Reverberate the growl of bears; the scent
Of incense-trees is wafted, sharp and cool,
From branches broken off by elephants.
The other two dramas of Bhavabhūti represent the fortunes of the same national hero, Rāma. The plot of the Mahāvīra-charita, or “The Fortunes of the Great Hero,” varies but slightly from the story told in the Rāmāyaṇa. The play, which is divided into seven acts and is crowded with characters, concludes with the coronation of Rāma. The last act illustrates well how much is left to the imagination of the spectator. It represents the journey of Rāma in an aërial car from Ceylon all the way to Ayodhyā (Oudh) in Northern India, the scenes traversed being described by one of the company.
The Uttara-rāma-charita, or “The Later Fortunes of Rāma,” is a romantic piece containing many fine passages. Owing to lack of action, however, it is rather a dramatic poem than a play. The description of the tender love of Rāma and Sītā, purified by sorrow, exhibits more genuine pathos than appears perhaps in any other Indian drama. The play begins with the banishment of Sītā and ends with her restoration, after twelve years of grievous solitude, to the throne of Ayodhyā amid popular acclamations. Her two sons, born after her banishment and reared in the wilderness by the sage Vālmīki, without any knowledge of their royal descent, furnish a striking parallel to the two princes Guiderius and Arviragus who are brought up by the hermit Belarius in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. The scene in which their meeting with their father Rāma is described reaches a high degree of poetic merit.
Among the works of other dramatists, Viçākhadatta’s Mudrā-rākshasa, or “Rākshasa and the Seal,” deserves special mention because of its unique character. For, unlike all the other dramas hitherto described, it is a play of political intrigue, composed, moreover, with much dramatic talent, being full of life, action, and sustained interest. Nothing more definite can be said as to its date than that it was probably written not later than about 800 A.D. The action of the piece takes place in the time of Chandragupta, who, soon after Alexander’s invasion of India, founded a new dynasty at Pāṭaliputra by deposing the last king of the Nanda line. Rākshasa, the minister of the latter, refusing to recognise the usurper, endeavours to be avenged on him for the ruin of his late master. The plot turns on the efforts of the Brahman Chāṇakya, the minister of Chandragupta, to win over the noble Rākshasa to his master’s cause. In this he is ultimately successful.
Bhaṭṭa Nārāyaṇa’s Veṇīsaṃhāra, or “Binding of the braid of hair,” is a play in six acts, deriving its plot from the Mahābhārata. Its action turns on the incident of Draupadī being dragged by the hair of her head into the assembly by one of the brothers of Duryodhana. Its age is known from its author having been the grantee of a copperplate dated 840 A.D. Though not conspicuous for poetic merit, it has long been a great favourite in India owing to its express partiality for the cult of Kṛishṇa.
To about 900 A.D. belongs the poet Rājaçekhara, the distinguishing feature of whose dramas are lightness and grace of diction. Four of his plays have survived, and are entitled Viddha-çālabhanjikā, Karpūra-manjarī, Bāla-rāmāyaṇa, and Prachaṇḍa-pāṇḍava or Bāla-bhārata.
The poet Kshemīçvara, who probably lived in the tenth century A.D. at Kānyakubja under King Mahīpāla, is the author of a play named Chaṇḍakauçika, or “The Angry Kauçika.”
In the eleventh century Dāmodara Miçra composed the Hanuman-nāṭaka, “The Play of Hanumat,” also called Mahā-nāṭaka, or “The Great Play.” According to tradition, he lived at the court of Bhoja, king of Mālava, who resided at Dhārā (now Dhār) and Ujjayinī (Ujjain) in the early part of the eleventh century. It is a piece of little merit, dealing with the story of Rāma in connection with his ally Hanumat, the monkey chief. It consists of fourteen acts, lacking coherence, and producing the impression of fragments patched together.