(The Toy Cart), was considerably earlier in date than the works of Kālidāsa. Indeed, of his predecessors in dramatic composition very little is known, and even the contemporaries who competed with him as dramatists are mere names. Thus, by the time the Indian drama produced almost the earliest specimens with which we are acquainted, it had already reached its zenith; and it was therefore looked upon as having sprung into being as a perfect art. We know it only in its glory, in its decline, and in its decay.
The history of Indian dramatic literature may be roughly divided into the following periods.
I. To the 11th Century A.D.—This period virtually belongs to the pre-Mahommedan age of Indian history; but already to that second division of it in which Buddhism had become a powerful factor in the social as well as in the moral and intellectual life of the land. It is the classical period of the Hindu drama, and includes the works First period (classical).of its two indisputably greatest masters. The earliest extant Sanskrit play is the pathetic Mrichchhakatīkā (The Toy Cart), which has been dated back as far as the close of the 2nd century A.D. It is attributed (as is not uncommon with Indian plays) to a royal author, named Sūdraka; but it was more probably written by his court poet, whose name has been concluded to have been Dandin. It may be described as a comedy of middle-class life, treating of the courtship and marriage of a ruined Brahman and a wealthy and large-hearted courtesan.
Kālidāsa, the brightest of the “nine gems” of genius in whom the Indian drama gloried, lived at the court of Ujjain, though whether in the earlier half of the 6th century A.D., or in the 3rd century, or at a yet earlier date, remains an unsettled question. He is the author of Sākuntalā—the work which, in the translation by Sir William Jones (1789), first revealed to the Western world of letters the existence of an Indian drama, since reproduced in innumerable versions in many tongues. This heroic comedy, in seven acts, takes its plot from the first book of the Mahābhārata. It is a dramatic love-idyll of surpassing beauty, and one of the masterpieces of the poetic literature of the world. Another drama by Kālidāsa, Vikrama and Urvāsī (The Hero and the Nymph), though unequal as a whole to Sākuntalā, contains one act of incomparable loveliness; and its enduring effect upon Indian dramatic literature is shown by the imitations of it in later plays. (It was translated into English in 1827 by H. H. Wilson.) To Kālidāsa has likewise been attributed a third play, Mālavika and Agnimitra; but it is possible that this conventional comedy, though held to be of ancient date, was composed by a different poet of the same name.
To Harsadeva, king of northern India, are ascribed three extant plays, which were more probably composed by some poet in his pay. One of these, Nagananda (Joy of the Serpents), which begins as an erotic play, but passes into a most impressive exemplification of the supreme virtue of self-sacrifice, is notable as the only Buddhist drama which has been preserved, though others are known to have existed and to have been represented.
The palm of pre-eminence is disputed with Kālidāsa by the great dramatic poet Babhavūti (called Crikańťha, or he in whose throat is fortune), who flourished in the earlier part of the 8th century. While he is considered more artificial in language than his rival, and in general more bound by rules, he can hardly be deemed his inferior in dramatic genius. Of his three extant plays, Mahāvāra-Charitra and Uttara-Rāma-Charitra are heroic dramas concerned with the adventures of Rāma (the seventh incarnation of Vishnu); the third, the powerful melodrama, in ten acts, of Mālatī and Mādhava, has love for its theme, and has been called (perhaps with more aptitude than usually belongs to such comparisons) the Romeo and Juliet of the Hindus. It is considered by their critical authorities the best example of the prakarańa, or drama of domestic life. Babhavūti’s plays, as is indicated by the fact that no jester appears in them, are devoid of the element of humour.
The plays of Rājasekhara, who lived about the end of the 9th century, deal, like those of Harsadeva, with harem and court life. One of them, Karpura Manjuri (Camphor Cluster), is stated to be the only example of the saltaka or minor heroic comedy, written entirely in Prakrit.
In this period may probably also be included Viśākhadatta’s interesting drama of political intrigue, Mudrā-Rakshasa (The Signet of the Minister), in which Chandragupta (Sandracottus) appears as the founder of a dynasty. In subject, therefore, this production, which is one of the few known Indian historical dramas, goes back to the period following on the invasion of India by Alexander the Great; but the date of composition is probably at least as late as A.D. 1000. The plot of the play turns on the gaining-over of the prime minister of the ancien régime.
Among the remaining chief works of this period is the Veni-Samhara (Binding of the Braid) by Nārāyana Bhatta. Though described as a play in which both pathos and horror are exaggerated—its subject is an outrage resembling that which Dunstan is said to have inflicted on Elgiva—it is stated to have been always a favourite, as written in exact accordance with dramatic rules. Perhaps the Candakanśika by Ksemīśvara should also be included, which deals with the working of a curse pronounced by an aged priest upon a king who had innocently offended him.
II. The Period of Decline.—This may be reckoned from about the 11th to about the 14th century of the Christian era, the beginning roughly coinciding with that of a continuous series of Mahommedan invasions of India. Hanūman-Naťaka, or “the great Nataka” (for this irregular Second period (decline).play, the work of several hands, surpasses all other Indian dramas in length, extending over no fewer than fourteen acts), dates from the 10th or 11th century. Its story is taken from the Rāma-cycle, and a prominent character in it is the mythical monkey-chief King Hanūman, to whom, indeed, tradition ascribed the original authorship of the play. Kŕishńamicra’s “theosophic mystery,” as it has been called,—though it rather resembles some of the moralities,—Prabodha-Chandrodaya (The Rise of the Moon of Insight, i.e. the victory of true doctrine over error), is ascribed by one authority to the middle of the 11th century, by another to about the end of the 12th. The famous Ratnavali (The Necklace), a court-comedy of love and intrigue, with a half-Terentian plot, seems also to date from the earlier half of the period.
The remaining plays of which it has been possible to conjecture the dates range in the time of their composition from the end of the 11th to the 14th century. Of this period, as compared with the first, the general characteristics seem to be an undue preponderance of narrative and description, and an affected and over-elaborated style. As a striking instance of this class is mentioned a play on the adventures of Rāma, the Anargha-Rāghava, which in spite, or by reason, of the commonplace character of its sentiments, the extravagance of its diction, and the obscurity of its mythology, is stated to enjoy a higher reputation with the pundits of the present age than the masterpieces of Kālidāsa and Babhavūti. To the close of this period, the 14th century, has likewise (but without any pretension to certainty) been ascribed the only Tamil drama of which we possess an English version. Arichandra (The Martyr of Truth) exemplifies—with a strange likeness in the contrivance of its plot to the Book of Job and Faust—by the trials of a heroically enduring king the force of the maxim “Better die than lie.”
III. Period of Decay.—Isolated plays remain from centuries later than the 14th; but these, which chiefly turn on the legends of Kŕishńa (the last incarnation of Vishnu), may be regarded as a mere aftergrowth, and exhibit the Indian drama in its decay. Indeed, the latest of them, Third period (decay).Chitra-Yajna, which was composed about the beginning of the 19th century, and still serves as a model for Bengali dramatic performances, is imperfect in its dialogue, which (after the fashion of Italian improvised comedy) it is left to the actors to supplement. Besides these there are farces or farcical entertainments, more or less indelicate, of uncertain dates.
The number of plays which have descended to us from so vast an expanse of time is still comparatively small. But though, in 1827, Wilson doubted whether all the plays to be found, and
