jaṭāvān akṣamālī ca cāmarī ca virājate.
‘There stands some one, below the lion throne, before a pair of sandals, wearing his hair long, bearing a rosary, resplendent beneath the chowrie.’
The same play[14] contains an amusing slip by Sītā where she bids her boys go to Ayodhyā and tender their respects to the king. Lava naturally replies by asking why they should become members of the king’s entourage, and Sītā answers because the king is their father, a slip which she explains away as well as she can by saying that the king is father of the whole earth.
Yet another drama of which we know nothing else is revealed to us by Dhanika, the Pāṇḍavānanda, from which is cited a stanza interesting in its series of questions and answers, a literary form of which the dramatists are fond:[15]
kā çlāghyā guṇināṁ kṣamā paribhavaḥ ko yaḥ svakulyaiḥ kṛtaḥ
kiṁ duḥkhaṁ parasaṁçrayo jagati kaḥ çlāghyo ya āçrīyate
ko mṛtyur vyasanaṁ çucaṁ jahati ke yair nirjitāḥ çatravaḥ
kair vijñātam idaṁ Virāṭanagare channasthitaiḥ Pāṇḍavaiḥ.
‘For the good what is there praiseworthy? Patience. What is disgrace? That which is wrought by those of one’s own blood. What is misery? Recourse to another’s protection. Who in the world is enviable? He to whom one resorts for aid. What is death? Misfortune. Who escape sorrow? Those who conquer their foes. Who learned this lesson? The Pāṇḍavas when they dwelt in concealment in the city of Virāṭa.’
We learn also from Dhanika of two further dramas, of unknown [[225]]authorship and date; they are mentioned[16] as illustrating the two kinds of Prakaraṇa as a dramatic form, the basis of distinction being whether the heroine is the wife of the hero and therefore a lady of good family or whether she is a courtesan. Of the latter class we have an example in the Taran̄gadatta, and of the former in the Puṣpadūṣitaka; the latter name occurs in the slightly altered form of Puṣpabhūṣita in the Sāhityadarpaṇa. As an example of the Samavakāra the Daçarūpa[17] mentions the Samudramanthana, a title doubtless as well as the description of the drama in question.