2. The Date of Bhāsa’s Dramas
It is difficult to arrive at any precise determination of Bhāsa’s date. That Kālidāsa knew his fame as firmly established is clear, and, if we may fairly safely date Kālidāsa about A.D. 400, this gives us a period of not later than A.D. 350 for Bhāsa. The fact of his priority to the Mṛcchakaṭikā leads us to no definite result, for the view that this play is to be placed before Kālidāsa in the third century A.D. is not at all plausible. An upper limit is given by the fact that Bhāsa is doubtless later than Açvaghoṣa, whose Buddhacarita is probably the source of a [[94]]verse in the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, and whose Prākrit is assuredly and unquestionably older in character. It is useless to seek to estimate by the evidence of the Prākrit whether Bhāsa is more closely allied in date to Kālidāsa than to Açvaghoṣa, because changes in speech and the representation of them in literature are matters which do not in the slightest degree permit of exact valuation in terms of years. The most that can be said is that it may be held without improbability that Bhāsa is nearer to Kālidāsa’s period than to Açvaghoṣa’s.
An effort at more exact determination is made by Professor Konow[7] on the ground that Bhāsa’s dramas in part deal with the story of Udayana, of which Ujjayinī was specially fond, as we know from Kālidāsa. Hence we may assume that the home of the poet was Ujjayinī, an assumption which obviously is not legitimate in any degree. Further we may assume that he lived under one of the Western Kṣatrapas, which again goes too far. Now the usual ending of a drama is not regularly observed in Bhāsa’s dramas; the introductory question is found only in the Avimāraka, Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, Bālacarita, and Dūtavākya. The description of the final benediction as Bharatavākya is omitted in the Madhyamavyāyoga, where Viṣṇu is praised; in the Dūtaghaṭotkaca, where his commands are given; in the Pañcarātra, where the wish is expressed that the king (rājasiṅha) should rule the whole earth; and in the Ūrubhan̄ga, where the wish is that the prince should conquer his foes and rule the earth. In the other plays a change of form of the Bharatavākya is asserted; in the Karṇabhāra there is the desire for the disappearance of misfortune; in the Pratimānāṭaka the wish is that the king may fare as Rāma who was reunited with Sītā and his kinsmen; in the Avimāraka, the Abhiṣekanāṭaka, and the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa, that the king should, after destroying his foes, rule the whole earth, while in the Svapnavāsavadattā, Dūtavākya, and Bālacarita, the wish is for universal rule. This suggests that for a time the king reigned in peace; then enemies arose and disturbed his power; finally he again won the upper hand, and his friends could without absurdity pray for his attaining imperial rank. This would agree with the history of the Kṣatrapa Rudrasiṅha, who held from 181–8, and [[95]]again from A.D. 191–6 the high rank of Mahākṣatrapa, and whose name may be hinted at in the use of the term rājasiṅha. That the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa is older than the Svapnavāsavadattā is held to support this suggestion, but it is clearly without any merit save ingenuity.
Nor is there more to be said for Konow’s other suggestions of date; the fact that the term Nāṭaka is used, and that the Vidūṣaka appears, cannot show that he is early, for they are used on continuously to the latest days of the drama, and the view that Bhāsa was an innovator who shortened the preliminaries, which is given as a reason for making him early, because the Nāṭyaçāstra gives the preliminaries in detail, is abandoned sub silentio in the author’s later work,[8] where it is candidly admitted that we do not know whether he shortened the preliminaries at all. Nor can we say anything regarding his relation to the Nāṭyaçāstra which will aid us to a date; there is even a tradition that he himself wrote on the theory of the drama. Nor can any weight be attached to the view that Bhāsa stands nearer Açvaghoṣa in technique than Kālidāsa; these matters do not permit of precise evaluation in time, and, if we place Bhāsa about A.D. 300, we go as far as the evidence allows.
3. The Dramas and their Sources
The derivation of the drama in part from epic recitations is peculiarly clear in Bhāsa, who shows the influence of the two great epics in its clearest form. In the Madhyamavyāyoga[9] we have a reminiscence of the tale of the love of the demon Hiḍimbā for Bhīma, the third of the five Pāṇḍavas, and their marriage which has Ghaṭotkaca as its fruit, though the parents part. The play opens with preliminary rites, after which the director pronounces a benediction on the audience, and begins to address them, but is suddenly interrupted by a sound, which is revealed as the cry of a Brahmin, who with his three sons and his wife is being pursued by the demon Ghaṭotkaca. The demon has received orders from his mother to bring her a victim; he offers, therefore, [[96]]to spare the rest of the family, if one is willing to go with him, and the midmost, Madhyama, of the sons decides to go, though there is a generous rivalry among the three in self-sacrifice. He asks, however, time to go to perform a rite of purification, and, as he tarries, the demon in anger calls aloud for him. Bhīma responds, as the midmost of the Pāṇḍavas; he will go in the boy’s place, but not by force. The demon, not knowing his father, seeks to compel him, but, failing, accepts his offer to go willingly. Hiḍimbā greets her husband with joy, and reproaches her son and bids him express regret. She explains that her demand was made expressly to win for her a visit from Bhīma, who suggests that they should all accompany the aged Brahmin and his family to their destination, and with a verse in praise of Viṣṇu the piece ends.
Ghaṭotkaca is again the leading figure of the Dūtaghaṭotkaca, which may also be classed as a Vyāyoga, a term indicating primarily a military spectacle. The Kurus are jubilant over the defeat of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son, at the hands of Jayadratha, though Dhṛtarāṣṭra warns them of the dangers that overshadow them. Ghaṭotkaca appears to them and predicts their punishment at the hands of Arjuna. Of the same general type apparently is the Karṇabhāra which deals with Karṇa’s armour; he makes himself ready for his fight with Arjuna, and tells Çalya, the Madra king, of the trick by which he won it from the great Paraçurāma, though the latter retaliated for the deception by the curse that the arms should fail him in the hour of his need. The curse is fulfilled, for Indra comes in the guise of a Brahmin and obtains from Karṇa his weapons and earrings. Karṇa and Çalya go out to battle, and the sound of Arjuna’s chariot is heard. In the Ūrubhan̄ga the fight between Bhīma and Duryodhana, greatest of the Kurus, ends in the breaking of the thigh of the latter, who falls in agony; his son comes to him in his childish way, but his father is fain to save him the sorrow of his plight. His parents and wives surround him; he seeks to comfort them; Açvatthāman swears vengeance despite his counsels of peace; visions of his brothers and Apsarases float before him, and he passes away.
These four plays have each but one Act; the Pañcarātra, on the other hand, has three, and may perhaps be classed as a [[97]]Samavakāra, in so far at least as it is a drama in which there are more heroes of sorts than one, and they more or less attain their ends, which seem to be the chief features of that dubious kind of play in the theory. It reflects the period when efforts are being made to save the Kurus and the Pāṇḍavas from the fatal conflict, which ends in the ruin of the former and grave loss to the latter. Droṇa has undertaken a sacrifice for Duryodhana, and seeks as the fee the grant to the Pāṇḍavas of half the realm to which they had a just claim. Duryodhana promises on condition that they are heard of within five days. Virāṭa, however, is missing from those present at the offering; he has to mourn the loss of a hundred[10] Kīcakas. Bhīṣma suspects that Bhīma must be at the bottom of this illhap, and on his instigation at the end of Act II it is decided to raid Virāṭa’s cows, as he hopes thus to bring the facts to light. The foray, however, fails, for the Pāṇḍavas are with Virāṭa in disguise; Abhimanyu is taken prisoner and married to Virāṭa’s daughter. The charioteer in Act III brings back the news, showing clearly that Arjuna and Bhīma have taken part in the contest, but none the less Duryodhana decides to keep faith.