The Dūtavākya, a Vyāyoga in one act, is again from the Mahābhārata, but deals with the Kṛṣṇa legend. Bhīṣma is made chief of the Kuru forces; the arrival of Nārāyaṇa is announced, but Duryodhana forbids that any honour be shown to him, and seats himself before a picture, in which is depicted the indignity shown to Draupadī, when her husband gambled her away at dice. Kṛṣṇa enters, making a deep impression on all by his majesty; even Duryodhana falls from his seat. The messenger demands the half of the realm for the Pāṇḍavas; Duryodhana refuses and seeks to bind the envoy. Enraged, he calls for his magic weapons, but finally he consents to lay aside his wrath, and receives the homage of Dhṛtarāṣṭra. It is interesting to note that the play, in describing the picture, omits any allusion to the miracle by which in the epic Kṛṣṇa himself is represented as providing the unhappy Draupadī with fresh raiment as soon as each garment is dragged from her in insult. But it would be extremely unwise to assume with Professor Winternitz [170] that this fact proves that Bhāsa did not know of this episode, and that it was interpolated after his time in the epic. Obviously it would have ruined the effect of the picture if such a fact had been hinted at in it, apart from the difficulty of exhibiting this by the painter’s art, and Bhāsa is clearly justified on artistic grounds in allowing this episode to be passed over. Of far greater importance is the Bālacarita, [171] which presents us with a lively and vivid picture of the feats of Kṛṣṇa, culminating in the slaying of Kaṅsa, a brilliant exemplification of the value of Patañjali’s evidence as to the growth of drama. The director enters, pronounces a verse of benediction asking the favour of the god, who is Nārāyaṇa, Viṣṇu, Rāma, and Kṛṣṇa in the four ages of the world; he announces the advent of the sage Nārada and retires. Nārada explains that he has come from the heaven to gaze on the young Kṛṣṇa, born in the family of the Vṛṣṇis as son of Devakī and Vasudeva, who is in truth Nārāyaṇa incarnate to destroy Kaṅsa. He sees the infant, pays homage, and departs. Devakī and Vasudeva appear on the stage; they have joy in the birth of a son, but terror, for Kaṅsa has slain already six sons of theirs and will slay the seventh—a deviation in number from our other sources which make Kṛṣṇa the eighth child. Vasudeva takes the infant and decides to remove it from Kaṅsa’s reach. He leaves the city, but the child’s weight is as colossal as that of Mount Mandara; the darkness is impenetrable, but a marvellous light comes from the child, and the Yamunā makes dry a path for him to cross. The spirit of the tree under which he rests brings to him the cowherd Nanda, bearing a dead maiden, an infant just borne by his wife Yaçodā, who, fallen in a faint, does not know whether the child is a boy or a girl. Nanda gives aid reluctantly, but in memory of past favours. He seeks first to