Chapter XXVII: Act I: of the Mālatīmādhava. This is evidently an attempt to justify the

treatment of this form of scene as revealing matters which cannot conveniently be depicted on the stage, as well as to distinguish it from the An̄kāvatāra or continuation scene, in which the action is continued by the characters in the next Act without any break, other than the technical one of the departure of the actors and their return, as at the close of Act I of the Mālavikāgnimitra. Such a scene obviously in no way answers the purpose of explanation, and its assignment to such an end is clearly erroneous.

Various devices are recognized to help the movement of the intrigue, five of which are classed as internal junctures (antarasandhi). [633] The first of these is the dream, as in the Veṇīsaṁhāra where Bhānumatī is terrified by a vision in which she sees an ichneumon (nakula) slay a hundred snakes, dread presage of the fall of the hundred Kauravas before the attack of Nakula and his brothers. The letter serves in the Çakuntalā, Act III, to allow the heroine to express her feelings towards the king; she reads it aloud and he overhears it and breaks in upon her; more often it serves the important end of conveying news, leading to dramatic action. A message serves the same end, as when in the Çakuntalā, Act VI, Mātali brings to the king Indra’s message imploring aid against the demons. A voice from behind the scene (nepathyokti) in Act I of that play warns Duḥṣanta not to kill the gazelle of the hermitage, and a voice in the air (ākāçabhāṣita) in Act IV makes known to Kaṇva on his return the important news of Çakuntalā’s marriage and approaching motherhood. The Nāṭyaçāstra [634] ignores the term internal junctures, but has the term special junctures or divisions of junctures (sandhyantara) which includes the dream, the letter, and the message, among many other miscellaneous elements; two of these are akin to those already mentioned. The picture is used in the Ratnāvalī as the mode by which the heroine satisfies her longing for her beloved, while Vāsavadattā discovers Vatsa’s infidelity through seeing the portrait of Sāgarikā, painted beside that of the king by the mischievous Susaṁgatā. Intoxication (mada) may result as in the Mālavikāgnimitra, Act III, in the letting fall of imprudent words by an important character. Other devices might have been included in the list, such as that of assuming a disguise on the stage, a device used by Harṣa in the Ratnāvalī and the Priyadarçikā in order to secure the inconstant king uninterrupted interviews with the objects of his temporary affections. The latter play contains in Act III a good example of the embryo Act (garbhān̄ka), [635] which is recognized by the theory but not classed as a species of juncture; in it Vāsavadattā causes her maids of honour to perform before her a play representing her early adventures with Vatsa. So in the Uttararāmacarita Vālmīki has performed by the Apsarases before Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa the adventures of Sītā since her banishment, and the events of her marriage are described in this form in the Bālarāmāyaṇa, Act III.

Similarly the theory recognizes as a separate element the pro-episode (patākāsthānaka), [636] an equivocal speech or situation which foreshadows an event whether near at hand or distant. The Nāṭyaçāstra distinguishes four kinds of equivoke. An ambiguous situation may result in bringing about the aim of the hero; thus in Act III of the Ratnāvalī, when Vatsa hastens to save Vāsavadattā, as he thinks, from hanging herself, he finds to his equal joy and surprise that he has rescued none other than Sāgarikā herself. [637] Or the equivocation may lie in words, whose sense the spectator alone grasps in its deeper application; thus in Act II of the Çakuntalā a voice behind the scene bids the female Cakravāka say farewell to her spouse, a command whose application to the case of the king and the heroine is immediately appreciated by the audience alone. Or the equivocation may be deliberately conveyed in the response of the actor, whose words apply not merely to the immediate matter in hand, but allude to the future; in the Veṇīsaṁhāra, Act II, Duryodhana is told of the mishap of the breaking of his standard by the fierce (bhīma) wind in words which presage his own fall, his thigh broken by Bhīma’s blow. Finally we may have a double entendre which later is destined to find a third application; in the Ratnāvalī Vatsa playfully suggests that his earnest gaze on the creeper, which has borne blossoms out of season, may cause jealousy in the queen; his words apply equally to a maiden, and in the sequel the queen is made furiously angry by his ardent gaze at Sāgarikā. The Daçarūpa contents itself with two species, equivocation of situation and deliberate equivocation of phrase, but there is general agreement that pro-episodes may be used in any part of the play and not merely in the first four junctures.

Importance attaches to the conventions which enable the author to surmount difficulties inseparable from the dramatic form. [638] Normally, of course, the actors speak aloud (prakāçam), to be heard by all those on the stage as well as by the audience, but asides (svagatam, ātmagatam) are frequent, meant to be heard by the audience alone. If the need arises for making a remark to be heard by one actor only, it is made in the form of a confidence (apavāritam, apavārya), while a private conversation (janāntikam) is arranged by the actors holding up three fingers, the thumb and ring finger being curved inwards. Or, it is possible to avoid bringing on a person by speaking in the air (ākāçabhāṣita), pretending to hear the reply, and repeating it before answering it, while a similar purpose can be served by a voice from behind the scene.

The number of Acts which a play should contain varies according to the nature of the drama; in the Nāṭaka the number must be at least five, and may be ten; in other cases one Act suffices. Normally the Acts are simply numbered; in some cases, as in that of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, names are given, doubtless not by the poet.

4. THE CHARACTERS

The hero owes his name, Nāyaka, to the fact that it is he who leads (nī) the events to the conclusion which he has set before him, in so far as such a result is permitted by human frailty and the force of circumstances. His good qualities are innumerable [639]; he must be modest as is Rāma in depreciating his own prowess in comparison with that of Paraçurāma whom he has vanquished; handsome, generous like Jīmūtavāhana, prompt and skilled in action, affable, beloved of his people, of high family, ready of speech, and steadfast. He must be young, and endowed with intelligence, energy, a good memory, skill in the arts, and just pride; a hero, firm, glorious, skilled in the sciences, and an observer of law. More useful is the distinction drawn between types of hero [640]; all are noble or self-controlled (dhīra), a characteristic not universally found in heroines, but they are distinguished as light-hearted or gay (lalita), calm (çānta) exalted (udātta), and haughty or vehement (uddhata).

The light-hearted hero is one free from care, a lover of the arts, and above all a devotee of love; he is normally a king whose public burdens are confided to others, and whose one business it is to secure union with a new favourite by overcoming the obstacles interposed by the not unnatural jealousy of his queen or queens; such beyond all is Vatsa in Bhāsa and Harṣa’s dramas. The calm hero differs primarily from the light-hearted hero by reason of his birth, for he is a Brahmin or merchant, such as Mādhava in the Mālatīmādhava and Cārudatta in the Daridracārudatta and the Mṛcchakaṭikā; the hero of the Prakaraṇa, or comedy of manners, normally is of this class. The exalted hero is a character of great strength and nobility, firm of purpose, but free from vanity, forbearing, and without egotism. Of such a type are generals, ministers and high officials, and Jīmūtavāhana in the Nāgānanda. An instructive controversy rages round this description of Jīmūtavāhana; to be exalted, it is argued, implies the desire of superiority, but Jīmūtavāhana renounces every dream of empire and is a model of calm, of boundless pity, and freedom from passion save, indeed, as regards his love for Malayavatī, which is inconsistent with the general nature of his character. He should really be ranked among the calm heroes, with the Buddha himself, disregarding the meaningless convention which excludes kings from that category. Dhanika [641] effectively defends the classification of Jīmūtavāhana by insisting that he is not without desire, namely that of saving others at the cost of his own life; the desires he lays aside are wishes for personal advantage which Kālidāsa rightly censures in a king; his love for Malayavatī is wholly inconsistent with calmness, which, on the contrary, is in fact as in drama a characteristic of Brahmins, and it distinguishes him absolutely from the Buddha, who is exempt from passion. The haughty hero is a victim of pride and jealousy, an adept in magic arts and ruses, self-assertive, fickle, irascible, and boastful; Paraçurāma illustrates this character.

The chief hero in any drama must be essentially true to one or other of those types; any change would spoil the unity of the development of the drama, and, if necessary, changes must be made in the plot, as in the case of Rāma’s dealings with Vālin, to preserve the unity of character. In the case of the secondary hero there is no need for such consistency; he may change in different situations, and his lack of consistency tends merely to heighten the impression caused by the constancy of the hero. Thus Paraçurāma appears in the Mahāvīracarita [642] as exalted in his attitude to the evil Rāvaṇa, as haughty towards the untried Rāma, and as calm when he has experienced the superior prowess of that hero. It is obvious that there is difficulty in conceiving as a chief hero one of the haughty type, and the theory does not provide us with one, for Paraçurāma is only a secondary hero.

As the Sanskrit drama deals usually with love, the theory has another division of types of hero based on their attitude to women. [643] The courteous (dakṣiṇa) hero is one who can find room in his heart for more loves than one; he seeks another to the deep grief of the old, but he does not cease to feel affection for his earlier love; such are the heroes of the Nāṭikā, or short heroic comedy, like Vatsa. He may not be regarded as either deceitful (çaṭha), or shameless (dhṛṣṭa), for these two types represent heroes who have ceased to love their former flame, and differ only in so far as they seek to deceive her, or are indifferent to her anger and bear open traces of the new attachment. Men like Vatsa never allow passion to dominate them; if a woman spurns them they are ready to leave her. The fourth type is the loyal (anukūla) lover who is faithful to one woman only, as is Rāma. As these four types are applicable to each class of hero, there are sixteen possible kinds of hero, and the theory adds the further complication that each of these may be a high class, middle class, or inferior person, giving forty-eight types.

As if the enumeration of the general characteristics of the hero were insufficient, a set of eight special excellencies [644] is enumerated separately as springing from his character (sāttvika). These are brilliance (çobhā), including compassion for inferiors, emulation with superiors, heroism, and cleverness; vivacity (vilāsa), including a firm step and glance and a laughing voice; grace (mādhurya) manifested in the display of but slight change of demeanour in trying circumstances; impassivity (gāmbhīrya) or superiority to emotion; steadfastness (sthairya) in accomplishing his object despite obstacles; the sense of honour (tejas) which will punish insult even at the cost of life itself; lightheartedness as grace of deportment; and nobility (audārya) exhibited in sacrifice for the sake of the good.

The enemy of the hero (pratināyaka) [645] is self-controlled and vehement (dhīroddhata); but he is also avaricious, stubborn, criminal, and vicious; such are Rāvaṇa and Duryodhana as contrasted with Rāma and Yudhiṣṭhira. On the other hand, the hero of the episode, the companion (pīṭhamarda) [646] of the hero, is to possess, but in a less degree, the qualities of the hero; he is to be intelligent, ever in attendance on the hero, and devoted to his interests, as are Makaranda in the Mālatīmādhava and Sugrīva in the dramas based on the Rāma legend. The term, however, is unknown to these plays, while in the Mālavikāgnimitra the nun Kauçikī is styled a Pīṭhamardikā, and serves as a trusted go-between. The theory here seems to have stereotyped a relationship commoner in an older type of drama.

The heroine, Nāyikā, [647] plays a part in the economy of the drama similar to that of the hero, and not of less importance. The types of heroine depend primarily on her relation to the hero; she may be his wife (svā, svīyā) or belong to another (anyā, anyastrī) or be a hetaera. The hero’s wife must be upright and of good character, but she may be inexperienced (mugdhā), partly experienced (madhyā), or fully experienced and bold (pragalbhā). The inexperienced wife is shy in her love and gentle in her anger with her spouse’s infidelities. The partly experienced is full of the love of youth, and even faints in her passion; when angry, if self-controlled, she chides her husband with double entendres; if but partly controlled, she allows her tears to aid her reproaches; if uncontrolled, she adds harsh words. The bold wife is frantically in love, fainting at the first embrace; when angry, if self-controlled, she adopts an attitude of haughty reserve and indifference to the pleasures of life; if lacking in self-control, she uses threats and blows; if partly self-controlled, she employs the weapons of raillery and equivoke. A further division is possible, for each of these three kinds of heroine may be subdivided according as the lady is the earlier or later of the loves of the husband.

A woman, who is in the power of another, may be the wife of another man or a maiden. An amour with a married woman may not form the subject of the dominant sentiment in the play, but that for a maiden may occur as an element in the principal or the secondary action. Even when a parent or guardian is willing to permit a maiden’s marriage, there may be other obstacles, as in the case of the love of Mālatī and Mādhava and in Vatsa’s numerous amours. The woman who is common to all (sādhāraṇī) is a courtesan, skilled in the arts, bold, and cunning; she accepts as lovers the rich, the foolish, the self-willed, the selfish, and the impotent so long as their money lasts, then she has them turned out of doors by her mother, who acts as go-between. If she is a heroine, she must be represented as in love, like Vasantasenā in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, except in a Prahasana or farce, where she can be depicted as fleecing her lovers for comic effect; she must not figure as a heroine if the hero is divine or royal.

The heroine may occupy eight different relations to her lover. [648] She may be his absolute mistress (svādhīnapatikā) and he her obedient slave; she may be awaiting him in full dress (vāsakasajjā); she may be distressed by his involuntary absence (virahotkaṇṭhitā), enraged (khaṇḍitā) at discovering him disfigured by the marks of her rival’s teeth and nails, or be severed from her beloved by a quarrel (kalahāntaritā) and suffer remorse, or be deceived (vipralabdhā) by a lover who fails to meet her at the rendezvous which she has named. Her lover may be absent abroad (proṣitapriyā), or she may have to seek him out or press him to come to her (abhisārikā), giving as meeting-place a ruined temple, a garden, the house of a go-between, a cemetery, the bank of a stream, or in general any dark place. The first two classes of heroine are bright and gay, the others are wearied, tearful, changing colour, sighing, and wear no ornaments as token of their dejection. A woman, who is subject to another, cannot stand in all these relations to a lover; she may be distressed at his absence, deceived, or driven to seek him out, but she cannot be enraged, for she is not the mistress of her lover, and thus the king’s courtesy to Mālavikā in Kālidāsa’s play is not to be treated as an effort to appease an enraged heroine.

The heroine is accorded even a more generous allowance of excellencies than the hero. [649] The first three are physical, the first display of emotion in a nature previously exempt (bhāva), the movement of eyes and brows betokening the awakening of love (hāva), and the still more open manifestation of affection. The next seven are inherent characteristics of the heroine; the brilliance of youth and passion; the added touch of loveliness given by love, sweetness, radiance, courage, dignity, and self-control. Then come ten graces; the sportive imitation of the movements or words of the beloved one, the swift change of aspect at his arrival, tasteful arrangement of one’s ornaments to increase radiance of appearance, studied confusion of ornaments, hysteria (kilakiñcita), in which anger, fear, joy, and tears mingle, manifestations of affection (moṭṭāyita) on hearing the beloved mentioned or seeing his portrait, pretended anger (kuṭṭamita) on the lover touching hair or lip, affected indifference (bibboka), born of excess of pride, a graceful pose (lalita), and the bashfulness which forbids speech even when an opportunity presents itself. To these twenty Viçvanātha adds eight more graces; the pride which is vain of youth and beauty, the ennui which besets the maiden in her lover’s absence, the naïveté which displays itself in pretended ignorance and innocence, the distraction evinced by ornaments in disorder, wandering glances, and truant words, curiosity, the meaningless laugh of youth and high spirits, the tremors of fear causeless but common in the presence of the lover, and the sportive play of young affection. The same source gives us in great detail the modes in which the different types of heroine display their affection, in maidenly modesty or in shameless boldness, an analysis showing keen and deep insight into all the outward manifestations of love at an Indian court. Less praiseworthy is the perverse ingenuity which enumerates the different types of heroine, and educes first 128 from the combination of the eight forms of relationship to the lover with the sixteen kinds based on the division of wife, another’s, and hetaera. These are then multiplied by three on the basis of the division of all characters as high class, middle class, and low class.

The same division of classes is applied to all the other characters (pātra) which can appear in a play, but a much more fundamental classification is that by sex, masculine, feminine, and neuter. Most of the rôles are such as are incidental to the life of a palace, for the normal drama deals with the amours of a king, and his entourage and that of the queen account for practically all the normal characters of the drama.

The king’s confidant and devoted friend is the Vidūṣaka, [650] a Brahmin, ludicrous alike in dress, speech, and behaviour. He is a misshapen dwarf, baldheaded, with projecting teeth and red eyes, who makes himself ridiculous by his silly chatter in Prākrit, and his greed for food and presents of every kind. It is a regular part of the play for the other characters to make fun of him, but he is always by the king’s side, and the latter makes him his confidant in all his affairs of the heart, while the Vidūṣaka repays him by willing, if frequently incompetent or unlucky, attempts at service. The theorists offer no explanation of the anomaly of a Brahmin in such a curious position, but Açvaghoṣa already has the figure, as has Bhāsa, though not in his epic dramas, and later he is established as almost an essential feature in all dramas not derived from the epic; the chief exception is the Mālatīmādhava, where, however, his place is taken by the hero’s friend in sport (narmasuhṛd).

A much less common, but an interesting character is that of the Viṭa, [651] who resembles, though distantly, the parasite of the Greek drama; he is a poet skilled in the arts, especially music, acquainted au fond with the ways of hetaerae, in short a perfect man of the world with literary and artistic culture to boot. He is an essential figure in the Bhāṇa, or monologue, in which he relates his own shady adventures, but in other forms of drama he plays but a small part; Kālidāsa and Bhavabhūti ignore him, and, while Harṣa depicts him in the Nāgānanda, his position there is episodic; in the Mṛcchakaṭikā alone does he attain full development in his relation to the boastful Çakāra. Both these figures appear also in the Cārudatta, Çūdraka’s model. The Çakāra, [652] brother of a royal concubine, is of low caste, easily angered and appeased, fond of fine raiment, and proud of his office, in which, however, he shows himself corrupt and incompetent. He is found also in an episode of the Çakuntalā, but then fades from the drama leaving, however, a clear suggestion of its early history.

The king requires in his amours the aid of a messenger (dūta) [653] as well as for more serious affairs. The holder of this rôle must be possessed of loyalty, energy, courage, a good memory, and adroitness; he may be given full powers to act as seems best in each emergency, or have limited authority, or be a mere bearer of a message. Others intimately associated with the royal household are the servants (ceṭa), [654] the mercenaries, Kirātas or Mlecchas, the chaplain, priest, and other theologians. There are also those employed in the government of the realm, which the king is only too pleased to neglect. [655] The minister (mantrin, amātya) is of good family, of high intelligence, skilled in affairs human and divine, and devoted to the interests of the country. The general (senāpati) is also of high birth, incapable of weakness, skilled in both the theory and the practice of war, and kind of speech; ready to note the weakness of the enemy and to direct at the suitable moment a campaign against him. The judge (prāḍvivāka) must be master of the laws and of judicial procedure, absolutely impartial, devoted to his duty, free from anger or pride, master of himself. The other officers are required to possess high qualities of intelligence, activity, and devotion to duty, while for less important work the king commands the services of foresters, military officers, and soldiers. The prince royal (kumāra) and the friend are also mentioned in the Nāṭyaçāstra, but without detail.

Of women’s rôles [656] the most important in dignity is that of the chief queen (mahādevī), the equal in age and rank of her husband, whose lapses in affection wound her, without robbing her of her sense of self-respect or dignity. In good fortune or evil she is devoted to him and seeks ever his welfare. The queen (devī) is also a daughter of a king, but she is more proud than dignified, and, intoxicated by her youth and beauty, her mind is set on the pleasures of love. The favourite (svāminī) is the daughter of a general or a minister, seductive by her beauty and intelligence, honoured by the king and others. There are other types of concubine (sthāyinī and bhoginī) with characteristics but little distinctive. The harem includes also the chief attendants (āyukta), who are charged with the supreme oversight of some department of the court, the king’s personal attendant who is always with him (anucārikā), the maid who performs his toilet and holds over him the umbrella of state, the women—called sometimes Yavanīs, once Greek maidens—who act as his body-guard, and those aged women who are skilled in political traditions and are respected on that score. There are also the princess, ingénue and modest, and the duenna (mahattarā), who among other things sees to the punctual performance of auspicious rites, and the more humble adepts in the dance, in song, in handicrafts, in acting, and in the favourite amusement of swinging the ladies of the harem. The hetaera is painted in attractive colours; she is thoroughly well educated, exempt from the normal defects of women, kind of heart, adroit, active, a born coquette, and seductive in every way. Special importance among these feminine rôles attaches to that of the heroine’s messenger, the counterpart of the hero’s agent. She may be a friend, a slave, a foster-sister, a neighbour, a workwoman, or an artiste, or strangely enough, a nun, usually of Buddhist connexions, a curious and interesting sidelight on Indian views of the devotees of that faith. The doorkeeper (pratīhārī) has the function of announcing to the king such political events as the declaration of war and the conclusion of peace.

The neuter rôles [657] are filled by men who have either taken vows of chastity, or have been deprived of virility in order to permit of their employment in the harem. The Snātaka is a Brahmin, who has completed his course of religious study, is familiar with religious and social affairs; he resides within the palace. The chamberlain (kañcukin) is an old Brahmin, worn out in the service of the king, but still mentally alert and skilled in his business of conveying the royal orders in the palace. The eunuchs (varṣadhara, nirmuṇḍa, upasthāyika) are effeminate and cowardly but not lacking in savoir faire; they find employment in the king’s amours.

The nomenclature [658] of the characters is in some measure regulated by rule; the name of a hetaera should end in dattā, senā, or siddhā, as does that of Vasantasenā in the Cārudatta; that of a merchant in datta as in Cārudatta; that of the Vidūṣaka from spring or a flower, but in the Avimāraka he is styled Saṁtuṣṭa; that of a servant, male or female, should be derived from some object, which occurs in descriptions of the seasons, &c., as in the names Kalahaṅsa and Mandārikā in the Mālatīmādhava; those of Kāpālikas, a species of ascetics, should end in ghaṇṭa as in Aghoraghaṇṭa in the same play.

There is also an elaborate etiquette [659] as to the mode of addressing the diverse personages. A king is styled thus by ascetics, but Deva or Svāmin by his courtiers; his charioteer and Brahmins generally hail him as Āyuṣmant, ‘long-lived’, while inferiors style him Bhaṭṭa, ‘master’. The crown prince is styled Svāmin, like his father; the other princes of the blood (bhartṛdāraka), but also common people, Bhadramukha or Saumya, preceded by he in the latter case, terms designed to conciliate by attributing to those addressed the qualities they are desired to show. [660] The style Bhagavant, ‘blessed’, is appropriate to the gods, to great sages and saints; Ārya, ‘noble’, is appropriate to Brahmins, ministers, and elder brothers, while a wife should address her husband as Āryaputra. Sages address an ascetic as Sādhu; ministers are styled Amātya or Saciva; the king calls his Vidūṣaka, and is called by him, Vayasya, ‘friend’. Sugṛhītābhidha, ‘well named one’, is the address [661] of a pupil to his master, a son to a father, or a younger to an elder brother, while the latter in return uses Tāta or Vatsa, both affectionate and condescending terms, suitable also for use to a son, or any person who owes one respect. Heretics should be given the styles they affect, thus a Buddhist should be hailed as Bhadanta; Çakas should be styled by such terms as Bhadradatta. The interjection Haṅho may be used between men of middle rank, Haṇḍe between common people. The Vidūṣaka addresses the queen and her ladies as Bhavatī; otherwise the queen is styled Bhaṭṭinī or Svāminī, a wife as Āryā, a princess Bhartṛdārikā, a hetaera Ajjukā, a go-between or aged dame Ambā; Halā is used between friends of equal rank, Hañjā is addressed to a servant.

5. THE SENTIMENTS

The most original and interesting part of dramatic theory is the gradual definition of the nature of the sentiment which it is the aim of the performance to evoke in the mind of the audience. [662] The statement of the Nāṭyaçāstra is simple. Sentiment is produced from the union of the determinants (vibhāva), the consequents (anubhāva), and the transitory feelings (vyabhicārin). The determinants fall in the later classification into two divisions, the fundamental determinants (ālambana) and the excitant determinants (uddīpana); fundamental determinants comprise such things as the heroine or the hero, for without them there can be no creation of sentiment in the audience; excitant determinants are such conditions of place and time and circumstance as serve to foster sentiment when it has arisen, for instance the moon, the cry of the cuckoo, the soft breeze from Malaya, all things which foster the erotic sentiment. The consequents are the external manifestations of feeling, by which the actors exhibit to the audience the minds and hearts of the persons of the drama, such as sidelong glances, a smile, a movement of the arm, and—though this is but slightly indicated in later texts—his words. [663] A special class is later made of those consequents, which are the involuntary product of sympathetic realization of the feeling of the person portrayed, and hence are called Sāttvika, as arising from a heart which is ready to appreciate the sorrows or joys of another (sattva); these are paralysis, fainting, horripilation, perspiration, change of colour, trembling, weeping, and change of voice. The transitory or evanescent feelings are given as thirty-three; they are discouragement, weakness, apprehension, weariness, contentment, stupor, joy, depression, cruelty, anxiety, fright, envy, indignation, arrogance, recollection, death, intoxication, dreaming, sleeping, awakening, shame, epilepsy, distraction, assurance, indolence, agitation, deliberation, dissimulation, sickness, insanity, despair, impatience, and inconstancy. But these factors are not sufficient to account for sentiment, nor does the Nāṭyaçāstra intend this. It recognizes that an essential element in the production of sentiment is the dominant emotion (sthāyibhāva) which persists throughout the drama amid the variations of the transitory feelings; it stands to the other factors in the position of the king to his subjects or a master to his pupils, as the Çāstra says; it is, says the Daçarūpa, the source of delight, and brings into harmony with itself the transitory states of feeling.

It is the dominant emotions which in some fashion determine or become sentiments even in the view of the Nāṭyaçāstra, though in it there is clearly difficulty in conceiving the precise signification of the process, a fact revealed in a tendency to confuse the terms emotion and sentiment, Bhāva and Rasa. In Bhaṭṭa Lollaṭa [664] we have a determined effort to make clear the implication of the doctrine. The dominant emotion of love, for instance, generated by a fundamental determinant such as a maiden, inflamed by an excitant determinant such as a pleasant garden, made cognizable by consequents such as sidelong glances and embraces, and strengthened by transitory feelings such as desire, becomes the erotic sentiment first of all in the hero of the drama, e.g. Rāma. The sentiment is subsequently attributed to the actor who imitates the hero in form, dress, and action, and so it becomes the source of charm to the audience. The fatal objection to this theory is clear; it fails to recognize that the sentiment must be that of the spectator himself; he cannot have enjoyment of a sentiment which exists merely in the actor as a secondary outcome of its existence in Rāma. Moreover, the actor whose chief aim is to please the audience and earn money need not feel at all the emotions of Rāma, while, if he does so, he is then in the same position as a spectator.

The view of Lollaṭa, which is classed as one of the production (utpatti) of sentiment and regarded as that of the Mīmāṅsā school, is opposed by the doctrine of Çrīçan̄kuka, regarded as the Naiyāyika view, which interprets the manifestation of sentiment as a process of inference. The emotions, love, &c., are inferred to exist in the actor, though not really present in him, by means of the determinants, &c., cleverly exhibited in his acting; the emotion thus inferred, being sensed by the audience, through its exquisite beauty, adds to itself a peculiar charm and thus finally develops into the state of a sentiment in the spectator. This view, however, is open to the fatal objection that it is commonly admitted that it is not inference, or any other derivative mode of knowledge, which produces charm, but perception alone, and no adequate ground exists for disregarding this general truth in this case.

In Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka [665] we find yet a different point of view, which denies either the production (utpatti) of sentiment, its perception or apprehension (pratīti) or its revelation (abhivyakti). If sentiment is perceived as appertaining to another, then it cannot personally affect oneself. But it cannot be perceived as present in oneself as a result of study of a work about Rāma; there are no factors present in the self to produce any such result; it is impossible to hold that an emotion dormant in oneself is called to life by seeing or reading the story of Rāma; experience shows that one’s own beloved does not come up to one’s mind to raise love, nor could a tale of a goddess evoke the picture of a mortal amour; again, such marvellous deeds as Rāma’s have nothing common to mortal efforts so as to be able to awake conceptions of acts of our own. Thus sentiment cannot be apprehended. Nor is it a case of production; if so, no one would go twice to a play of a pathetic type, since one would experience actual misery as the result, in lieu of a pleasant melancholy; again the sight of lovers united does not in real life produce sentiment. Nor is a case of the revelation of something existing potentially (çaktirūpa). If this were so, then, when the potential emotions were let loose, they would occupy their field of action in diverse degrees—thus contradicting the nature of sentiment as one; moreover there would be the same difficulties as in the case of apprehension as to whether revelation applied to the hero or oneself. The true solution, therefore, is to ascribe to a poem a peculiar threefold potency of its own, the power of denotation (abhidhā), which deals with what is expressed, the power of realization (bhāvakatva), which relates to the sentiment, and the power of enjoyment (bhojakatva), which has regard to the audience. If denotation were all, there would be no difference between poetic figures and manuals, there would be absence of the distinctions produced by divergence of literal and metaphorical sense, and the avoidance of harsh sounds would be needless. As it is, we have the second function of realization of sentiment, which causes the expressed sense to serve as the basis of the sentiment, and confers on the determinants, &c., the essential feature of being appropriated by the audience as universal. From this comes the appreciation by the audience of the sentiment, an appreciation consisting in a mental condition made up entirely of the element of goodness or truth (sattva), uninfluenced by the other elements of passion (rajas) and dullness (tamas), that is, entirely free from desire, comparable with meditation on the absolute. This condition is the vital element; the enjoyment ranks above the aesthetic equipment [666] which renders it possible. To this theory which is sometimes ascribed to the Sāṁkhya, [667] and called the Bhuktivāda, doctrine of the enjoyment of sentiment, the objection is made that the two powers ascribed to poetry, realization, and enjoyment, have no legitimate foundation.

The view finally adopted by the theorists is that defended, but not first enunciated, by Abhinavagupta, based on the general doctrine of suggestion (vyañjanā) as lying at the basis of all poetic pleasure. The spectator’s state of mind must be considered; it is in him that from experience of life there come into being emotional complexes, which lie dormant, ready to be called into activity by the reading of poems or by seeing plays performed. Those whose life has left them barren of impressions of emotions are, accordingly, incapable of relishing dramas, a fate which awaits men whose minds are intent merely on grammar or on the complexities of the Mīmāṅsā. The sentiment thus excited is peculiar, in that it is essentially universal in character; it is common to all other trained spectators, and it has essentially no personal significance. A sentiment is thus something very different from an ordinary emotion; it is generic and disinterested, while an emotion is individual and immediately personal. An emotion again may be pleasant or painful, but a sentiment is marked by that impersonal joy, characteristic of the contemplation of the supreme being by the adept, a bliss which is absolutely without personal feeling. There is in fact a close parallel between the man of taste (sahṛdaya) [668] and the adept (yogin); both have in them the possibility of attaining this bliss, and, to make it real, the one must investigate the determinants, &c., while the other must apply himself to concentration on the absolute. It is this peculiar nature of sentiment which forbids it being created as the result of denotation or indication by speech, of perception, inference, or recollection. It cannot exist without determinants, &c., but these are not in the normal sense causes; an effect can exist when its causes have disappeared, but sentiment exists only while the determinants, &c., last; the terms used in this regard are one and all distinct from the normal terminology of causation. Sentiment is something supernatural (alaukika); its relations to the factors may be compared with that of a beverage to the black pepper, candied sugar, camphor, &c., which compose it, but of which as such no trace remains in the liquor as produced. This characteristic enables us to understand how it is that the list of sentiments includes that of horror or odium (bībhatsa) and that of fear (bhayānaka), as well as the pathetic sentiment. These are awakened into life by things which cause disgust, fear, and grief in ordinary life, and these emotions in real life are far from pleasant in any sense of that term. But, conveyed as ideal and generic, they produce this supernatural pleasure or happiness, which is not to be compared with normal pleasure, just as the joy of the contemplation of the absolute is not to be described as pleasure in the ordinary sense. Bhānudatta, in his Rasataran̄giṇī, a work composed before A.D. 1437, distinguishes Rāsa as natural (laukika) and supernatural or transcendental; the former is the emotion experienced in ordinary life—which may more conveniently be distinguished as Bhāva,—the latter includes the emotion experienced in dream experiences, in the building of castles in the air, and in the appreciation of poetry, and he is careful to emphasize the totally different nature of the natural and the transcendental emotion. [669]

The doctrine set out in Abhinavagupta is also that of the Daçarūpa, although it is rendered more obscure there by the brevity of its exposition. The process of transformation of an emotion to a sentiment is formally described; ‘a dominant feeling or emotion becomes a sentiment when it is transformed into an object of enjoyment through the co-operation of the determinants, the consequents, including the involuntary manifestations of feeling, and the transitory feelings’. [670] The sense is made further precise by the assertion [671] that the dominant emotion becomes a sentiment, because it is enjoyed by the spectator of taste, and he is actually at present in existence; the sentiment is not located in the hero whose actions are represented, for he belongs to the past, nor does it appertain to the poem, for that is not the object of the poem—its function being to set out the determinants, &c., through which the dominant emotion is brought out and generates the sentiment,—nor is sentiment the apprehension by the spectator of the emotions enacted by the actor, since in that case spectators would feel not sentiment, but an emotion varying in the different individuals, just as in real life from seeing a pair in union those who see them feel according to their nature shame, envy, desire, or aversion. The position of the spectator is compared to that of the child which, when it plays with its clay elephants—the ancient equivalent of our tin soldiers—experiences the sensation of its own energy as pleasant; the deeds of Arjuna arouse a like feeling in the spectator’s mind. This experiencing sentiment is a manifestation of that joy which is innate as the true nature of the self, and this manifestation comes into being as the result of the pervasion of the mind of the spectator with the dominant emotion and the determinants, &c., in combination.

An effort is made to describe the precise nature of the mental activity involved in the enjoyment of sentiment, and to base upon it a division of the sentiments. The four sentiments of love, heroism, horror, and fury are taken as primary, and brought into connexion with mental conditions described as the unfolding (vikāsa), expansion (vistara), agitation (kṣobha), and movement to and fro (vikṣepa) of the mind. [672] These are evidently mental conditions, believed to be reached by introspection, and they have the merit of giving a quasi-psychological rationale for the doctrine of four primary and four secondary sentiments found in the Nāṭyaçāstra. [673] But there was no early agreement on this piece of psychology; Abhinavagupta, [674] with Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka, accepts only three aspects of mental condition as involved, the melting (druti), expansion, and unfolding, a division which is applied also in the theory of poetics to justify the doctrine of the existence of three qualities only of words. [675] On Dhanaṁjaya’s view the sentiment of calm which he denies for drama, [676] if it exists at all, must be regarded as combining all the four mental aspects above distinguished.

It is now possible to understand clearly the essential relation of the spectator to the actors; we see on the stage, for instance, Rāma and Sītā, who excites his affection, aided by suitable circumstances of time and place; this affection is intimated by speech and gesture alike, which indicate both the dominant emotion of love and its transient shapes in the various stages of love requited. The spectacle evokes in the mind of the spectator the impressions of the emotion of love which experience has planted there, and this ideal and generic excitation of the emotion produces in him that sense of joy which is known as sentiment. The fullness of the enjoyment depends essentially on the nature and experience of the spectator, to whom it falls to identify himself with the hero or other character, and thus to experience in ideal form his emotions and feelings. He may even succeed in his effort to the extent that he weeps real tears, feels terror and sorrow, but the sentiment is still one of exquisite joy. We may compare the thrill of pleasure which the most terrifying narration excites in us, and we are all conscious of the sweetness of sad tales.

Viçvanātha insists very strongly on the necessity of the identification of the spectator with the personages depicted, a process which enables him to accept without any difficulty such episodes of extraordinary character as Hanumant’s leap over the ocean. [677] He must not treat the emotion of love as his own, for in that case it would never become a sentiment; it would remain a feeling, and in the case of fear, for instance, it would cause pain, not joy. Nor must he regard it as belonging solely to the hero, for then it would remain his feeling, and in no wise affect the spectator or become a sentiment. Similarly, the determinants, &c., are not to be treated as pertaining to the hero alone; they must be felt as generic. This generic action (sādhāraṇī kṛti) is the essential feature, replacing the generic power which Bhaṭṭa Nāyaka attributes to poetry. We can now see clearly the position of the actor; the Nāṭyaçāstra [678] bids him as far as possible to assume the emotions of the person whom he represents, and to depict them by costume, speech, movements, and gestures as his own, but Viçvanātha [679] is more anxious to insist that the sentiment is not necessarily to be found in the actor, who often merely performs mechanically his part according to rote and rule; if he actually does experience the feelings he portrays, then he becomes in so far a spectator. [680] Further, he points out the simultaneous presence of all the factors is by no means essential, for the existence of one will revive the others by force of the association of ideas. He insists also on the necessity of experience and cultivation of the power of imagination in one who seeks to enjoy sentiment; as we are by virtue of the doctrine of transmigration—or if we prefer to modernize, by heredity—endowed with the germs of the capacity of appreciation, we can normally by study of poetical works develop the capacity, but, if we devote ourselves to the study of grammar or philosophy, we shall certainly deaden our susceptibilities. The difficult problem, why much study of poetry leaves some still unable to relish the sentiment, is explained by the convenient hypothesis that demerit in a previous birth intervenes to frustrate present effort. He refutes at length the effort of Mahiman Bhaṭṭa [681] to destroy the whole doctrine of suggestion in poetry by the doctrine of inference; doubtless by inference we could arrive at a belief in the existence of an emotion in the hero’s mind but that inference would not produce any effect in us or arouse sentiment; a logician might make the inference and draw the correct conclusion, but would remain cold and unmoved. Suggestiveness, he shows, is absolutely essential as a function of words and as the characteristic of poetry, giving it power to create sentiment. What is expressed may be understood by every one; the man of taste alone appreciates the suggestion and enjoys the flavour resulting.

Now sentiment is one, it is a single, ineffable, transcendental joy, but it can be subdivided, not according to its own nature, but according to the emotions which evoke it. Thus the Nāṭyaçāstra recognizes the existence of eight emotions or dominant feelings; love (rati), mirth (hāsa), anger (krodha), sorrow (çoka), energy (utsāha), terror (bhaya), disgust (jugupsā), and astonishment (vismaya), and corresponding to these eight emotions we have eight forms of sentiment. The erotic sentiment (çṛn̄gārarasa) is of two kinds, the union (sambhoga) or sundering (vipralambha) of two lovers, according to the Çāstra and the great mass of theorists, but the Daçarūpa [682] distinguishes three cases, privation (ayoga), sundering (viprayoga), and union. Privation denotes the inability of two young hearts to secure union, because of obstacles to their marriage; such love passes through ten stages, [683] longing, anxiety, recollection, enumeration of the loved one’s merits, distress, raving, insanity, fever, stupor, and death. Sundering may be due to absence or resentment, and this in its turn may be caused by a quarrel between two determined lovers, or indignation at finding out, by sight, hearing or inference, that one’s lover is devoted to another. The hero may counteract anger by conciliation, by winning over her friends, by gifts, by humility, by indifference, and by distracting her attention. Absence again may be due to business, to accident, or a curse; if the reason is death the love sentiment cannot, in Dhanaṁjaya’s view, be present, though others allow of a pathetic variety of this sentiment. [684] In union the lover should avoid vulgarity or annoyance.

The heroic (vīra) sentiment corresponds to the emotion of energy; it may take the three forms of courage in battle as in Rāma; compassion as in Jīmūtavāhana; and liberality as in Paraçurāma. Assurance, contentment, arrogance, and joy are the transitory states connected with it. The sentiment of fury (raudra) is based on anger; its transitory states are indignation, intoxication, recollection, inconstancy, envy, cruelty, agitation, and the like. The comic (hāsya) sentiment depends on mirth, which is caused by one’s own or another’s strange appearance, speech, or attire. [685] The transitory states in connexion with it are sleeping, indolence, weariness, weakness, and stupor. The sentiment of wonder (adbhuta) is based on astonishment; the transitory states are usually joy, agitation, and contentment. The sentiment of terror (bhayānaka) is based on terror; the states associated with it are depression, agitation, distraction, fright, and the like. The pathetic (karuṇa) sentiment is based on sorrow; its associated states are sleeping, epilepsy, depression, sickness, death, indolence, agitation, despair, stupor, insanity, anxiety, and so forth. The sentiment of horror or odium (bībhatsa) is based on disgust; its associated states are agitation, sickness, apprehension, and the like. In each case the theorists give in full the determinants and the consequents of each emotion, which becomes a sentiment, and a special colour is ascribed to each; it is not surprising to find that red is associated with fury, black with fear; whiteness may, in association with the comic sentiment, be explained by the flashing teeth of a laughing maiden, and the dark (çyāma) colour of the erotic sentiment is a reflex of the favoured hue of the beloved; grey accords with pathos, but the connexion of yellow with wonder, dark blue with horror, and orange with heroism is not obvious. It is also artificial to find four primary and four secondary sentiments laid down; the erotic, the furious, the heroic, and that of horror, whence in order are supposed to develop the comic, the pathetic, that of wonder and that of terror. The Nāṭyaçāstra recognizes these eight only, [686] but later authorities add the sentiment of calm (çānta) based on indifference to worldly things (nirveda), although this is in the Çāstra merely a transitory feeling. Those who follow the Çāstra contend that there is no such sentiment, for it is impossible to destroy utterly love, hatred, and other feelings, which have been operative from time without beginning; others admit the existence of the sentiment, as does Mammaṭa, but not in drama, on the ground that indifference to all worldly things is incapable of being represented. But this also is erroneous; the actor’s power of representing indifference is not in point, as it is the spectator who is to feel the sentiment, and the fact that the Çāstra places it first in the list of transitory states, though that would normally be an inauspicious beginning, indicates that it was meant to serve both as an emotion and a transitory feeling, and it is fully recognized by Vidyādhara, Viçvanātha, and Jagannātha, though Dhanaṁjaya barely admits it. [687] The interrelations of the sentiments, their possible combinations, their harmonies and conflicts, are detailed at length.

The sentiments may all be employed in drama, but there are rules affecting their use. In each play there should be a dominant sentiment; in the Nāṭaka it should be the erotic or the heroic; other sentiments are merely auxiliary, but that of wonder is especially appropriate in the dénouement; indeed something in the way of supernatural intervention is often convenient to extricate the plot. An excess of sentiments is as bad as a defect; if there are too many they destroy the unity of the whole and detach it into a series of ill-connected fragments, while the excessive use of action and of rhetorical display is equally destructive to the merit of a piece.

The Çakuntalā illustrates excellently the sentiment of love as the ruling motive of the play; the heroic sentiment appears in the verses in Act II in which the hermits extol the king; the horrible in Act VI in the scene in which Mātali menaces the Vidūṣaka; terror is evoked by the description of the dusk at the close of Act III; the whole play from the arrival of Kaṇva in Act IV to the departure of Çakuntalā produces the sentiment of pathos, while that of fury is called into being by the close of Act VI from the despairing cries of the Vidūṣaka to the entry of Mātali; finally wonder is aroused by the strange incident at the close when the king picks up the bracelet fallen from the arm of the child which, unknown to him, is his own son by the wife whom he has in ignorance repudiated. The Nāṭikās afford excellent examples of the erotic sentiment; Harṣa, in complete accord with the rules of the drama, helps out his plot in both the Ratnāvalī and the Priyadarçikā by the use of incidents evoking the sentiment of wonder; the imprisonment of Sāgarikā in the former play evokes the sentiment of pathos, while terror is excited by the description in Act II of the wild confusion caused by the monkey’s escape from the royal mews. The sentiment of fury is frequently evoked in the Mahāvīracarita and the Veṇīsaṁhāra; the Mālatīmādhava affords excellent illustrations evoking horror, while the Mahāvīracarita is permeated by the sentiment of heroism. The Nāgānanda reveals heroism in another aspect, that of the perfection of compassion and nobility, for, as we have seen, Jīmūtavāhana is not to be regarded as a hero in whom calm prevails.

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]

The grand manner is appropriate to the sentiments of heroism, wonder, and fury, and in a less degree to the pathetic and erotic. Virtue, courage, self-sacrifice, compassion, and righteousness are its subjects, not sorrow. Its divisions are the challenge (utthāpaka), as in the Mahāvīracarita, Act V, Vālin defies Rāma; breach of alliance (saṁghātya) among one’s foes, which may be brought about by deliberate stratagem, as in the Mudrārākṣasa, or by fate, as in the Rāma dramas Vibhīṣaṇa severs himself from Rāvaṇa; change of action (parivartaka) as when in the Mahāvīracarita Paraçurāma offers to embrace Rāma, whom he came to overthrow; and the dialogue (saṁlāpa) of warriors such as that of Rāma and Paraçurāma in the same play.

The violent manner accords with the sentiments of fury, horror, and terror. It employs magic, conjuration, conflicts, rage, fury, and underhand devices. Its elements include, first, the almost immediate construction (saṁkṣipti) of some object by artificial means, such as the elephant of mats made to contain Udayana’s men in the lost Udayanacarita; but others interpret this member as a sudden change of hero, whether real, as in the substitution of Vālin for Sugrīva, or merely a change of heart on the hero’s part, as in Paraçurāma’s submission to Rāma; in either case only a secondary hero can change or be changed, else the unity of the drama would disappear. The other elements are the creation of an object by magic means (vastūtthāpana); the angry meeting of two persons who end by fighting (sampheṭa), as do Mādhava and Aghoraghaṇṭa in the Mālatīmādhava; and a scene of tumultuous disturbance (avapāta), such as that when the monkey escapes in the Ratnāvalī or of the attack on Vindhyaketu in the Priyadarçikā,