Chapter XXI: Act I: shows us Daçaratha in conversation with Vāmadeva. The arrival of

the sage Viçvāmitra is announced; he exchanges with the king hyperbolic compliments of the most tedious type, but proceeds to business by demanding the aid of Rāma against the Rākṣasas which are troubling his hermitage. The king hesitates to send one so young and dear into danger. The sage insists on his obeying the call of duty, and he hands over Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa to the care of the ascetic. The herald announces midday, and the king mourns the loss of his son. In Act II we have first a long-drawn-out conversation between Çunaḥçepha and Paçumeḍhra, two pupils of Viçvāmitra, which serves to enlighten us on the history of Vālin, Rāvaṇa, the Rākṣasas, Jāmbavant, Hanumant, and Tāḍakā. The entr’acte is followed by the appearance of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa who describe the hermitage and the doings of its occupants, and then the heat of midday. Time, however, does not trouble the dramatist; though there is no further action and no interruption in the dialogue, we find ourselves transported to the evening; Viçvāmitra enters and describes in converse with the boys the sunset. A cry behind the scene announces the approach of the demoness Tāḍakā; Rāma hesitates to slay a female, but finally departs for the necessary duty; on his return he has to describe the rising of the moon. Viçvāmitra then suggests a visit to Janaka of Mithilā, affording an opportunity for a description of the city and its ruler.

In Act II only do we reach the motif which Bhavabhūti with far greater skill made the leading idea of the drama, thus giving it effective unity, so far as the story permits. The chamberlain of Janaka in conversation with Kalahaṅsikā, one of Sītā’s suite, lets us know that the princess is now ripe for marriage, and Rāvaṇa seeks her hand. In the scene that follows the king accompanied by Çatānanda receives Rāma, but hesitates to put him to the severe test involved in bending Çiva’s bow. Çauṣkala, Rāvaṇa’s envoy, arrives to demand the maiden’s hand, but indignantly declines the request that his master should bend the bow. He eulogizes Rāvaṇa whom Rāma depreciates. Rāma is at last allowed to make the trial; those who remain on the stage describe his wonderful deed in breaking the bow. He is promised Sītā’s hand, while the other sons of Daçaratha are also awarded consorts. Çauṣkala departs, menacing revenge. Act IV shows us Rāvaṇa’s minister Mālyavant lamenting the failure of his scheme to win Sītā. Çūrpaṇakhā arrives from Videha and tells of the union of Rāma and Sītā. Mālyavant recognizes that Rāvaṇa will insist on seeking to separate the pair, and he counsels Çūrpaṇakhā to assume the disguise of Mantharā, the maid of Kaikeyī, with the view of securing the banishment of Rāma to the forest, where he will be more vulnerable to attack. He is also cheered by the news given by Çūrpaṇakhā of the approach of Paraçurāma to Mithilā, whence some gain may accrue to his cause. The following scene shows us Rāma and Paraçurāma in verbal contest; Rāma is even more polite than in the Mahāvīracarita which is obviously imitated, while the friends of Rāma carry on a vituperative dialogue behind the scene without actually appearing. Finally they resolve to fight, for Rāma has annoyed his rival by reminding him that the flag of his fame won by his destruction of the Kṣatriyas is worn out and challenging him to mount a new one. The fight itself takes place off the stage; Sītā, we learn from a voice behind the scenes, is apprehensive lest Rāma be drawing again his bow to win another maiden. The rivals then appear on excellent terms; Paraçurāma exchanges farewells with his former interlocutors and disappears. Then enter Janaka and Daçaratha. The latter is determined to resign his kingdom to Rāma, but Lakṣmaṇa enters introducing Mantharā who bears a fatal missive from Kaikeyī, bidding the king grant the two boons of the banishment of Rāma and the coronation of Bharata. The kings faint; Rāma sends Lakṣmaṇa to tell Sītā, and commends his father to Janaka.

In Act V a conversation between Jāmbavant and an ascetic lady, Çravaṇā, tells of the doings of Rāma until his advent in the forest. Çravaṇā goes to Sugrīva to bespeak a kindly welcome for the wayfarers, while Jāmbavant overhears a dialogue between Rāvaṇa, disguised as a juggler, and Lakṣmaṇa. The vulture Jaṭāyu then appears with the grave news that he has seen Rāvaṇa and Mārīca in the forest; Jāmbavant goes to warn Sugrīva of the danger, while Jaṭāyu sees the rape of Sītā and pursues the ravisher. After this entr’acte Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa enter, wandering in grief in vain search. They are interrupted by a cry and see the friendly forest chief, Guha, assailed by the headless Kabandha. Lakṣmaṇa rescues him, but, in doing so, knocks off the tree, on which it was suspended, the skeleton of Dundubhi, to the annoyance of Vālin, who appears, and after a lengthy conversation challenges Rāma to battle. The fight is described from the stage by Lakṣmaṇa and Guha; the enemy is slain. Voices from behind the scenes report the coronation of Sugrīva and his determination to aid Rāma in the recovery of Sītā, and Lakṣmaṇa and his friend leave the stage to rejoin their party. In Act VI Sāraṇa and Çuka, two spies of Rāvaṇa’s describe to Mālyavant the building of the bridge over the ocean and the advent of Rāma’s army. Voices from behind announce the departure of Kumbhakarṇa and Meghanāda for battle; in the same way we learn of their fall and the last exit of Rāvaṇa, whom Mālyavant decides to follow to the field. The final struggle is described with tedious and tasteless prolixity by two Vidyādharas, Ratnacūḍa and Hemān̄gada, and with this the Act closes.

In Act VII we have a determined effort to vie with the close of the Mahāvīracarita. Rāma, Sītā, Lakṣmaṇa, Vibhīṣaṇa, and Sugrīva proceed in Kubera’s celestial car to Ayodhyā. But the route is diversified from the simplicity of the model, for the travellers are taken to the celestial regions to view in all its aspects the mythical mountain Sumeru and the world of the moon; only then do they commence their journey in its terrestrial aspect by a description of Siṅhala, distinguished as usual from Lan̄kā; the route then passes over the Malaya mountains, the forest, the mountain Prasravaṇa, the Godāvarī, mount Mālyavant, Kuṇḍinīpura in the Mahārāṣṭra country, Kāñcī, Ujjayinī, Māhiṣmatī, the Yamunā, the Ganges, Vārāṇasī, Mithilā and Campā; the car goes then west to Prayāga, and later turns east to Ayodhyā, where the priest Vasiṣṭha waits with Rāma’s brothers to crown him king.

The demerits of the poem are obvious; there is no attempt to improve on the traditional narrative, though Vālin is honourably killed; the characters are as stereotyped as ever. The author, however, delights to overload and elaborate the theme; hyperbole marks every idea; his mythological knowledge is adequate to enable him to abound in conceits and plays on words, when he does not sink, as largely in Act III, to mere commonplace. The taste which invents the visit to the world of the moon and Sumeru is as deplorable as that which substitutes the dull dialogue between Jāmbavant and Jaṭāyu for the vigorous conversation of Jaṭāyu and Sampāti in the Mahāvīracarita. For dialogue in general Murāri has no taste at all, and what merit his work has lies entirely in the ability which he shows to handle the Sanskrit language and to frame sentences of harmonious sound in effective metrical forms. His knowledge of the lexica is obvious, while his love of the recondite in grammar has won him the fame of being used to illustrate rare forms by the author of the Siddhāntakaumudī. These linguistic merits have secured him the preference shown for him by modern taste. Nor indeed can his power of expression be justly denied: [481]

dṛçyante madhumattakokilavadhūnirdhūtacūtān̄kura—
prāgbhāraprasaratparāgasikatādurgās taṭībhūmayaḥ
yāḥ kṛcchrād atilan̄ghya lubdhakabhayāt tair eva reṇūtkarair
dhārāvāhibhir asti luptapadavīniḥçan̄kam eṇīkulam.

‘There are seen the towering slopes as of sand where the pollen tilts off from the mango shoots, shaken by the female cuckoos, maddened by the intoxication of spring; scarce can the antelopes in their fear of the hunter leap over them, but the dust which they raise in showers accords them security by concealing the path of their flight.’ The idea is certainly trivial enough, but the expression, which defies reproduction in English, is in its own way a masterpiece of effect.

A pretty erotic verse is found in Act VII: [482]

anena rambhoru bhavanmukhena: tuṣārabhānos tulayā dhṛtasya
ūnasya nūnam pratipūraṇāya: tārā sphuranti pratimānakhaṇḍāh.

‘When the moon is placed in the scales, fair-limbed one, against thy face, assuredly it is found wanting, and to make good the deficit the stars must shine as make-weights.’

Not a bad example of more elaborate, yet graceful, eulogy is found in the following stanza: [483]

gotre sākṣād ajani bhagavān eṣa yat padmayoniḥ
çayyotthāyaṁ yad akhilam ahaḥ prīṇayanti dvirephān
ekāgrāṁ yad dadhati bhagavaty uṣṇabhānau ca bhaktim
tat prāpus te sutanu vadanaupamyam ambhoruhāṇi.

‘Since manifestly in their family has been born the blessed one, sprung from the lotus; since all day long they delight the bees as they rise from their bed; since their whole faith they devote to the blessed lord of the sharp rays, thus, O lovely one, the flowers that spring from the water attain the likeness of thy face.’

Happy also is another erotic stanza: [484]

abhimukhapatayālubhir lalāṭa—: çramasalilair avadhūtapattralekhaḥ
kathayati puruṣāyitaṁ vadhūnām: mṛditahimadyutidurmanāḥ kapolaḥ.

‘Its painted mark obliterated by the moisture which streams from the wearied brow over the face, the cheek reveals the longing of women, melancholy as the wan moon.’

udeṣyatpīyūṣadyutirucikaṇārdrāḥ çaçimaṇi—
sthalīnām panthāno ghanacaraṇalākṣālipibhṛtaḥ
cakorair uḍḍīnair jhaṭiti kṛtaçan̄kāḥ pratipadam
parācaḥ saṁcārān avinayavatīnāṁ vivṛṇate.

‘Footprints on pavements of moonstone, marked with the lac that dyes deep the feet, wet with drops that have the radiance of rising cream, made with anxiety at every step as the Cakoras fly up disturbed, mark the departure of ladies who violate decorum.’ [485]

A further stanza in some manuscripts of the poem occurs in the drama, while elsewhere it seems to be treated as a verse about Murāri: [486]

devīṁ vācam upāsate hi bahavaḥ sāraṁ tu sārasvatam
jānīte nitarām asau gurukulakliṣṭo Murāriḥ kaviḥ
abdhir lan̄ghita eva vānarabhaṭaiḥ kiṁ tv asyā gambhīratām
āpātālanimagnapīvaratanur jānāti manthācalaḥ.

‘Many serve the goddess speech, but the essence of eloquence Murāri alone knows to the full, that poet who long toiled in the house of his teacher; even so the monkey host leapt over the ocean, but its depth the Mount of Churning alone knows, for its mighty mass penetrated down even to the realms below.’

4. THE DATE OF RĀJAÇEKHARA

Rājaçekhara, with the usual prolixity of bad poets, is voluble on his personality; he was of a Mahārāṣṭra Kṣatriya family of the Yāyāvaras, who claimed descent from Rāma; son of the minister Durduka or Duhika, and of Çīlavatī; grandson of Akālajalada, and descendant of Surānanda, Tarala, and Kavirāja, all poets of name. He married Avantisundarī of the Cāhamāna family, and was a moderate Çaiva. [487]

In the Karpūramañjarī, probably his first play since it was produced at the request of his wife, and not a king, he refers to himself as the teacher of Nirbhaya or Nirbhara, who was clearly the Pratihāra king, Mahendrapāla of Mahodaya or Kanyakubja, of whom we have records in A.D. 893 and 907. The Bālarāmāyaṇa was produced at his request. But he seems then to have visited another court, for the Viddhaçālabhañjikā was produced for the Kalacuri king, Yuvarāja Keyūravarṣa of Tripurī. But, as the unfinished Bālabhārata was written for Mahīpāla, successor of Mahendrapāla, whose records begin in A.D. 914, we may assume that he returned to the court of the Pratihāras and died there. In the Bālarāmāyaṇa he speaks of six of his works, not apparently including the Viddhaçālabhañjikā and the Bālabhārata, and in fact we have many stanzas from him regarding famous authors, though of course the proof of derivation from this Rājaçekara is not always complete.

The Bālarāmāyaṇa shows to perfection Rājaçekhara’s own estimate of himself. He traces his poetic descent from Vālmīki, through Bhartṛmeṇṭha and Bhavabhūti, but it is not clear that Bhartṛmeṇṭha must be assumed to have dramatized the work, and the little we know of this obscure person merely shows that he wrote an epic, the Hayagrīvavadha, while his date is involved in the problems of Vikramāditya and Mātṛgupta. [488]

5. THE DRAMAS OF RĀJAÇEKHARA

The Bālarāmāyaṇa [489] is a Mahānāṭaka, that is one in ten acts, and the author, to add to the horror of the length, has expanded the prologue to almost the dimensions of an act, celebrating his non-existent merits, and has expanded each act to almost the dimensions of a Nāṭikā. The whole has 741 stanzas, and of these no less than 203 are in the 19-syllable Çārdūlavikrīḍita and 89 in the Sragdharā, which has two more syllables in each pada or 84 in a stanza. The play has a certain novelty, because the author has made the love of Rāvaṇa the dominating feature. He appears in person in the first act, but declines to test himself by drawing Çiva’s bow, and departs, menacing evil to any husband of Sītā. In Act II he seeks the aid of Paraçurāma, but is insulted instead, and a battle barely prevented by intervention of friends. In Act III the marriage of Sītā is enacted before him to distract his amorous sorrow, but the attempt is as little a success as it deserved to be; he interrupts, and finally the scene has to be broken off. In Act IV the duel of Rāma and Paraçurāma is disposed of, but in Act V we find another ludicrous effort to amuse Rāvaṇa; dolls with parrots in their mouths are presented to him as Sītā and his foster sister; he is deceived until he finds that his grasp is on wood; distracted, he demands his beloved from nature, the seasons, the streams, and the birds, as does Purūravas in the Vikramorvaçī. The arrival of Çūrpaṇakhā, his sister, who has suffered severely from her attack on Rāma, brings him to a condition of more manly rage. A tedious Act then carries matters down to the death of the sorrowing Daçaratha. In Act VII the problem of inducing the ocean to accept the burden of the bridge is solved; Dadhittha and Kapittha, two monkeys, describe at length its construction to Rāma. A momentary terror is caused by a stratagem of Mālyavant; the severed head of Sītā seems to be flung on the shore, but it speaks and reveals the fraud; it is the head of the speaking doll. In Act VIII we have Rāvaṇa’s impressions as disaster after disaster is announced; he sends out Kumbhakarṇa, but sees even him helpless, despite his magic weapons, before Rāma. In Act IX Indra himself describes the last desperate duel of Rāma and Rāvaṇa. In Act X the party of Rāma makes the usual aerial tour of India, including the world of the moon, and ending with the inevitable consecration.

The Bālabhārata [490] is mercifully unfinished; it covers the marriage of Draupadī, and the gambling scene with the ill usage of Draupadī. The other two plays are really Nāṭikās, but the first, the Karpūramañjarī [491] is classed by the theory as a Saṭṭaka, simply because it is in Prākrit, none of the characters speaking Sanskrit. It is the old story; here the king is Caṇḍapāla, possibly a compliment to Mahendrapāla, and his beloved the Kuntala princess, Karpūramañjarī, who is really a cousin of the queen. In Act I a magician, Bhairavānanda, displays the damsel to the king and queen; the apparition tells her tale, and the queen decides to add her to the number of her attendants. The king and the maiden fall at once in love. In Act II a letter from the maiden avows her passion, and the Vidūṣaka and her friend Vicakṣaṇā arrange to let the king see her swinging and also producing by her touch the blossoming of the Açoka. Between the Acts we must assume that the queen has found out the love, and has confined the maiden, while the king has secured the making of a subterranean passage giving access to her prison. In Act III by this means the princess and the king enjoy a flirtation in the garden, when the queen discovers them. In Act IV we find that the end of the passage giving on the garden has been blocked, but another passage has been made to the sanctuary of Cāmuṇḍā, the entrance concealed behind the statue. Thus the prisoner can play a game of hide-and-seek with the queen, and this enables her to carry out a clever ruse invented by the magician to secure the queen’s blessing for the wedding. The queen is induced to demand that the king shall marry a princess of Lāṭa who will secure him imperial rank. She is still at her home, but the magician will fetch her to the place. The wedding goes on merrily, but the princess is no other than Karpūramañjarī, and the queen has unwittingly accomplished the lovers’ desires.

The same motif is repeated in the Viddhaçālabhañjikā, [492] which is a regular Nāṭikā. Act I tells us that Candravarman of Lāṭa, vassal of Vidyādharamalla, has sent to the court of his overlord his daughter Mṛgān̄kāvalī in the guise of his son and heir. The king, Vidyādharamalla, recounts a dream in the truthful hours of the morning, in which a beautiful maid had cast a collar of pearls round his neck; he is haunted by her, and next finds her in sculptured form (çālabhañjikā) in the picture gallery. He has a further glimpse of her in the flesh but no more, before the heralds announce midday. In Act II we learn that the queen proposes to marry Kuvalayamālā of Kuntala to the pretended boy, while the Vidūṣaka has been promised by her foster-sister, Mekhalā, marriage with a lady of the seductive name of Ambaramālā, Air Garland. Imagine his disgust when she turns out to be a mere slave; the king has to calm him, and together they watch in hiding Mṛgān̄kāvalī playing in the garden, and hear her reading a letter of love. The heralds proclaim the evening hour. In Act III we are told that the dream of the king was reality, devised by Bhāgurāyaṇa, his minister, who knew that the husband of the heroine would attain imperial rule. The Vidūṣaka punishes Mekhalā’s ruse by another; he bids a woman hide herself and call out a warning to Mekhalā of evil to befall her unless she crawl between a Brahmin’s limbs. The queen begs the Vidūṣaka to permit this ceremony, and, it over, he avows the plot to the great indignation of the queen. The Vidūṣaka and the king then have an interview with the heroine. In Act IV we learn of a plot of the queen to punish the king. She induces him to agree to marry the sister of the pretended boy, meaning that he should find that he has married a boy. The king agrees; the marriage is completed; news comes from Candravarman that a son is born, begging the queen to dispose in marriage of his daughter, who may resume her sex. The queen, tricked and deceived, makes the best of her situation; with dignity and hauteur she bestows on her husband both Mṛgān̄kāvalī and Kuvalayamālā, while news is brought that the last rebels are subdued and the king’s suzerainty is recognized everywhere.

There can be no doubt of the demerits of Rājaçekhara’s works; he is devoid of the power to create a character: Vidyādharamalla is stiff and uninteresting beside his model, the gay and gallant Vatsa; the queen is without the love or the majesty of Vāsavadattā; Bhāgurāyaṇa is a feeble Yaugandharāyaṇa, whose magician is borrowed in the Karpūramañjarī and spoiled in the borrowing. The heroines are without merit; the Vidūṣaka in the Karpūramañjarī is tedious, but Cārāyaṇa in the Viddhaçālabhañjikā has merits; he has plenty of sound common sense, though he is simple and capable of being taken in by others. The intrigue in both Nāṭikās is poorly managed; the confusion of exits and entrances in the Karpūramañjarī is difficult to follow and probably more difficult to act, while in the Viddhaçālabhañjikā the queen is induced to arrange a marriage out of a puerile incident affecting the Vidūṣaka only. The taste of giving two brides to the king at once is deplorable, as is the failure to explain why the king accepts the suggested marriage when ignorant of its true import.

In all his dramas, however, Rājaçekhara is merely concerned with exercises in style. The themes he frankly tells us in the prologue to the Karpūramañjarī are the same; the question is the expression, and the language is indifferent; therefore Prākrit being smooth, while Sanskrit is harsh, the language of women as opposed to men, can be used as a medium of style by one who boasts himself an expert in every kind of language. We have, therefore, elaborate descriptions in equally elaborate verses, of the dawn, midday, sunset, the pleasures of the harem, the game of ball, the swing, a favourite enjoyment of the Indian maidens, and in the Nāṭakas pictures ad nauseam of battles with magic weapons, and appalling mythical geography and topography. His allusions to local practices and customs may be interesting to the antiquarian, but are not poetical. More praiseworthy is his real accomplishment in metres, especially the Çārdūlavikrīḍita, his facility in which Kṣemendra justly praises, the Vasantatilaka, Çloka, and Sragdharā. His ability to handle elaborate Prākrit metres is undeniable; in 144 stanzas in the Karpūramañjarī he has 17 varieties. If poetry consisted merely of harmonious sound, he must be ranked high as a poet. He is fond of proverbs: varaṁ takkālovaṇadā tittirī ṇa uṇa diahantaridā morī, which gives our ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush’; he introduces freely words from vernaculars, including Marāthī. But, despite his parade of learning, he cannot distinguish accurately Çaurasenī and Māhārāṣṭrī in his drama; in the former we find such forms as laṭṭhi for yaṣṭi, ammi in the locative and hiṁto in the ablative singular of a-stems, and esa for the pronoun. Important as he is lexicographically for both Sanskrit and Prākrit, it is undeniable that both were utterly dead languages for him, which he had laboriously learned. Forms like ḍhilla equivalent to çithila in the Karpūramañjarī show how far the vernaculars had advanced beyond the Prākrits of the drama.

It would, however, be quite unjust to deny to Rājaçekhara the power of effective expression; like all the later dramatists he is capable of producing elegant and attractive verses, which are largely spoiled in their context by their being embedded in masses of tasteless matter. Thus the benediction of the Viddhaçālabhañjikā is decidedly graceful:

kulagurur abalānāṁ kelidīkṣāpradāne
paramasuhṛd anan̄go rohiṇīvallabhasya
api kusumapṛṣatkair devadevasya jetā
jayati suratalīlānāṭikāsūtradhāraḥ.

‘Family preceptor of young maidens for the bestowal of the sacrament of love, the bodyless one, dearest friend of Rohiṇī’s lover, he that with his flower arrows overthrew the god of gods, he is victorious ever, the director of the comedy of the play of love’s mysteries.’

The description of summer is also pretty if banal:

rajaniviramayāmeṣv ādiçantī ratecchām
kim api kaṭhinayantī nārikelīphalāmbhaḥ
api pariṇamayitrī rājarambhāphalānām
dinapariṇatiramyā vartate grīṣmalakṣmīḥ.

‘This is the glorious season of summer, delightful in the length of the days, when the royal plantain fruits are ripened, and the milk in the coco-nut is hardened, and the season bids us enjoy the delight of love in the closing watches of the night.’

The signs of a maiden distracted by unfulfilled affection are quaintly described:

candraṁ candanakardamena likhitaṁ sā mārṣṭi daṣṭādharā
bandhyaṁ nindati yac ca manmatham asau bhan̄ktvāgrahastān̄gurīḥ
kāmaḥ puṣpaçaraḥ kileti sumanovargaṁ lunīte ca yat
tat kāmyā subhaga tvayā varatanur vātūlatāṁ lambhitā.

‘Biting her lip, she wipes out the figure of the moon sketched in sandal paste; snapping her finger-tips she mocks at love as barren; to flout his darts, the flowers she gathers she tears in shreds; assuredly the fair one whom thou shouldst love hath been brought by thee to madness.’

antastāraṁ taralitatalāḥ stokam utpīḍabhājaḥ
pakṣmāgreṣu grathitapṛṣataḥ kīrṇadhārāḥ krameṇa
cittātan̄kaṁ nijagarimataḥ samyag āsūtrayanto
niryānty asyāḥ kuvalayadṛço bāṣpavārām pravāhāḥ.

‘Rippled on the surface of the pupil, slightly foaming, forming drops on the tips of the lashes, then slowly issuing in streams, betokening by their weight her heart’s sorrow, there pour forth from the lotus-eyed one the floods of her tears.’

Of all the plays the Karpūramañjarī is undoubtedly that which contains the most substantial evidence that Rājaçekhara had some real poetic talent, despite the banality and stupidity of his conception of love in