; and since Bhavabhūti was in
this play evidently straining for effect and eager to secure from every
different element of his audience all possible emotional response, any
wholesale condemnation of the poet on this score would be as unfair
as a similar condemnation of certain free passages in Shakespeare's poems
and plays, or of the erotic verse of some of the early Christian writers.¹
The Present Play: Uttara-Rāma-charita
38. Transition to the Uttara-Rāma-charita.—Between the two plays
that we have been hitherto considering and the play before us we must
assume an interval of time sufficient to account for its almost perfect
development in form and technique. The poet himself calls this play
a product of his mature genius.² Presumably therefore in the interval the
poet was acquiring more practice—writing more dramas; but unfortunately
none of these intervening attempts have survived. We have given above
(§ 15) the external evidence that inclines us to assume such lost works;
but were this evidence entirely lacking, it would yet be hard to believe that
the transition from the earlier to the later work—a transition which is no
ess significant than the transition from Love's Labour's Lost to Romeo and
Juliet—was all made without any intermediate steps; and when we
remember that there was no printing in those days and that even the
manuscripts themselves (especially of works not produced for the court and
not patronized by the king) did not command any extensive circulation; and
when we recall further that, even with more favourable conditions, nearly
half the Elizabethan dramatic literature is now almost entirely lost to us,—
we need not wonder at this regrettable loss, nor grow sceptical about the
existence of works other than those that have actually survived the ravages
of human and non-human enemies of letters.
We turn now to a consideration of the present play, which is Bhava-
bhūti's masterpiece and which has earned for him, by a consensus of
opinion among scholars ancient and modern, a position at least equal to

¹ I would therefore entirely dissent from
    Dr. Gray when, in an otherwise very
    kindly intentioned passage, he says (Vāsa-
    vadattā, introduction, p. 28): ‘There
    are personal descriptions more de-
    tailed than would be desirable in the
    Occidental literature, together with evi-
    dent approval of relations and ideals which
    the less sensual Western mind rightly condemns.’
    The italics are mine.
² Compare U. R. C. vii. 20ᵈ. The allusion is
    purposely veiled.

lxxvii] Uttara-Rāma-Charita: Critical Estimate
that of Kālidāsa, the current view being¹ that in the Uttara-Rāma-charita
Bhavabhūti has even surpassed the so-called ‘Shakespeare of India’. We
have given for this play in the sequel (pp. 4–14) a synoptic analysis of its
plot act by act, and have tried to show the bearing of every act (and
scene) upon the dénouement of the play. We will here limit ourselves
to a few general criticisms.
39. Special features of the Uttara-Rāma-charita.—The play, as its
title shows, treats of the later history of Rāma, from his coronation and
the abandonment of Sītā to the final reunion. As we have seen (pp. liv–
lxviii), the main incidents of the story—the circumstances leading to the
abandonment of Sītā, her rescue, the birth of the twins and their education,
the horse-sacrifice and the heroism displayed by the boys in capturing the
horse, their recognition by Rāma, the final ordeal of Sītā, and presumably
also the final reunion,—these were all given to the poet, not excepting even
the Śambūka episode (act ii) and the Lavaṇa affair (end of act i and of
act vii). The poet’s task therefore was not to create a plot, nor even to
make any considerable change in the sequence of given events and connect
them causally, as was the case in the two earlier plays.
The problem to be answered was briefly this: How could Rāma ever
think of abandoning such a wife as Sītā? and, having abandoned her—for
whatever cause—how could they be again united in any real sense until all
clouds, all vestiges of doubt and distrust, had been entirely banished from
their minds? The Dushyanta of Kālidāsa not only repudiates Śakuntalā,
but actually insults her to her face (Śākuntala, act v, Vyapadeśam
āvilayitum, &c.); and yet, when the reunion comes in act vii, Śakuntalā
has no other proof as to the penitence of the king than the indirect report
coming from her mother’s friend, and presumably the sad and wasted form
of her husband when she first beholds him after a separation of years.
True, the king begs her to forgive him (act vii: Sutanu hṛdayāt pratyā-
deśa-vyalīkam, &c.), but Śakuntalā has already acknowledged and accepted
him quietly before that, although her early experience of ‘that jar of
poison with honey on top’ might have taught her a lesson.² Similarly

¹ Uttare Rāma-charite Bhavabhūtir viśishyate.
² Of course, Kālidāsa, with the instinct of an
artist, has tried to lessen the suddenness
of the transition in various ways. One
in particular must here be noted, since
its artistic significance has not been suffi-
ciently recognized; namely the difference
in the background of act vii of the play
as contrasted with that of the first and
the following two acts. That of act vii
is a hermitage in the sky far removed
from the world, its passions, its hopes
(Yat kāṅkshanti tapobhir anya-munayas tas-
miṁs tapasyanty amī); that of acts i–iii is
a forest on earth, a penance-grove if you
will, but it is in the full bloom of spring.
The wild infuriated elephant which
breaks in at the end of act i, and the
mild forgiving lioness in act vii which
Sarvadamana robs of her cub, express

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.’

lxxix]    Uttara-Rāma-Charita: Critical Estimate
Wherefore did Rāma follow this unstraightforward course? In order to
motivate this act adequately the poet (4) places Rāma in a peculiar
situation: He is newly crowned (i. 8⁶) and has just taken upon himself
the heavy responsibilities of the state; and every man who knows what
it is to take charge of a new and important office will fully understand
Rāma's conscientiousness, his anxious care not to seem to be wanting in
the due discharge of his duties. Further Rāma is alone (i. 3); the elders
and advisers, who presumably might have restrained him from such im-
petuous acts, are away (ii. 6¹⁰); and his forlornness has been brought home
to him (i. 11) and has thrown him into a sort of nervous excitement just
a little before the crisis comes which calls for immediate action. If the
matter to be decided upon had been some non-personal affair of state,
Rāma might have settled it in the way best for all; but where it was
a personal affair of state, it was to be expected that he would be more
rigorously self-exacting than was either right or just to himself. Finally,
it was necessary to make clear (5) that, having abandoned his wife,
Rāma would nevertheless suffer, and so would Sītā. The picture-gallery
episode serves to show how dearly they loved each other, how they could
not bear even the thought of living away from each other (i. 27²⁻⁶, i. 30,
i. 33¹⁴).
  To bring out vividly these five points would have been achievement
enough for one act, but Bhavabhūti is not content with that. In act i he
is thinking of act vii, and so, besides giving us the dohada affair (i. 10¹,
i. 33³) which serves as the immediate pretext for Sītā's banishment, the act
gives us also the jṛimbhaka incident (i. 15²), which plays such a signal part
in the recognition of the princes, as well as the allusions to Bhāgīrathī
(i. 23¹) and Pṛithivī (i. 51), who later take charge of the abandoned Sītā¹
and bring her into the action at the proper time. Two more points, which
perhaps are not so very obvious at first sight: When we learn that Rāma
has caused to be painted, on the walls of his palace, scenes from his past
career—that career wherein Sītā was so prominent a figure,—and when we
see the intense feeling and devoutness with which he looks at the pictures
and recalls the memory of his past life with his beloved,—we can then
readily understand his passionate clinging to these dear memories (iii. 14⁴,
iii. 43¹³, vi. 38), and the source of mournful comfort that he will find therein
even after the loss of his wife, so that we do not have to be actually told
that Rāma did not marry a second time. Of course, he did not and would

¹ Herein Bhavabhūti departs from his sources.    in his hermitage. Bhavabhūti wanted to
  It was Vālmīki who, both according to     keep the twins ignorant of their parent-
  the Rāmāyaṇa and the Padma-Purāṇa,     age; hence the change.
  took charge of Sītā and gave her a shelter

Introduction [lxxx
not and could not. Secondly, there is, to my mind, a peculiarly dramatic
appropriateness in the fact that the play—I mean the play proper—should
open with a speech of Rāma (i. 8⁴) that was meant to console his wife for a
thing which had happened and which could not but happen: the separation
from her dear relatives and elders. Here we have the very keynote of the
play struck once and for all. When to all this we add that the language of
the entire act is exceptionally rich and poetic, that there is hardly a sentence
or even a phrase which we would wish were not there,¹ hardly a word which
is not just the right word, that the poet affords us a deep insight into the
workings of the human heart so that the emotional tone is genuine and
not mawkish or sentimental (as it was in some parts of his earlier plays),
and that the whole is arranged in a sequence which is entirely natural and
clearly shows that Bhavabhūti has at last mastered the art of condensing
and enlarging, of choosing and omitting, and above all has learned the value
of restraint,—with that we have said our last word in praise of this act and
of the dramatic technique that is involved in the writing of it.
41. The Uttara-Rāma-charita as a psychological study.—In acts ii
and iii we have Bhavabhūti in yet another light. Vālmīki's Rāmāyaṇa
gives the story of Śambūka in vii. 74–82, and the Padma-Purāṇa gives it
in v. 32, 33 and elsewhere. Both these works tell us that Rāma, after
killing the Śūdra ascetic, visited the hermitage of Agastya in the Pañcha-
vaṭī, but neither is alive to the great poetic opportunity afforded by Rāma's
reappearance in the old familiar scenes after the great event of Sītā's
abandonment. The Padma-Purāṇa does perhaps vaguely realize the poetic
possibilities of the theme (cp. v. 35²⁶ ff.), but the treatment is not to be
compared with the splendid descriptive and reflective passages that we find
in the Uttara-Rāma-charita, acts ii and iii. For all practical purposes then
these acts might be said to be an original work of Bhavabhūti, and we have
seen (§ 39) that he had a strong psychological reason for the invention.
Let us now see what the poet makes of his opportunities.
¹ For the stage-omission of i. 30⁹ to i. 31ᵈ
see appendix 8. With this single ex-
ception the themes of the pictures are
all well chosen. Each has a distinct
purpose. The poet's treatment, of course,
is necessarily allusive and the audience
could easily fill in the details. His
dramatic sense is shown as much by
what he keeps as by what he omits; e.g.
the Ahalyā incident and the fight with
Vālin. Note also that Rāma does not in
the play, as he does in the epic (vii. 43 f.),
expressly seek information about the
kimvadantī (rumour); and he abandons
Sītā immediately after his interview with
the spy, not the next morning, as in the
epic. That the cry for help (i. 49³) should
come just at the right moment to remind
him of his kingly duty, while at the
same time the allusion to Rākshasa-
trāsa (fear of demons) should make his
heart soften, is also highly artistic.
So far as we know, the episode of the
picture-gallery is original with Bhava-
bhūti.

lxxxi] Uttara-Rāma-Charita: Critical Estimate
To begin with, in Rāma there is no change of mood, no development of
character. His grief is of the steady abiding kind, only made more intense
and alive by the sight of Pañchavaṭī. It is Sītā who passes through a
progressive emotional experience, wherein from a feeling of apathy and
even resentment towards her husband she, after many a swing of the
pendulum, reaches finally a state of confidence and perfect reconciliation.
The various psychological moments in this process will be duly set forth
in our Notes to the several passages. We will here review them briefly.
In iii. 7⁶ Sītā is so thoroughly estranged from Rāma that she finds it
impossible to speak of him as ‘My noble Lord (ajjaütta)’, but simply as
‘The King (rāā)’. In iii. 46¹³ she admits that ‘the dart of disgraceful
abandonment’¹ has been removed from her heart. What has happened in
the interval is that she has seen Rāma, has heard him, has received ample
apology for her wrongs. The important point to note, however, is that
Sītā did not expect to get this apology, and yet she has it offered to her,
and that too in a manner precluding all possibility of Rāma’s being
insincere, for he does not know that he is overheard by his wife, or
even that his wife is alive. It is also creditable to the poet that all
through this mental evolution Sītā does not appear as the stern jurist
who refuses to be convinced until the last shred of evidence is in, but
always as the true woman and the loving wife that she had never
ceased to be.
There are three main stages in this process of rapprochement:

1. Seeing Rāma faint and following the impulse of the moment, Sītā
   runs to his rescue (iii. 10¹), but upon brief reflection she turns to
   withdraw (iii. 12⁵), and settles down slowly into a mood of despondency
   and resignation to fate (iii. 22²ᶠᶠ.). Sītā has, however, made sure of one
   thing: Rāma has not forgotten her, although why he abandoned her is
   yet a mystery. 2. In the second stage she goes one step further, and,
   when Vāsantī begins to reprove Rāma for his cruelty to his wife, it is
   Sītā herself who, with a truly feminine instinct, takes her husband’s part
   against all attacks from without (iii. 26⁶, iii. 27¹). This self-effacement
   (iii. 36¹) almost reaches a total surrender of self-respect in iii. 40⁸, but
   Tamasā’s words (iii. 43) recall her to a truer estimate of her present
   position. 3. Then follows a second reaction (iii. 43⁹, ¹⁵, iii. 45¹), not so
   violent as the first; and this is immediately followed by a counter-
   reaction, especially when she has the assurance that her husband not only
   loves her as passionately as ever, but will never love or marry another.
   The inward reconciliation is now complete (iii. 46¹³).
   ¹ Observe that it is no longer a ‘causeless’ abandonment as it was in iii. 14² and elsewhere.
   1 [H.O.S. 21]

Introduction [lxxxii]
It is clear that a poet who could fathom so deeply the inmost recesses
of the human heart and produce a result which, from beginning to end, is
so perfectly artistic because it is so perfectly natural, was a dramatist of no
mean order. Similar genuinely human touches are found on almost every
page of the drama.
42. Recognition-scene in the sixth act of the Uttara-Rāma-charita.—
So far the poet has given us a brilliant opening and a real psychological
climax, but the climax of situations is yet to come. In the latter part of the
play the great act of course is the sixth, and the poet has been preparing us
for it ever since the interlude to act ii. There we hear of the horse-sacrifice
for the first time; Rāma confirms the news in iii. 46¹², and towards the end
of act iv we actually see the horse. Similarly at the end of act iii Rāma is
just starting in his pushpaka car to return to Ayodhyā, and we naturally
expect him to see what was happening in Vālmīki's penance-grove on the
banks of the Ganges, seeing that it lay just on the way from the south.
Thus Rāma's appearance on the scene exactly when he does appear (vi. 6⁴)
is adequately explained. Finally, that Lava should see and capture the
horse and that a battle should ensue was also quite inevitable.
The recognition itself is very artistically conceived and carried out
except that here and there a point is rather over-laboured¹—at least so it
seems to us, however it may have seemed to Bhavabhūti's audience. The
various steps in the process are summarized in our Notes to vi. 27¹,
and here we may call attention particularly to the very natural way in
which Lava is led to talk of his twin-brother (iv. 22¹⁵⁻⁴¹ and again vi. 15⁴ff.).
Notice also how, in regard to the similarity of looks between the father and
the sons, which is one of the links in the argument, the poet has tried to
gain dramatic probability for the fact by letting at least three other persons
besides Rāma himself be impressed by it. The whole recognition scene is
worthy to be put on a par with the analogous scene in Kālidāsa's Śākuntala
(act vii); in some respects it would seem that Bhavabhūti has made a
distinct advance over the latter. A sort of suspense is also created by
making the recognition not complete until the very end of the last act.
**43. Other merits of the Uttara-Rāma-charita.—**If we compare the
interludes in the Uttara-Rāma-charita with those in the Mahāvīra-charita
or in the Mālatī-Mādhava, we notice another great advance which the
poet has made: he has now recognized the full dramatic value of the
interlude. We have no longer some person or persons brought on the stage
expressly to give us information (cp. interludes to M. M. ii and vii), nor
¹ I have in mind Rāma's long soliloquy in movement against soliloquies is, however,
act vi, particularly vi. 27¹-vi. 28⁴. The distinctly modern.

lxxxiii] Uttara-Rāma-Charita: Critical Estimate
a tedious soliloquizer like Mālyavant (cp. interludes to M. V. C. ii and vi)
who reveals to us the exact situation of things; neither do the characters
begin, as is sometimes done, by expressly telling us who they are and
what they are doing (cp. interludes to M. M. v and ix; also M. V. C. iv. 40⁴);
but rather we find a group of persons with an individuality of their own
who conduct the dialogue and give us the necessary information without
seeming to do so. We have some approaches to this in the Mahāvīra-
charita (cp. interludes to acts v and vii); but the best interludes are those
to acts iv and ii of the Uttara-Rāma-charita. In these interludes there
is hardly a word wasted, and they are entirely natural and adequate. The
least successful is the one to U. R. C. act vi.
Secondly, the poet has developed in this play some remarkable instances
of dramatic irony. Thus in that picture-gallery scene of act i, while Rāma
and Sītā are enjoying the ‘bliss of sorrows remembered’,¹ looking upon them
more or less as things of the past the memory of which is to be revived only
to season the cup of present joy, the audience has already heard (i. 6) of the
rumour and partly divines the fate that is hanging over the two, so that it
fully understands why it is that almost in spite of himself Rāma strikes
a sorrowful note ² and seems to have a foreboding of he knows not what.
And just at the moment when Rāma bursts into that sublime apostrophe
to his sleeping wife (i. 38)—‘What of hers is not dear, save only that
unendurable separation?’—the Female-warder's ‘Is come’ does indeed
startle Rāma,³ but on the audience it is calculated to produce an impression
not unlike that made by Iago’s aside after a similar outburst of Othello
(ii. 1. 185).⁴ There is also some clever irony in acts iv and v, and throughout
the recognition scene of act vi.
Finally, consider how skilfully the author has tried to bridge over the
twelve-year interval that separates the first act from the rest of the play.⁵
He brings the fact home to us in various ways. The nature-descriptions
in act ii (especially stanza 27) and the account of the young peacock
(iii. 19, 20, 21) and the elephant-cub now grown to full maturity (iii. 16, 17)
make us realize that during this period growth and change were in constant

¹ Cp. Raghuvaṁśa, xiv. 25.
² Cp. i. 27² to i. 33ᵈ. It is worthy of remark
that stanza i. 23, where Rāma invokes
the blessings of the Bhāgīrathī, is in
the sad dirge-like hariṇī metre. See
appendix 1.
³ Cp. note to the English Translation of the
passage.
⁴ Othello. O my soul’s joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have
waken’d death!
• • • • •
Iago (aside). O, you are well tun’d now!
But I’ll set down the pegs that make
this music.
⁵ Under similar conditions Shakespeare has
introduced Time as the Chorus who
turns his glass, and leaves ‘the growth
untri’d’ (The Winter’s Tale, iv. 1).

Introduction [lxxxiv
progress. Men also had grown and witnessed changes of station. Thus
king Janaka has for some years given up the offices of state and sought
solace in retirement (iv. 12⁷); the demon Lavaṇa, who broke upon us at the
close of act i, has been killed and his · kingdom is now in the hands of
Śatrughna (vii. 19²⁹; cp. Rāmāyaṇa, vii. 70–71); and the twelve-year
session of the sacrifice (i. 4¹, ii. 6¹²) has come to an end. But amid this
fluctuation there were also elements of constancy. The mountains remain
unchanged (ii. 27ᵈ); the deer still remember her who used to feed them in
the kadalī grove in the Pañchavaṭī (iii. 22⁵, 26; cp. also Kādambarī, p. 21,
ll. 19–20); Rāma is constant and devoted to the memory of his wife;¹ and
above all, the holy pair, Vasiṣṭha and Arundhatī, still continue to guard
the interests of the Raghu family, and, out of the calamities that have
happened and that they in part had foreseen (iv. 17⁶), they succeed in
working a prosperous issue.
44. Defects of the Uttara-Rāma-charita.—The play, in spite of its
great excellence, is not entirely free from faults. Thus the poet still
retains—though in a far less degree—his old fondness for long descriptions
and alliterative compounds. These are particularly obtrusive in acts v and
vi. Elsewhere also the poet would have done better to condense and omit
so as to secure a general quickening of the action; and if the results of
appendixes 6 and 8 are correct, it would seem that the author himself
sanctioned such curtailment for stage-purposes. Secondly, Bhavabhūti has
not yet quite got over his fondness for display, and his points are sometimes
laboured. The sentiment of the play is on the whole very real, but in its
expression we sometimes catch a jarring note. Thus Rāma brings his
‘heart’s vitals’ rather too frequently into his speeches, and not all the
faintings in the play are as inevitable and as artistically necessary as that
of Rāma at iii. 39¹. Particularly infelicitous are the Vidyādhara-
Vidyādharī sentiments at vi. 4 ff. and especially vi. 5. Finally, we may
mention that in none of Bhavabhūti’s extant plays do we (except in
U. R. C., act iv) find any pronounced humour. Bhavabhūti’s humour, what
little there is of it, is of the purely intellectual character and springs more
from situation and irony (e. g. U. R. C. vi. 19¹² ᶠ, iv. 22²⁰, iii. 46¹⁶). Only
once does Sītā herself indulge in a joke (i. 18²) and even then it is of the
sober matronly kind quite in accord with her character. This absence in
Bhavabhūti’s plays of anything like a pervading lighter vein² may be
due to the fact that the poet took his subject too seriously, felt in other
¹ Cp. p. lxxix, above, and also U. R. C. iii. 14⁶;    that Bhavabhūti was a conscious imi-
  iii. 43¹⁴; vi. 38⁶; &c.            tator of Śūdraka in the ‘Clay Cart’.
² This by itself would rule out the theory

lxxxv] Common Characteristics of Bhavabhūti's Plays
words that he had a lesson to teach; or finally that he was tempera-
mentally incapable of dwelling long on the sunny side of life. A few
more defects of a minor nature could also be pointed out; but in this
connexion the more important thing is to see how many of his earlier
shortcomings he has in this play successfully overcome, and so to realize,
as Bhavabhūti did, that the key to consummate success lies in a constant
practice in the light of earlier failures.
45. Some common characteristics¹ of Bhavabhūti's plays.—The three
plays were all given as open-air performances on the occasion of a religious
fair, and they end happily. The hero in all cases is devoted to one wife,
and there is no illicit love of any kind. Pathos is the prevailing sentiment
in the U. R. C., and it is not wholly absent in the other two plays. In all
of them there appears at least one aged mourner. They show only one
kind of Prākrit, Śaurasenī, and it is all prose and no verse.² All the three
plays have characters flying through the air (two of them have aerial cars),
and this circumstance, as well as the effect of light and shade given by the
stanza vyatikara iva,³ is of importance in connexion with the stage-
properties.⁴ We have already spoken (§ 37) of the long Prākrit passages
in the Mālatī-Mādhava as an indication of the nature of Bhavabhūti's
audience; we may further note that all the three plays contain a number
of learned allusions to different Śāstras, and this must be meant as an
appeal to another element of the audience. Finally, what are called
unities of time and place are entirely absent in the plays. The action
moves in a rapid succession from the interior of a house or a palace to the
garden surrounding it, the street, the cemetery, the river, or the forest,
sometimes indeed the high regions of the atmosphere. Then as to time,
the first play covers a period of some fifteen years, the last about twelve
years. The action of the Mālatī-Mādhava occupies nearly three months.
The only unity recognized is the unity of plot. About that we have
spoken elsewhere. All these circumstances make it likely that the plays
were given by one and the same company of actors; and this is an
important factor in determining the authorship of the stage-emendations
discussed in appendix 8.
¹ Mere parallelisms in words, images, and sentiments will be found collected in appendix 3.
² M. M. vi. 10 and 11 are so worded as to have one form both in Sanskrit and in Prākrit.
³ M. M. ix. 54; x. 8; U. R. C. v. 13; M. V. C. has the thing (i. 43) but not the words. This last circumstance might be additional proof that the M. V. C. was the earliest of the three plays.
⁴ See appendix 11.

Introduction [lxxxvi]

Bhavabhūti as a Poet

46. Bhavabhūti's shortcomings.—So far as it is possible to separate
the functions of a dramatist from those of a poet, we will now try to bring
out some of the special qualities of Bhavabhūti's poetry; and first we will
speak of his shortcomings because they are so very few. Most of them are
on the surface, and are the more often felt because critics attempt to apply
to the poet standards which belong neither to his country nor to his time;
but some are radical defects, and belong as much to the man as to his
works. Thus, especially in his early works, the poet does not seem to have
risen above the standards imposed upon him from without. He came after
Bāṇa, or at least at a time when long mouth-filling words were regarded as
the very essence of poetic composition. Words had to be arranged in a
particular way so as to give a particular rīti, a particular kind of alliterative
effect, which was supposed to represent a particular kind of emotional
mood. Softer emotions were expressed in simpler words, the more fiery or
warlike emotions in harsh, guttural sounds, uttered in rapid succession.¹
The result has been those long descriptive passages in the Mālatī-Mādhava
and elsewhere, which do not even contain ideas sufficiently poetic to offer
a sort of a justification for the poet. It may be that his own audience was
trained to such language, and grasped it more readily than we can do now,
but the very fact that, as he advanced in his work, he gave up his earlier
and more cumbrous style in favour of the simpler style of the Uttara-
Rāma-charita, is an argument against such a supposition. Where there is
such a deliberate straining after effect we need not be surprised if here
and there we meet some infelicities of expression.² Secondly, Bhavabhūti
now and then exhibits a tendency to exaggerate, and so to transcend the
bounds of what is poetically probable. We must not, however, in this case
judge the poet too harshly. Almost all romantic writers, Oriental or non-
Oriental, modern or ancient, not infrequently indulge in exaggeration for
the sake of deeper colour and stronger effect. A third fault in Bhavabhūti
is pithily expressed by the formula that he has more passion than poetry.
As Dr. Bhandarkar puts it, where Kālidāsa suggests, Bhavabhūti expresses.
‘The characters of the latter, overcome by the force of passion, often weep
bitterly, while those of the former simply shed a few tears, if they do so at
all.’³ Now with an external manifestation of emotions as such, we need

¹ This is best illustrated in U. R. C. v. 26,
where the first half has a different rīti
from the last half. Most of the illustra-
tions which follow are purposely chosen
from this play only.
² Thus guñjat used of an elephant's roar
(U. R. C. v. 6ᵃ); ghaṭā used of a flock of
owls (U. R. C. ii. 29ᵃ); &c.
³ Mālatī-Mādhava, 2nd ed., preface, p. xii.

lxxxvii] Bhavabhūti as a Poet
have no quarrel; it is a characteristic as much of a people as of a man,
or of a particular period in the life of a man. Thus the ancient Greeks
had it to a great extent, and even Kālidāsa's Dushyanta shows enough
of it in the sixth act of the Śākuntala. Is the emotion genuine? is the
expression natural? that is the main question. And we saw (§ 37) that
such is not always the case in the Mālatī-Mādhava. In the Uttara-Rāma-
charita the emotion is genuine, but the expression (especially fainting)
is, to say the least, peculiar. A few other defects, such as the poet's
use of the miraculous and his fondness for display, have already been
mentioned.
47. Bhavabhūti's merits.—The real merits of the poet far outweigh his
defects. We have spoken of his cumbrous style; this, however, is true
only of his descriptive prose, and of less than a fourth part of his verse.
Elsewhere, and whenever something stirring or momentous is happening on
the stage, his language becomes notably simpler and simpler, until in some
of the most intense situations he seems to have abjured compounds
altogether.¹ No writer in fact has succeeded in keeping his prose and
his poetry on two so entirely distinct footings. Then as to the ability to
suggest the picture by a few, bold strokes, Bhavabhūti is not entirely
devoid of such power;² more usually, however, instead of seeking for
artistic similes and figures of speech, which were Kālidāsa's forte,³ Bhava-
bhūti likes to select a few typical aspects of a situation or an emotion, and
state them barely in succession; and this is equally effective in spite of, or
rather because of, the absence of any poetic embellishments.⁴ We have
already commented sufficiently upon the poet's skill in portraying the
deeper emotions of the human heart. This he does quite as much by a
cumulation of epithets, as by a solitary word or sentence put into the
mouth of some character. Instances of the former kind are not far to
seek;⁵ of the latter we may mention the exquisitely self-revealing speech
of Sītā as she awakes to find herself alone (i. 51² ff.), or, in the words of
Wilson, the truly Shakespearian device (U. R. C. i. 8⁶) of the chamberlain's
addressing the newly crowned king first as 'Rāma dear' and then
as 'Your Majesty'. Similarly the other chamberlain of the play (act iv),
true to his calling, merely repeats or paraphrases the words of his betters.
¹ Cp. U. R. C. ii. 27 ; iii. 31 ff. ; iii. 46 ; iv. 13 ;
vi. 11 ; vii. 6 ; &c.
² Compare for instance U. R. C. i. 29, or that
beautiful description of the peacock in
iii. 19 and 20.
³ 'Upamā Kālidāsasya.' Some of Bhavabhūti's
particularly happy similes in our play
are : i. 45 ; ii. 4 ; iii. 5 ; iii. 30 ; iii. 43 ;
v. 11 ; vi. 4 ; vi. 17 ; &c.
⁴ Compare i. 27 ; i. 43 ; ii. 27 ; iii. 16 ; iii. 38 ;
iv. 1 ; iv. 4 ; vi. 19 ; &c.
⁵ As typical ones we may mention U. R. C.
i. 35 f. ; ii. 26 ; iii. 11 f. ; iii. 32 ; iii. 36;
iii. 39 ; vi. 9 ; &c.

Introduction [lxxxviii
It is touches like these¹ that tell us as much about the character of the
chamberlain as the two descriptions of it given by Kālidāsa (Śākuntala,
v. i; Vikramorvaśīya, iii. 1). In this connexion we may observe that
the poet is at pains to put in the mouth of each character words the
most appropriate. Thus Lava, pupil of the saint Vālmīki, speaks a
language that is tinged with religious learning (v. 31¹), just as the language
of Janaka is tinged with the philosophy for which he is so famous in the
Upanishads. Tamasā, the River-goddess, is full of similes drawn from her
experience in the water.² The two ascetic youths in the interlude to act iv,
Uttara-Rāma-charita, take a keen pleasure in logical discussions, attempting
to detect fallacies and draw subtle distinctions, just as students might have
done in the great mediaeval universities of India. Bhavabhūti has also
given us some very beautiful pictures of animals, investing them of course
with human feelings.³
48. Conclusion.—But it is hardly necessary to enumerate all such
merits one by one. Appreciative criticisms of this sort are more or less
subjective, and it is no longer the fashion for a translator or an editor
of an ancient text to take his reader by the button, stop him in front
of every picture, and ask him to admire it, and even to tell him how
he should admire it. If a modern reader, and especially a foreigner, is
given just the help necessary to understand the exact situation, and to get
from it the exact implication that was got by a Hindu of Bhavabhūti's
time who saw the play acted, that is all that can be expected in an edition
like this.
Once the preliminary ground has been cleared, and the needful informa-
tion given, the play can confidently be left to win its own conquests.
It will not lack readers. In India it has never lacked enthusiastic admirers.
Never, O never mayest Thou condemn me to sing my song unto
hearts that answer not!
Such was the prayer of an old Sanskrit poet. A deeper note was struck
by Bhavabhūti:
It may be that a spirit kindred to mine will some day be born;
for time is endless, and the world is wide!
¹ Cp. also our Note to U. R. C. iii. 26². iii. 43ᶜ; and iii. 48.
² Cp. U. R. C. iii. 13ᵈ; iii. 24; iii. 30; iii. 35ᵇ; ³ Cp. iii. 15 f. ; iii. 20 ff. ; iv. 1ᵃᵇ ; iv. 26 ; &c.