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
In Act V
the battle is over; Confusion and his offspring are dead. But Spirit is
disconsolate, mourning the loss of Confusion and Activity. The doctrine
of Vyāsa, the Vedānta, appears, disabuses his mind of error, and he
resolves to settle down as a hermit with the one wife worthy of him,
Inactivity. Act VI shows us the ancestor of all Being; he is still
under the influence of Confusion, who, before dying, dispatched to him
spirits to confuse him, and his companion, Illusion, favours their
efforts. But his friend Reasoning shows him his error, and he drives
them away. Peace of heart reunites Theology and Discrimination; she
tells of her mishaps with Cult and Exegesis, Nyāya and Sāṁkhya, and
reveals to Being that he is the Supreme Lord. This, however, is too
much for his intellect, but the difficulty is cleared away by
Judgement, which is the immediate supernatural child of the reunion of
the spouses. The appearance of Trust (bhakti) in Viṣṇu to applaud the
result terminates the drama.
No one can doubt the cleverness with which the strife of races of one
stock in the Mahābhārata and the plot and love interest of the usual
Nāṭikā are combined, nor the ingenuity of fitting in the Vedānta
doctrine of the Absolute and the devotion of the Vaiṣṇava creed. There
is certainly some comedy in the exchange of views of Egoism and
Falsity, who are perfect examples of hypocrisy, and the scenes between
Buddhism, Jainism, and Somism are distinctly funny. None the less it
would be idle to pretend that the play has any dramatic force. Its
chief merits are its effective and stately stanzas of moral and
philosophical content. Kṛṣṇamiçra is an able master of the
Çārdūlavikrīḍita, his favourite metre; he has also effective
Vasantatilakas, and rhymed Prākrit stanzas.
Kṛṣṇamiçra’s example has caused the production of numerous dramas of
the same type, but of much less value. The Saṁkalpasūryodaya [525] of
Ven̄kaṭanātha of the fourteenth century is excessively dreary, but it is
better than the famous Caitanyacandrodaya [526] of Kavikarṇapūra, which
is an account of Caitanya’s success, but which wholly fails to convey
any suggestion of his spiritual power. He turns out as a long-winded
discourser of a muddled theology, surrounded by obedient and
unintelligent pupils. Two Çaiva dramas are the Vidyāpariṇayana [527]
and Jīvānandana [528] written at the end of the seventeenth and
beginning of the eighteenth century. They have no merits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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