There is doubtless pedantry in the theory of sentiment; the choice of eight emotions, the subordination to them of transitory states, the enumeration of determinants and consequents, are largely dominated by empiricism, and not explained or justified. But in its essentials the theory may be admitted to be a bold and by no means negligible attempt to indicate the essential character of the emotional effect of drama. 6. THE DRAMATIC STYLES AND LANGUAGES Plot, characters, and sentiment are not the only constituent elements of drama; the poet must be an adept in adopting the appropriate manner [688] or style (vṛtti), for each action of the hero; the style adds to the play the indefinable element of perfection which is present in the highest beauty of feature or dress. The manners allowed by the Nāṭyaçāstra are four, the graceful (kaiçikī), the grand (sāttvatī), the violent (ārabhaṭī), and the verbal (bhāratī), which owes its name to the fact that, unlike the others, it depends for its effect on words, not action. The graceful manner is appropriate to the erotic sentiment; it employs song, dance, and lovely raiment, admits both male and female rôles, and depicts love, gallantry, coquetry, and jesting. It admits of four varieties. The first is pleasantry (narman), which is based on what is comic in speech, dress, or movement in the actors; the pleasantry may be purely comic, or be mingled with love, or even with fear, as when Susaṁgatā makes fun of Sāgarikā and adds that she will tell the queen of the episode of the picture. [689] When love is mingled, it may serve to evince affection, or to ask for a response, or to impute a fault on the lover’s part. A comedy of costume is seen in the Nāgānanda where the Viṭa, misled by his garments, mistakes the Vidūṣaka for a woman; a comedy of action in the Mālavikāgnimitra where Nipunikā punished the Vidūṣaka by dropping on him a stick which he takes, naturally enough, for a snake. The second form is the outburst of affection (narmasphūrja) [690] at the first meeting of lovers, which ends in a note of fear, as in the meeting of the king and Mālavikā in Act IV of the Mālavikāgnimitra. Thirdly, there is the manifestation of a recent love by physical signs (narmasphoṭa), [691] and, fourth, the development of affection (narmagarbha), illustrated by the adoption of a disguise by the hero to attain his end, as when Vatsa in the Priyadarçikā comes on the scene in the garb of Manoramā. [692]