Page:The Sanskrit Drama.djvu/337

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332
Theory of the Dramatic Art

of features the opposite of those of its rival; more specifically, we find it credited with the fondness for the use of long compounds both in prose and verse, while the Vaidarbha objects to such compounds in verse at least, and with affecting alliterations. Vāmana[1] develops the doctrine by distinguishing ten qualities of sense and ten of sound, and he ascribes all the qualities to the Vaidarbha style; to the Gauḍa he allots reliance on force and beauty, to the exclusion of sweetness and softness, while he recognizes as a third style the Pāñcāla, which is marked with sweetness and softness, and therefore is rather feeble. In Mammaṭa[2] and later we find a new view of the qualities; those of sense are explained away as being rather the absence of defects (doṣa), so that the qualities are reduced to the sphere of sound alone. In this regard they are further reduced from ten to three, sweetness, strength, and clearness, and these are now brought into effective connexion with the sentiments.

Sweetness, the source of pleasure, causing as it were the melting of the heart, is appropriate in the sentiments of love in enjoyment, pathos, love in separation, and calm; it is normal in love in union, and rises in degree successively in the other three forms of sentiment; unmixed in the others, in that of calm it is combined with a small degree of strength, because of the relation of the sentiment of calm to the emotion of disgust. Strength causes the expansion of the heart; it rises in vehemence in the sentiments of heroism, horror, and fury, and it is found also in that of terror. The quality of clearness is appropriate to all the sentiments, and is that which causes the sense to become intelligible, pervading the mind as fire does wood or water a cloth, as the outcome of merely hearing the words. The precise mode in which sweetness is produced is by the use of mutes other than cerebrals, with their appropriate nasals, r and with short vowels, and no compounds or short compounds; strength results from the use of compound letters, doubled letters, conjunct consonants of which r forms part, cerebrals other than ṇ, palatal and cerebral sibilants, and long compounds. The older names, Vaidarbha, Gauḍa, and Pāñcāla are now given up in favour of refined (upanā-

  1. iii. 1 and 2; cf. Regnaud, Rhétorique Sanskrite, ch. v.
  2. Kāvyaprakāça, pp. 542 ff.; Ekāvalī, pp. 147-9; Alaṁkarasarvasva, pp. 20 f. R. i. 229-43 has the ten Guṇas and komalā, kaṭhinā, and miçrā as the three names.