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
The argument from the use of technical terms is clearly untenable. That
Rāṣṭriya in Rudradāman’s inscription has the sense of ‘brother-in-law’
is not supported by the slightest evidence, and is most improbable; the
term doubtless denotes governor, and the restricted use is a later
development. The use of Svāmin as the mode of addressing the king is
not recorded in the Nāṭyaçāstra, and to argue that it, being given in
the Daçarūpa and the Sāhityadarpaṇa, must be borrowed from Bharata, as
Konow does, is quite impossible. On the contrary, Bharata [138] gives
the style to the Yuvarāja, or Crown Prince, presumably as distinct from
the king. In the extant dramas after Bhāsa it is not used of the king
or Crown Prince. Sugṛhītanāman, denoting perhaps ‘whose name is uttered
with respect’, has no parallel in Bharata; only in the later theory do
we find Sugṛhītābhidha, which, however, is prescribed merely for the
address of a pupil, child, or younger brother to a teacher, father, or
elder brother, and therefore stands in no conceivable relation to the
term used by Rudradāman. Bhadramukha is the address to a royal prince
in Bharata; it is used of kings by Rudrasena, and the literature
ignores the specific or royal use. The lack of accord is complete and
convincing; if the drama had originated under the Western Kṣatrapas of
Ujjayinī, it would not have been so flagrantly out of harmony with the
official language.
The whole error of these arguments rests in the belief that the drama
developed as a Prākrit drama before it was turned into Sanskrit. The
same theory has been applied to every department of secular Sanskrit
literature without either plausibility or success; the Mahābhāṣya knows
Sanskrit Kāvya before any Prākrit Kāvya is recorded. [139] But, apart
from this, it is essential to remember that the drama was religious in
origin and essentially connected with epic recitations, and that for
both reasons Sanskrit claimed in it a rightful place from the
inception. It is certain that the recitations known by Patañjali were
in Sanskrit, and it is difficult in the extreme to understand how in
the view of Lévi and Konow a Prākrit drama proper ever came into being.
Before the coalescence of the epic recitation and the primitive mime
believed in by Konow, there cannot have been any drama on his own
theory; when they coalesced, Sanskrit must have from the first been
present.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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