In the Gopālakelicandrikā[78] of Rāmakṛṣṇa of Gujarāt, of unknown date, but certainly later than the Mahānāṭaka and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, we have an irregular drama whose form has [[273]]excited a large number of conjectures, including the inevitable but absurd solution of a shadow play. The nearest parallel of those suggested in this case and in that of the Mahānāṭaka[79] is the Swāng of North-West India, in that the actors recite the narrative parts as well as take part in the dialogue. There seems no special reason to doubt that the same thing might have taken place in this case, though it is conceivable that it was an imitation of the type of entertainment in which a Brahmin says the spoken parts, while his small pupils go through the action of the drama, possibly a far-off parallel to the Çaubhikas as far as the action is concerned. But it is quite possibly no more than a literary exercise, and the same judgement may apply to the Mahānāṭaka. The fact that both talk as if there were action is no sign of real representation. The modern written drama is full of stage directions, though it may never succeed in obtaining a performance on the stage, and we have not the slightest reason to deny the existence of the literary drama in India.[80] The piece is highly stylized, and could only be understood, if at all, by a cultivated audience.
The connexion of the play with the Hanumannāṭaka is expressly admitted in the prologue; the actress, who enters with the usual inquiry in Prākrit as to the business to be undertaken, is informed by the Sūtradhāra that this is not a case for Prākrit, but for Sanskrit, alone worthy of an audience of Viṣṇu devotees. The actress, not unnaturally, asks how a drama is possible without Prākrit, to be comforted by the parallel of the Hanumannāṭaka. This seems a clear enough indication that the work is a literary exercise rather than a genuine stage play representing a living form of dramatic representation. From an ordinary play it is distinguished by the fact that we have stanzas and prose of merely narrative character, and we learn from one passage that these parts are directed by the Sūcaka to the spectator. The Sūcaka may be equated, on the authority of Hemacandra, with the Sūtradhāra, and if we assume that the play was actually [[274]]performed,[81] all we need do is to assume that the director thus intervened from time to time to help on the action of the play. We are, in any case, very far from the primitive drama, as the long compounds of the prose show, reminding us of the worst eccentricities of Bhavabhūti.
The work begins with an act of religious devotion, the performance of the ceremony of the waving of a lamp in honour of Kṛṣṇa, who appears in the vesture of a herdsman, and thus receives in person the worship of his votaries. The play is essentially religious and mystic, despite the fact that the sports of Kṛṣṇa and his comrades, and of Rādhā and her friends, are duly introduced. In Act III we have from the mouth of Vṛndā, that is Lakṣmī, a series of verses setting out the mystic doctrine of the identity of Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā; Kṛṣṇa is the highest being, descended to earth in the guise of a herdsman, and Rādhā represents his Çakti. In Act IV we have the usual scene of the theft by Kṛṣṇa of the clothes of the maidens when they bathe in the Yamunā, but the restoration is made a test of their faith; Kṛṣṇa demands their devotion as the price of their garments, and asserts that faith in him is superior to the Vedas, to asceticism, and to sacrifice as a means of securing knowledge of him. In the last Act we find the spirits of the night of full moon and of autumn lamenting that the maidens are not dancing the Rāsa with Kṛṣṇa, who appears, and whom they remind of this duty of his. He summons his magic power (yogamāyā) and bids her proceed to the station of the herders to summon the maidens to the dance. Then it is narrated how he himself goes there, and with his flute draws out the maidens to join him, while the gods come in multitudes to pay him honour. Many verses from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa are here borrowed. Finally the god accepts the homage of the maidens and leads them in the dance, as is described again in narrative, until the director breaks off the piece with the assertion that it is impossible to represent adequately the greatness of the god. We can see at once, even if we were not told, that the author was under the influence of Rāmānuja, and the fact that his father bears the name of Devajī[82] suggests a decidedly modern date. [[275]]
A glimpse into a form of entertainment not represented by any Sanskrit drama so far published is given by the changes made in the fourth Act of the Vikramorvaçī at an unknown date. The Apabhraṅça stanzas introduced into that Act cannot be assigned to the period of Kālidāsa, unless we are to rewrite the history of the language; Apabhraṅça represents not a vernacular but a definitely literary language in which the vocabulary is based on Prākrit, and the inflexions on a vernacular with free use of Prākrit forms as well. Guhasena of Valabhī, of whom we have inscriptions of A.D. 559–69, was celebrated as a composer in Apabhraṅça as well as in Sanskrit and Prākrit, and the new literary form may have arisen in the sixth century A.D. as an effort to produce something nearer the vernacular than Prākrit, but yet literary, much as the modern dialects have evolved literatures largely by reliance on Sanskrit. It can hardly be doubted that the Apabhraṅça stanzas represent the libretto of a pantomime (nṛtya). Such pantomimes are well known as a form of the nautch at Rājput courts; the dancers perform a well-known scene, and sing verses to a musical accompaniment; the chief element, however, is the gestures and postures. In the case of the pantomime based on the Vikramorvaçī, the verses placed in the mouth of the king may have been sung by an actor, while those regarding the forsaken elephant and the Haṅsas may have been sung by singers, male or female, acting under him. There is an introduction in Prākrit for the libretto, which very possibly as inserted in the drama has not come down to us in full, though in any case the libretto in such instances is of only secondary importance and never adequate. It is a plausible suggestion that the introduction of the libretto into the Vikramorvaçī was the outcome of the difficulty felt by the ordinary audience in picking up the sense of the fourth Act of the play, which contains in overwhelming measure Sanskrit stanzas, and, therefore, must have been extremely difficult for the audience to follow. The date of the change is uncertain; on linguistic grounds it has been placed after Hemacandra and before the date of the Prākṛta Pin̄gala.[83] [[276]]
[1] Ed. Bombay, 1894; Poona, 1894; cf. Baumgartner, Das Râmâyaṇa, pp. 129 ff. [↑]
[2] Cf. Peterson, Subhāṣitāvali, pp. 38 f.; Keith, Indian Logic, pp. 33 f. The verses common to the play and the Mahānāṭaka are clearly not evidence of prior date, despite Lévi, TI. ii. 48; Konow, ID. p. 88. He is later than Murāri; Hall’s (DR. p. 36 n.) suggested reference to Jayadeva in comm. on DR. ii. 10 is incorrect. He is known to R. (c. A.D. 1330), iii. 171 f., and the Çārn̄gadharapaddhati. [↑]
[3] Ed. Madras, 1892; trs. by L. V. Ramachandra Aiyar, Madras, 1906. [↑]