Another play of considerable merit attributed to Çrīharsha is Nāgānanda. It is a sensational piece with a Buddhistic colouring, the hero being a Buddhist and Buddha being praised in the introductory benediction. For this reason its author was probably different from that of Ratnāvalī, and may have been Dhāvaka, who, like Bāṇa, is known to have lived at the court of Çrīharsha.
The dramatist Bhavabhūti was a Brahman of the Taittirīya school of the Yajurveda and belonged, as we learn from his prologues, to Vidarbha (now Berar) in Southern India. He knew the city of Ujjayinī well, and probably spent at least a part of his life there. His patron was King Yaçovarman of Kānyakubja (Kanauj), who ruled during the first half of the eighth century.
Three plays by this poet, all abounding in poetic beauties, have come down to us. They contrast in two or three respects with the works of the earlier dramatists. The absence of the character of the jester is characteristic of them, the comic and witty element entering into them only to a slight extent. While other Indian poets dwell on the delicate and mild beauties of Nature, Bhavabhūti loves to depict her grand and sublime aspects, doubtless owing to the influence on his mind of the southern mountains of his native land. He is, moreover, skilful not only in drawing characters inspired by tender and noble sentiment, but in giving effective expression to depth and force of passion.
The best known and most popular of Bhavabhūti’s plays is Mālatī-mādhava, a prakaraṇa in ten acts. The scene is laid in Ujjayinī, and the subject is the love-story of Mālatī, daughter of a minister of the country, and Mādhava, a young scholar studying in the city, and son of the minister of another state. Skilfully interwoven with this main story are the fortunes of Makaranda, a friend of Mādhava, and Madayantikā, a sister of the king’s favourite. Mālatī and Mādhava meet and fall in love; but the king has determined that the heroine shall marry his favourite, whom she detests. This plan is frustrated by Makaranda, who, personating Mālatī, goes through the wedding ceremony with the bridegroom. The lovers, aided in their projects by two amiable Buddhist nuns, are finally united. The piece is a sort of Indian Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending, the part played by the nun Kāmandakī being analogous to that of Friar Laurence in Shakespeare’s drama. The contrast produced by scenes of tender love, and the horrible doings of the priestess of the dread goddess Durgā, is certainly effective, but perhaps too violent. The use made of swoons, from which the recovery is, however, very rapid, is rather too common in this play.
The ninth act contains several fine passages describing the scenery of the Vindhya range. The following is a translation of one of them:—
This mountain with its towering rocks delights
The eye: its peaks grow dark with gathering clouds;
Its groves are thronged with peacocks eloquent
In joy; the trees upon its slopes are bright
With birds that flit about their nests; the caves