The Sanskrit drama : $b in its origin, development, theory and practiceKeith, Arthur Berriedale
History
The Sanskrit drama : $b in its origin, development, theory and practice
Keith, Arthur Berriedale
Sanskrit drama -- History and criticism
Of other mythological subjects we have the Harakelināṭaka [511] of the
Cāhamāna king Vīsaladeva Vigraharāja, of whom we have an inscription of
A.D. 1163, and whose work is partially preserved on stone. The
Pārvatīpariṇaya [512] of Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa, who wrote about A.D. 1400
under the Reḍḍi prince Vema of Koṇḍavīḍu, owes its fame to its being
mistaken for a work of Bāṇa. The Haragaurīvivāha [513] of
Jagajjyotirmalla of Nepal (1617–33) is interesting, because it is
rather an opera than a play and the vernacular verses are its only
fixed element, but this is not likely to be a primitive feature.
Of dramas with lesser personages of the saga as heroes we have the
Bhairavānanda [514] of the Nepalese poet Maṇika from the end of the
fourteenth century, and at least a century later the Bhartṛharinirveda
[515] of Harihara, which is interesting, as it shows the popularity of
Bhartṛhari; he is represented as desolated by his wife’s death, through
despair on a false rumour of his own death, but, consoled by a Yogin,
he attains indifference, so that, when his wife is recalled to life,
neither she nor their child has any attraction for him.
Of historical drama we have little, and that of small value. The
Lalitavigraharājanāṭaka, [516] preserved in part in an inscription, is
a work of the latter part of the twelfth century by Somadeva in honour
of Vīsaladeva Vigraharāja, the Cāhamāna. The Pratāparudrakalyāṇa [517]
by Vidyānātha, inserted in his treatise on rhetoric as an illustration
of the drama, celebrates his patron, a king of Warangal about A.D.
1300.
More interesting is the Hammīramadamardana, [518] written between A.D.
1219 and 1229 by Jayasiṅha Sūri, the priest of the temple of
Munisuvrata at Broach. It appears that Tejaḥpāla, brother of Vastupāla,
minister of Vīradhavala of Gujarāt, visited the temple, and, with the
assent of his brother, complied with the request of Jayasiṅha for the
erection of twenty-five golden flagstaffs for Devakulikās. As a reward
Jayasiṅha not merely celebrated the brothers in a panegyric, of which a
copy has been preserved along with his drama, but wrote, to please
Jayantasiṅha, son of Vastupāla, the play for performance at the
festival of the procession of the god Bhīmeçvara at Cambay. He claims
that it includes all nine sentiments, in contrast to Prakaraṇas,
exploiting the sentiment of fear, with which the audience has been
surfeited.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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