It is natural to suggest, as did Pischel, that the Dūtān̄gada of Subhaṭa, which is styled a Chāyānāṭaka, really was a shadow play. On the other hand, Rājendralālamitra[71] suggested that the drama was perhaps simply intended as an entr’acte, and this may be justified on the interpretation of the term of drama in the form of a shadow: i.e. reduced to the minimum for representation in such a form. The play itself unluckily contains nothing to help us to a decision as to its real character. It was represented in A.D. 1243 in honour of the dead king Kumārapāla at the court of Tribhuvanapāla, a Caulukya of Aṇahilapāṭaka, and it has come down to us in various forms. A longer and shorter recension may be distinguished, though not very definitely; in the longer form occur epic verses, and an introduction is prefixed in thirty-nine stanzas, partly placed in the mouths of Rāma and Hanumant, describing the finding of Sītā’s hiding-place. The story is the simple one of An̄gada’s mission as an ambassador to Rāvaṇa to demand back Sītā; Rāvaṇa endeavours to persuade An̄gada that Sītā is in love with him. An̄gada is not deceived, and leaves Rāvaṇa with threats, and we learn shortly afterwards that Rāvaṇa has met his doom. The merits of the work are negligible.
We have no other play of which we can say with even the slightest plausibility that it was a real shadow-drama. There are three works by Vyāsa Çrīrāmadeva from the fifteenth [[270]]century, his patrons being Kalacuri princes of Raypur. The first, the Subhadrāpariṇayana, produced under Brahmadeva or Haribrahmadeva, deals with the threadworn topic of the winning of Arjuna’s bride; the second, the Rāmābhyudaya appeared under the Mahārāṇa Meru, and deals with the conquest of Lan̄kā, the fire ordeal of Sītā, and the return to Ayodhyā; the third, the Pāṇḍavābhyudaya, written under Raṇamalladeva, describes in two Acts Draupadī’s birth and marriage. But that these were really shadow-dramas is not indicated by anything save the title, for they resemble ordinary dramas in all other respects. The Sāvitrīcarita of Çan̄karalāla, son of Maheçvara, calls itself a Chāyānāṭaka, but the work, written in 1882, is an ordinary drama, and Lüders[72] is doubtless right in recognizing that these are not shadow dramas at all. On the other hand, he adds to the list the Haridūta, which tells the story given in the Dūtavākya of Bhāsa of the mission of Kṛṣṇa to the Pāṇḍavas’ enemies to seek to attain peace. This drama, however, does not describe itself as a Chāyānāṭaka, and the argument is, accordingly, without value. But what is most significant, there is no allusion to this sort of drama in the theory which suggests that its introduction was decidedly late.
9. Dramas of Irregular Type
Professor Lüders[73] adds to the almost non-existing list of shadow dramas, the Mahānāṭaka. He does this on the strength of the fact that it is written mainly in verse, with little of prose; that the verse is decidedly at times of the narrative as opposed to the dramatic type; there is no Prākrit; the number of persons appearing is large, and there is no Vidūṣaka, and these characteristics are found in the Dūtān̄gada, which is a Chāyānāṭaka in name. The argument is clearly inadequate in the absence of any real evidence, and the Mahānāṭaka can be explained in other ways.
The history of this play is curious. It is preserved in two recensions, one in nine or ten Acts redacted by Madhusūdana and one in fourteen by Dāmodaramiçra. The stories given by the commentator Mohanadāsa and the Bhojaprabandha, agree in effect that the play was put together by order of Bhoja from [[271]]fragments found on rocks, which were fished out of the sea; the tradition was that Hanumant himself wrote the work, which, therefore, is called Hanumannāṭaka, but that to please Vālmīki, who recognized that it would eclipse his great epic, the generous ape permitted his rival to cast into the sea the drama which he had inscribed on the rocks. This certainly suggests that some old matter was embodied in the play, and this view has been strengthened by the fact that Ānandavardhana cites three verses out of the play, but without giving any source, as also do Rājaçekhara in the Kāvyamīmāṅsā and Dhanika in his Daçarūpāvaloka, so that the evidence is not of much worth, for the work, as we have it, plagiarizes shamelessly from the dramas of Bhavabhūti, Murāri, and Rājaçekhara, and even from Jayadeva’s Prasannarāghava, unless we are to suppose that in the latter case the borrowing is the other way. The question which is the earlier of the two recensions is unsolved; the one with fewer Acts has 730 as opposed to 581 verses, and of these about 300 are in common.[74]
There is a brief benediction, but no prologue, and narrative follows down to the arrival of Rāma at Mithilā for the winning of Sītā by breaking the bow of Çiva; this part of the action is given in a dialogue between Sītā, Janaka, Rāma, and others. More narrative leads up to a scene with Paraçurāma, then narrative follow to Sītā’s marriage. Act II is undramatic, being a highly flavoured description of Sītā’s love passages with Rāma. Act III again is mainly descriptive, carrying the story down to the departure of Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa in chase of Mārīca in deer shape. Act IV carries the story down to Rāma’s return to the deserted hut; in Act V Rāma seeks Sītā and sends Hanumant to Lan̄kā; in the next Act Hanumant consoles Sītā and returns; in Act VII the host of apes crosses the ocean; in Act VIII, which is much more dramatic than usual, we have An̄gada’s mission to Rāvaṇa; and the rest of the Acts drag out the wearisome details of the conflict, often in so imperfect a manner as to be unintelligible without knowledge of the Rāmāyaṇa and the earlier dramas. The two versions generally correspond, but not with any precision in detail. [[272]]
The exact purpose of such a play is not obvious, but it looks rather like a literary tour de force, possibly in preparation for some form of performance[75] at which the dialogue was plentifully eked out by narrative by the director and the other actors. It is incredible, however, that, as we have it, it can ever have served any practical end, and its chief value, such as it is, is to reflect possibly the form of drama of a period when the drama had not yet completely emerged from the epic condition. We should thus have the old work of the Granthikas reinforced by putting part of the dialogue in the mouths of real actors. But it would be dangerous in so late a production to lay any stress on the possibility of deriving hence evidence for the growth of the early drama. It is, however, legitimate to note that there are similarities between the type and that of the performance of a Tamil version of the Çakuntalā.[76] The curious number of Acts has been suggested as indicating that the original was otherwise divided than a normal drama, but on this it would be dangerous to lay much stress.
The metre of the play exhibits the extraordinary fact of 253 Çārdūlavikrīḍita stanzas to 109 Çloka, 83 Vasantatilaka, 77 Sragdharā, 59 Mālinī, and 55 Indravajrā type. This fact, in the version of Madhusūdana, is sufficient to show how far we are removed from anything primitive.
The type of the Mahānāṭaka may be compared with the Gītagovinda,[77] which, written by Jayadeva under Lakṣmaṇasena in the twelfth century A.D., exhibits songs sung by Kṛṣṇa, Rādhā, and her companion, intermingled with lyric stanzas of the poet, describing their position, or the emotions excited, and addressing prayer to Kṛṣṇa. The work is a poem, and can be enjoyed simply as such, but it is also capable of a quasi-dramatic presentment. It reveals a highly-developed outcome of the simple Yātrās of the Kṛṣṇa religion.