रत्नावली नाटिका (सम्राट हर्षवर्धन - शास्त्रीय नाटिका रत्न सम्पूर्ण ४ अङ्क सान्वय सटीक)

INTRODUCTION ix
of the law of the act of all activity......"( Keith's Sanskrit Drama
P. 277.) According to Aristotle the conditions a tragedy essensially
lie in what is called 'undeserved misfortune,' which the hero of a
drama has undergone. And that 'undeserved misfortune' must be
the outcome of some great error on the part of the hero but not the
outcome of any depravity or systematic misdeed on his part. In
the case of a person filling into misery from happiness by reason
of his misdeeds no tragic feeling will be aroused. So Aristotle says,
"..the change in the hero's fortune must not be from misery to
happiness but on the contrary from happiness to misery ; the
cause of it must lie not in any depravity, but in some grat error
on his part" ( Aristotle on the art of poetry translated by In-
gram Bywater P. 50 ) Now the commission of a great error is
an accident which is not admitted in the Indian doctrine of Karma.
According to this doctrine every aspect and deed of human existence
is attributed to the working of the deeds done in the previous life ;
so any misfortune met with by a hero of a Sanskrit drama will
be attributed to his previous deed and as such his misfortune will
not create any tragic feeling and hence no tragedy is possible
according to the Sanskrit playwrights. In Venisamhára, Duryo-
dhana's helpless and deplorable plight, accentuated by the misfor-
tune due to the death of his heroic brothers-and military experts
who sided with him, may arouse some feeling but cannot create any
tragic feeling, as his said misfortune is not come to him accidentally
but is an outcome of his systematic misdeeds and mischievous
attitude of injuring the Pándavas. So our sympathy goes more
towards the Pándavas who attained to happiness in the long run
ofter continued struggle against the evils. So the strong conviction
of Indian mind as to the working of the law of action is reponsible
for the absence of tragedy in Sanskrit drama. Hence all Sanskrit
dramas are comedy in the loose sense of the term.
Another characteristic of Sanskrit drama is that the persons
represented herein are all typical characters ; Dr. Keith says