I name thee, O Sakoontalâ! and all at once is said.”
From the author of this drama we have two other pieces worthy of his fame, “the Hero and the Nymph” and a popular comedy. His era was the golden age of the Hindoo theatre.
Other noted plays, a few out of many, are “the Toy Cart,” a domestic drama with a public underplot; “the Signet of the Minister,” which had a political bearing; “the Stolen Marriage;” and an allegorical play, “the Moonrise of Science.”
The Hindoo Drama, the invention of which was ascribed to an ancient sage inspired by Brahma himself, consisted at first of music, dancing, and pantomime. An outcome of the prevailing mythology, it was made a feature of the Indian festivals, and from very early rude beginnings of which we have no remains gradually progressed to the perfection with which Kâlidâsa invested it. Unfolding the inner life of the people and illustrating their peculiar institutions, it is at once interesting and valuable, original, and in its delineations of character strikingly true to nature. Love is its principal subject; and, what is markedly characteristic, its denouements are always happy. Tragedy is foreign to the Hindoo stage.
The Indian plays began and closed with a benediction or prayer; in many cases there was a preliminary account of the author, or a colloquy between the manager and one of the actors, leading the way to the play itself. The heroes were generally kings or deities. As foils to these, it was usual to introduce mountebanks or buffoons, and as such Brahmans were made to figure. The Hindoo dramatists did not hesitate to set forth their priests in a ridiculous light; a remarkable fact, when we remember that the drama in India was a semi-religious institution, and that the managers of companies were usually themselves Brahmans. The playwright who in Greece should have taken such liberties with his religious superiors would have run the risk of being driven from the stage, if indeed he were not more seriously handled by an indignant audience.
The consistency observed in managing the dialogue is noteworthy. The parts spoken by divinities and heroes, rulers and priests, are always in ancient Sanscrit; while the inferior personages and the female characters use the later and more familiar dialect. Want of acquaintance with the sacred language, which thus formed the staple of the classical plays, no doubt prevented the common people from fully understanding and enjoying dramatic representations; and hence the latter never attained that popularity which they had in other countries. They were the entertainment of the cultured class rather than the masses.
Another curious feature of the Hindoo drama was the absence of scenery, the plays being mostly represented in the open air, the courts of palaces, etc. The great advantage which the modern performer derives from fine scenic effects was entirely wanting. Changes of scene could be indicated only in the text, by minute descriptions of the new locality, thrown into the mouths of the speakers and left for the audience to fill out and remember. No shifting of scenes, for instance, as with us, would denote the entrance of one of the characters from out-doors into a drawing-room; but the personage entering, either in a soliloquy or in colloquy with some other, would immediately call attention to every little point—the threshold, the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the doors, the windows, the furniture—and the glowing fancy of his hearers would at once picture the scene as vividly as if it stood before them in reality.
The proprieties were strictly observed. To represent a death scene would have been intolerable; nor only so, but in the earlier and purer days no dramatist would introduce before his audience a scene of violence, eating, sleeping, or the performance of the marriage ceremony. A charming love-scene in the Sakoontalâ breaks off just at the critical moment when the hero and heroine are about to interchange a token of affection; yet the embrace does not appear always to have been repugnant to the Hindoo ideas of delicacy.
As to the date of the dramas that have been mentioned, they are supposed to have been written during the first ten centuries of the Christian Era; but here, as in the case of the epics and lyrics, we are left to conjecture. Could we know more certainly what times they reflect, our pleasure in perusing them would be complete.