Chapter XX: Act VI: tells us from an announcement to Yudhiṣṭhira and Draupadī of

Duryodhana’s death at Bhīma’s hands. But a Cārvāka comes in, who tells a very different story; Bhīma and Arjuna are dead. Yudhiṣṭhira and Draupadī resolve on death, and the Cārvāka, who is really a Rākṣasa, departs in glee. When, however, they are about to die, a noise is heard; Yudhiṣṭhira, deeming it Duryodhana, rushes to arms, while Draupadī runs away, and is caught by her hair by Bhīma, whom Yudhiṣṭhira seizes. The ludicrous error is discovered, and Draupadī binds up at last her locks. Arjuna and Vāsudeva arrive, the Cārvāka has been slain by Nakula, and all is well.

The play is on the whole undramatic, for the action is choked by narrative, and the vast abundance of detail served up in this form confuses and destroys interest. Yet the characterization is good; Duryodhana, as in the later Indian tradition, is unlovable; he is proud and arrogant, self-confident, vain, and selfish; he laughs at Bhānumatī’s fears and has no sympathy for the maternal anxiety of Jayadratha’s mother. He is suspicious of Droṇa and Açvatthāman, and thus deprives himself of their effective aid; Karṇa, whose jealous advice he accepts, he leaves to perish. Bhīma again is a bloodthirsty and boastful bully; Arjuna is equally valiant, but he is less an undisciplined savage, while Kṛṣṇa intervenes with wise moderation. Yudhiṣṭhira is, as ever, grave and more concerned with the interest of his subjects than his personal feelings. Horror and pathos are not lacking, but the love interest is certainly not effective, and it may be that it was forced on the author by tradition rather than any thought of producing a real interest of itself. Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa’s slavish fidelity to rule brought him censure even from Indian critics.

The style of the play is clear and not lacking either in force or dignity: dismayed by the dream of Bhānumatī Duryodhana comforts himself. [442] An̄giras says:

grahāṇāṁ caritaṁ svapno nimittāny upayācitam
phalanti kākatālīyaṁ tebhyaḥ prajñā na bibhyati.

‘The movements of the planets, dreams, omens, oblations, bear fruit by accident; therefore wise men fear them not.’ Graceful is his address to Bhānumatī if out of place: [443]

kuru ghanoru padāni çanaiḥ çanair: api vimuñca gatiṁ parivepinīm
patasi bāhulatopanibandhanam: mama nipīḍaya gāḍham uraḥsthalam.

‘O firm-limbed one, make slow thy steps; stay thy trembling gait; thou dost fall into the shelter of my arms; clasp me closely in thine embrace.’ But any display of tenderness is abnormal in Duryodhana; he rebukes his aged mother when she urges him to save his life by coming to terms with the enemy: [444]

mātaḥ kim apy asadṛçaṁ vikṛtaṁ vacas te: sukṣatriyā kva bhavatī kva
ca dīnataiṣā
nirvatsale sutaçatasya vipattim etām: tvaṁ nānucintayasi rakṣasi
mām ayogyam.

‘O mother, strange and unseemly is thy bidding. Ill accord thy noble birth and this faintness of spirit. Shame on thee, without natural affection, in that thou dost forget the cruel fate of thy hundred sons in seeking to save my life.’ In vain is Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s manly appeal to him: [445]

dāyādā na yayor balena gaṇitās tau Droṇabhīṣmau hatau
Karṇasyātmajam agrataḥ çamayato bhītaṁ jagat Phālgunāt
vatsānāṁ nidhanena me tvayi ripuḥ çesapratijño ’dhunā
krodhaṁ vairiṣu muñca vatsa pitarāv andhāv imau pālaya.

‘Slain are Droṇa and Bhīṣma whose peers none were deemed in might; all shrank in terror before Arjuna as he slew Karṇa’s son before his eyes; my dear ones slain, the foe’s whole aim is against thee now; lay aside thine anger with thy foes, and guard these thy blind parents.’ Admirably expressed is Bhīma’s wild fury when he disdains Yudhiṣṭhira’s effort to secure peace: [446]

mathnāmi Kauravaçataṁ samare na kopād: Duḥçāsanasya rudhiraṁ na
pibāmy urastaḥ
saṁcūrṇayāmi gadayā na Suyodhanoru: sandhiṁ karotu bhavatāṁ nṛpatiḥ
paṇena.

‘Shall I not in anger crush the hundred Kauravas in battle; shall I not drink the blood from Duḥçāsana’s breast; shall I not break with my club the thighs of Duryodhana, although your master buy peace at a price?’ Admirable also is his description of the sacrifice of battle: [447]

catvāro vayam ṛtvijaḥ sa bhagavān karmopadeṣṭā hariḥ
saṁgrāmādhvaradīkṣito narapatiḥ patnī gṛhītavratā
Kauravyāḥ paçavaḥ priyāparibhavakleçopaçāntiḥ phalam
rājanyopanimantraṇāya rasati sphītaṁ yaçodundubhiḥ.

‘We are the four priests, and the blessed Hari himself directs the rite; the king has consecrated himself for the sacrament of battle, the queen has taken on herself the vow; the Kauravyas are the victims, the end to be achieved the extinction of our loved one’s bitterness of shame at the insult done her; loudly the drum of fame summons the warrior to the fray.’ Equally effective is his summing up of his feat: [448]

bhūmau kṣiptaṁ çarīraṁ nihitam idam asṛk candanam Bhīmagātre
lakṣmīr ārye niṣaṇṇā caturudadhipayaḥsīmayā sārdham urvyā
bhṛtyā mitrāṇi yodhāḥ Kurukulam akhilaṁ dagdham etadraṇāgnau
nāmaikaṁ yad bravīṣi kṣitipa tad adhunā Dhārtarāṣṭrasya çeṣam.

‘His body is cast upon the ground; his blood is smeared as sandal paste on Bhīma’s limbs; the goddess of fortune, with the earth bounded by the waters of the four oceans, rests on my noble brother’s lap; servants, friends, warriors, the whole house of the Kurus has been burned in this fire of battle; the name alone, O king, is left of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s race.’ Effective is the appeal which Dhṛtarāṣṭra bids the faithful Sañjaya address to the righteously indignant Açvatthāman: [449]

smarati na bhavān pītaṁ stanyaṁ cirāya sahāmunā
mama ca malinaṁ kṣaumam bālye tvadan̄gavivartanaiḥ
anujanidhanasphītāc chokād atipraṇayāc ca tad—
vikṛtavacane māsmin krodhaç ciraṁ kriyatāṁ tvayā.

‘Forget not the milk which thou didst so long drink from the same breast with him; forget not my robe that thy childish feet so often soiled in play; his grief is bitter for the death of the younger brother whom he loved so dearly; be not, therefore, wroth for the unjust words he hath spoken to thee.’

On the other hand, we find in Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa many of the defects of Bhavabhūti, in special the fondness for long compounds both in Prākrit and in Sanskrit prose [450] and the same straining after effect which gives such a description of the battle as that vouchsafed to Draupadī by Bhīma, when she warns him nor to be overrash in battle: [451]

anyonyāsphālabhinnadviparudhiravasāmāṅsamastiṣkapan̄ke
magnānāṁ syandanānām upari kṛtapadanyāsavikrāntapattau
sphītāsṛkpānagoṣṭhīrasadaçivaçivātūryanṛtyatkabandhe
samgrāmaikārṇavāntaḥpayasi vicaritum paṇḍitāḥ Pāṇḍuputrāḥ.

‘The sons of Pāṇḍu are well skilled to disport in the waters of the ocean of the battle, wherein dance headless corpses to the music of the unholy jackals, that yell in joy as they drink the thick blood of the dead, and the footmen in their valour leap over the chariots that are sunk in the mud of the blood, fat, flesh, and brains of the elephants shattered in mutual onslaught.’ The adaptation of sound to sense here is doubtless admirable, and the picture drawn is vivid in a painful degree, but the style is too laboured to be attractive to modern taste.

None the less Nārāyaṇa has the merit, shared by Viçākhadatta, of fire and energy; much of the fierce dialogue is brutal and violent, but it lives with a reality and warmth which is lacking in the tedious contests in boasting, which burden all the descriptions in the Rāma dramas of the meeting of Rāma and Paraçurāma. Duryodhana is not behind Bhīma himself in insolence, though perhaps more subtle than that of the violent son of the Wind-god: [452]

kṛṣṭā keçeṣu bhāryā tava tava ca paços tasya rājñas tayor vā
pratyakṣam bhūpatīnām mama bhuvanapater ājñayā dyūtadāsī
tasmin vairānubandhe vada kim apakṛtaṁ tair hatā ye narendrā
bāhvor vīryātibhāradraviṇagurumadam mām ajitvaiva darpaḥ.

‘Thy wife—whether thine, O beast, or that king’s or the twins’—was seized by the hair, in the presence of all the princes, by my command as lord of the earth, she won as my slave at the dice. With this abiding cause of hatred between us, say what wrong was wrought by the kings whom thou hast slain? When thou hast not conquered me, why vainly dost thou boast of the cumbrous strength of thy huge arms?’

Violent as is the language, there is some excuse for it in the extraordinarily heartless character of Bhīma’s address to the ill-fated Dhṛtarāṣṭra, which almost justifies the recalling of the disgraceful slight put on Draupadī: [453]

nihatāçeṣakauravyaḥ kṣībo Duḥçāsanāsṛjā
bhan̄ktā Duryodhanasyorvor Bhīmo ’yaṁ çirasā nataḥ.

‘Bhīma bows low his head before thy feet, Bhīma who has slain all the scions of Kuru, who is drunk with the blood of Duḥçāsana, and who shall shatter the thighs of Duryodhana.’ Effectively contrasted is the stern, but courteous rebuke addressed by Yudhiṣṭhira to Kṛṣṇa’s elder brother: [454]

jñātiprītir manasi na kṛtā kṣatriyāṇāṁ na dharmo
rūḍhaṁ sakhyaṁ tad api gaṇitaṁ nānujasyārjunena
tulyaḥ kāmam bhavatu bhavataḥ çiṣyayoḥ snehabandhaḥ
ko ’yam panthā yad asi vimukho mandabhāgye mayi tvam?

‘Thou hast forgotten the love due to kindred blood, thou hast violated the law of the warrior, thou hast ignored the deep friendship between thy younger brother and Arjuna. Granted that thy love for both thy pupils may be equal, nevertheless what is the cause that thou dost show hostility to me in my misfortune?’

These and many other passages are cited by the writers on poetics who find in the Veṇīsaṁhāra an inexhaustible mine of illustration of the theory which doubtless deeply affected the author in his composition. They do not, however, eulogize him blindly; the love scene with Bhānumatī is definitely treated as out of place. [455]

6. THE LANGUAGE AND THE METRES OF THE VEṆĪSAṀHĀRA.

The Sanskrit and the Prākrits offer no special features of interest. The latter is mainly in Çaurasenī, but the speeches of the Rākṣasa and his wife at the beginning of Act III are clearly in Māgadhī; they show the characteristic signs of e for the nominative singular, both masculine and neuter, of a-stems; l for r, and ā in the vocative of a-stems. The suggestion of Grill [456] that the dialect is more precisely Ardha-Māgadhī is not necessary, for the points enumerated—the presence of s beside ç, the variation of o and aṁ in the nominative for e, and the use of jj for ry, and not yy—can be explained readily by the error of the scribes or the mistakes of the author. The freedom with which those worthies acted is seen clearly enough in the fact that one representative of the Bengālī as opposed to the Devanāgarī recension of the text has systematically rewritten the Prākrit into Çaurasenī.

The metrical treatment is noteworthy for the almost equal use of Vasantatilaka (39), Çārdūlavikrīḍita (32), Çikhariṇī (35), and Sragdharā (20). There are 53 Çlokas, and a few stanzas of Mālinī, Puṣpitāgrā, Praharṣiṇī, and one each of Aupacchandasika, Vaitālīya, Indravajrā, and Drutavilambita, with 6 Āryās, and 2 Prākrit Vaitālīyas. The versification is thus decidedly of the later type.

X

MURĀRI, RĀJAÇEKHARA, THEIR PREDECESSORS AND SUCCESSORS

1. THE PREDECESSORS OF MURĀRI

We know definitely of very few dramatists of the eighth and ninth centuries. Kalhaṇa [457] mentions expressly Yaçovarman of Kanyakubja as a patron of literature, who, as we have seen, patronized Bhavabhūti and Vākpati, and we learn of his drama Rāmābhyudaya, which is mentioned by Ānandavardhana in the Dhvanyāloka, by Dhanika and Viçvanātha, but has not yet been found. To Kalhaṇa [458] also we are indebted for knowledge of the period of Çivasvāmin, who lived under Avantivarman of Kashmir (A.D. 855–83) and was a contemporary of the poet Ratnākara. He wrote many Nāṭakas and Nāṭikās, and also Prakaraṇas, but save an occasional verse in the anthologies his fame is lost.

Anan̄gaharṣa Mātrarāja, [459] on the other hand, is known to Ānandavardhana and Abhinavagupta, and his play Tāpasavatsarājacarita is a variation on the theme of the ruse of Yaugandharāyaṇa to secure the marriage of Vatsa and Padmāvatī, in face of the deep love of the king for Vāsavadattā. Vatsa in this drama, which is of little poetic or dramatic value, becomes an ascetic on learning of his queen’s supposed fate, whence the title of the play. Padmāvatī, who had become enamoured of the king from a portrait sent by the minister, follows suit. Eventually Vāsavadattā and Vatsa are united in Prayāga when each is about to commit suicide in sorrow at separation, and the usual victory is reported by Rumaṇvant to give a happy ending. There seems little doubt that the author used the Ratnāvalī, which gives the upper limit of his date. His father’s name is given as Narendravardhana.

Māyurājā [460] has been less fortunate in that his Udāttarāghava is known only by reference. Rājaçekhara represents him as a Karaculi or Kulicuri, which suggests the possibility that he was a king of the Kalacuri dynasty, of which unhappily we know little during the period in which he is probably to be set. He seems to have known Bhavabhūti. Like him he eliminated treachery from the slaying of Vālin by Rāma, and he represents Lakṣmaṇa as first to follow the magic gazelle, and Rāma as going later in pursuit. He is cited more than once in Dhanika’s commentary on the Daçarūpa.

No other dramatist of this period is known with any certainty; the Pārvatīpariṇaya once ascribed to Bāṇa is now allotted to Vāmana Bhaṭṭa Bāṇa (c. A.D. 1400), and the Mallikāmāruta, wrongly thought to be Daṇḍin’s, is the work of one Uddaṇḍin of the seventeenth century.

Of these dramatists Yaçovarman has had the honour of being considered worthy of quotation by the writers on theory who have preserved for us some interesting verses: [461]

ākrandāḥ stanitair vilocanajalāny açrāntadhārāmbhubhis
tvadvicchedabhuvaç ca çokaçikhinas tulyās taḍidvibhramaiḥ
antar me dayitāmukhaṁ tava çaçī vṛttiḥ samāpy āvayoḥ
tat kim mām aniçaṁ sakhe jaladhara dagdhum evodyataḥ.

‘My moans are like thy thunder, the floods of my tears thy ever-streaming showers, the flame of my sorrow at severance from my beloved thy flickering lightning, in my mind is her face reflected, in thee the moon; like is our condition; why then, O friend, O cloud, dost thou ever seek to consume me with the burning pangs of love?’

This is decidedly pretty, and there is elegance and beauty in another verse: [462]

yat tvannetrasamānakānti salile magnaṁ tad indīvaram
meghair antaritaḥ priye tava mukhacchāyānukāraḥ çaçī
ye ’pi tvadgamanānukāragatayas te rājahaṅsā gatās
tvatsādṛçyavinodamātram api me daivena na kṣamyate.

‘The blue lotus which rivalled thine eyes in beauty is now sunk in the lake; the moon which imitated the fairness of thy face, beloved, is hidden by the clouds; the royal swans which aped thy lovely gait are departed; cruel fate will not grant me even the consolation of thy similitude.’

This verse is appropriated by the Mahānāṭaka, and so is the following, [463] which deals elegantly enough with the commonplace contrast between the sad lover and the Açoka tree, whose name is interpreted as ‘sorrowless’, and which flowers, as the poets never weary in telling us, when touched by the foot of a fair lady, especially one young:

raktas tvaṁ navapallavair aham api çlāghyaiḥ priyāyā guṇais
tvām āyānti çilīmukhāḥ smaradhanurmuktāḥ sakhe mām api
kāntapādatalāhatis tava mude tad api mamāvayoḥ
sarvaṁ tulyam açoka kevalam ahaṁ dhātrā saçokaḥ kṛtaḥ.

‘Thou are proud in thy new shoots, I in the glorious excellences of my beloved; the bees resort to thee, to me the arrows shot from love’s bow; like me thou dost delight in the touch of thy dear one’s foot; all is alike for us both save only that, O tree Sorrowless, the creator hath made me a man of sorrows.’

kāmavyādhaçarāhatir na gaṇitā saṁjīvanī tvaṁ smṛtā
no dagdho virahānalena jhaṭiti tvatsaṁgamāçāmṛtaiḥ
nīto ’yaṁ divaso vicitralikhitaiḥ saṁkalparūpair mayā
kiṁ vānyad dhṛdaye sthitāsi nanu me tatra svayaṁ sākṣiṇī. [464]

‘I have not recked of the wound given by love, the hunter, for the memory of thee hath been my elixir; the fire of separation hath not consumed me straightway because of the nectar of the hope of union with thee; all this day hath been spent by me in limning thy fancied form; nought else have I done, as thou thyself art witness, for dost thou not live in my heart?’ We may regret the loss of a work which contained verses as pretty as these, even on the outworn topic of Rāma and Sītā.

It might be interesting to know whether Yaçovarman was successful in introducing any new element into the established plot. The play is cited in the commentary on the Daçarūpa [465] to illustrate the device called deception or humiliation (chalana) and the parallel cited is that of the treatment of Vāsavadattā in the Ratnāvalī. The definitions of the theory leave this idea far from clear; Viçvanātha seems to treat it as the bearing of insult for the sake of the end to be reached, and the allusion in the case of Sītā may be to her abandonment by Rāma as an act of duty.

A much less favourable impression is left by the few fragments of the Udāttarāghava which are preserved. The poet seems to have affected the horrible, as two of his few stanzas deal with it; the better is: [466]

jīyante jayino ’pi sāndratimiravrātair viyadvyāpibhir
bhāsvantaḥ sakalā raver api rucaḥ kasmād akasmād amī
etāç cograkabandharandhrarudhirair ādhmāyamānodarā
muñcanty ānanakandarānalamucas tīvrā ravāḥ pheravāḥ.

‘The victors are vanquished; thick darkness invades the sky and triumphs over the brilliant rays of the sun; why this inexplicable event? Why do these jackals, whose bellies are swollen with the blood sucked from the wounds of bleeding corpses, and whose gaping jaws belch flame, utter these piercing cries?’

A somewhat flat passage illustrates the conflict of thought in Rāma’s mind when appealed to by Citramāya on the score that Lakṣmaṇa is in danger from a Rākṣasa: [467]

vatsasyābhayavāridheḥ pratibhayam manye kathaṁ rākṣasāt
trastaç caiṣa munir virauti manasaç cāsty eva me sambhramaḥ
mā hāsīr Janakātmajām iti muhuḥ snehād gurur yācate
na sthātuṁ na ca gantum ākulamater mūḍhasya me niçcayaḥ.

‘The boy is an ocean of valour; how can I fear danger for him from a Rākṣasa? Yet the sage here is terrified and calls for aid, and my own mind is confused; my master too in his affection ever begs me not to leave Janaka’s daughter alone; my heart is troubled, and in my confusion I cannot resolve either to go or to stay.’

Another Rāma drama, the Chalitarāma, is also referred to by Dhanika in his comment on the Daçarūpa; it may belong to this period, or fall somewhat later; we have from it a picture of the leading captive of Lava: [468]

yenāvṛtya mukhāni sāma paṭhatām atyantam āyāsitam
bālye yena hṛtākṣasūtravalayapratyarpaṇaiḥ krīḍitam
yuṣmākaṁ hṛdayaṁ sa eṣa viçikhair āpūritāṅsasthalo
mūrchāghoratamaspraveçavivaço baddhvā Lavo nīyate.

‘He who caused such trouble to the Sāman reciters turning to look at him in his childish play, who amused himself by stealing and giving back strings of beads and bracelets, he, your heart’s joy, his shoulder pierced by arrows, powerless through entry into the dread darkness of fainting, is being led away bound, even Lava.’

Another stanza refers to Bharata; Rāma returning to Ayodhyā in the celestial chariot declines thus to enter the town, since it is not his, but under the rule of Bharata; scarcely has he descended when he sees before him his brother: [469]

ko ’pi siṅhāsanasyādhaḥ sthitaḥ pādukayoḥ puraḥ
jaṭāvān akṣamālī ca cāmarī ca virājate.

‘There stands some one, below the lion throne, before a pair of sandals, wearing his hair long, bearing a rosary, resplendent beneath the chowrie.’

The same play [470] contains an amusing slip by Sītā where she bids her boys go to Ayodhyā and tender their respects to the king. Lava naturally replies by asking why they should become members of the king’s entourage, and Sītā answers because the king is their father, a slip which she explains away as well as she can by saying that the king is father of the whole earth.

Yet another drama of which we know nothing else is revealed to us by Dhanika, the Pāṇḍavānanda, from which is cited a stanza interesting in its series of questions and answers, a literary form of which the dramatists are fond: [471]

kā çlāghyā guṇināṁ kṣamā paribhavaḥ ko yaḥ svakulyaiḥ kṛtaḥ
kiṁ duḥkhaṁ parasaṁçrayo jagati kaḥ çlāghyo ya āçrīyate
ko mṛtyur vyasanaṁ çucaṁ jahati ke yair nirjitāḥ çatravaḥ
kair vijñātam idaṁ Virāṭanagare channasthitaiḥ Pāṇḍavaiḥ.

‘For the good what is there praiseworthy? Patience. What is disgrace? That which is wrought by those of one’s own blood. What is misery? Recourse to another’s protection. Who in the world is enviable? He to whom one resorts for aid. What is death? Misfortune. Who escape sorrow? Those who conquer their foes. Who learned this lesson? The Pāṇḍavas when they dwelt in concealment in the city of Virāṭa.’

We learn also from Dhanika of two further dramas, of unknown authorship and date; they are mentioned [472] as illustrating the two kinds of Prakaraṇa as a dramatic form, the basis of distinction being whether the heroine is the wife of the hero and therefore a lady of good family or whether she is a courtesan. Of the latter class we have an example in the Taran̄gadatta, and of the former in the Puṣpadūṣitaka; the latter name occurs in the slightly altered form of Puṣpabhūṣita in the Sāhityadarpaṇa. As an example of the Samavakāra the Daçarūpa [473] mentions the Samudramanthana, a title doubtless as well as the description of the drama in question.

2. MURĀRI

Murāri tells us that he was the son of Çrīvardhamānaka of the Maudgalya Gotra and of Tantumatī; he claims to be a Mahākavi, and arrogates the style of Bāla-Vālmīki. His date is uncertain; he is certainly later than Bhavabhūti since he cites from the Uttararāmacarita, [474] while we have evidence from the anthologies that he was reckoned by some as superior to Bhavabhūti, apparently his predecessor. A further suggestion as to date may be derived from the Kashmirian poet Ratnākara, [475] who in his Haravijaya makes a clear reference to Murāri as a dramatist, for the effort of Bhattanatha Svamin to disprove the reference must be deemed completely unsuccessful. As Ratnākara belongs to the middle of the ninth century A.D., this gives us that period as the latest date for Murāri. Curiously enough, Professor Konow, [476] who accepts the disproof of the reference to Murāri in Ratnākara, admits that the reference to Murāri in Man̄kha’s Çrīkaṇṭhacarita [477] (c. A.D. 1135) suggests that he was regarded by that author as earlier than Rājaçekhara, a fact which accords excellently with his priority to Ratnākara, and is far more important than the fact that he is not cited by the authors on theory of the eleventh century A.D. A further effort to place him late is that of Dr. Hultzsch, [478] who infers from verse 3 of the Kaumudīmitrāṇanda of Rāmacandra, pupil of Hemacandra, that that dramatist was a contemporary of Murāri. But the evidence is clearly inadequate; the words used are perfectly compatible with the fact that Murāri was dead, and there are grave chronological difficulties in the way of the theory. It is practically impossible that a contemporary of Rāmacandra could have been cited by Man̄kha at the date of the Çrīkaṇṭhacarita. Moreover Murāri seems to have been imitated by Jayadeva in the Prasannarāghava. [479]

Of his place of activity we know nothing definite. He mentions, however, Māhiṣmatī as the seat of the Kalacuris, and it has been suggested that this indicates that he lived under the patronage of a prince of that dynasty at Māhiṣmatī, now Māndhātā on the Narmadā.

3. THE ANARGHARĀGHAVA

Murāri declares in the prologue to the solitary drama, the Anargharāghava [480] which has come down to us, though quotations show that he wrote other works, that his aim is to please a public tired of terror, horror, violence, and marvels, by a composition elevated, heroic, and marvellous throughout, not merely at the close. He defends his choice of the banal subject of Rāma; his character adds elevation and charm to the poet’s work, and it would be folly to lay aside so splendid a theme. The Anargharāghava, however, does little to justify the poet’s confidence in his choice of topic. The theme, treated already at length by Bhavabhūti, offered no chance of success save for a great poet, and Murāri was not such a poet save in the estimate of occasional later writers who extol his depth (gambhīratā) without any shadow of justification.