442 BENGALI LITERATURE fittingly taken up in its proper place in the treatment of the next period. The same remarks with regard to chronology apply also to yatva, a species of popular amuse- The "yates. ment which was closely allied to kabi and = painchali 8710 prevalent from a very early period but of which specimens have come down from comparatively recent times. The traditional existence of yatras is known to us from time immemorial and in Bharat’s Natyasastra, we hear of popular semi- dramatic performances which have been generally regarded as the probable precursor of the popular yafras, on the one hand, and of the later Sanserit Ita antiquity. dramatic literature on the other. In Bhababhiti’s } Mdalati-madhava,'! the word yatra@ is used probably in the technical sense as well as in the general sense of a festivity. It cannot be determined now whether the ya/ras lineally descended without deviation from these earlier poptilar festive enter- tainments of the operatic type, obtaining from the earliest times, or whether the later Sanscrit dramatic literature, especially represented in such irregular types as the Mahanataka or in the particular operatic types noted in all works on Sanscrit dramaturgy, reacted upon it and greatly modified its form and spirit. But it may be noted that the principal elements in the old yafra@ seem to be of indigenous growth, peculiar to itself. In the first place, the yara generally possessed a religious or The principal ele- mythological theme, pointing to a ments in the yatra, peculiar to itself. probable connexion with religious festivities and ceremonies. In the next place, although there always existed a dramatic _ 1 Malati-madhava (Bomb. Sans. Series Ed,), p. 8.
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