Hanumannatakam Date and Place of Its Origin

Author(s): Vijay Pandya
Publisher: ZZ_Anusandhan
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269121/1

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46 Hanumannatakam : Date and Place of Its Origin* Vijay Pandyat Vijay Por The play Hanumannatakani bristles with almost intractable problems ranging from its authorship, antiquity, genre, form to the date and the place of its origin. Hanumannatakam as its title indicates has Hanumat as its author, which is another euphemistic way of stating that its author is not known. The play has got some unique features which set it apart from any other form of Sanskrit drama prevalent in Classical Sanskrit literature. It has got another version in vogue in Bengal known as Mahanatakam the appellation more current among the scholars. This version is ascribed to Madhusudana Misra, who miglat be regarded as a redactor of the version. The version prevalent in Western india, under the name of the Hanumannatakam with which we shall deal presently in this essay, is ascribed to Damodaramisra. Apart from these two main-stream versions, there are as many versions as there are manuscipts. Pischel's remark made with regard to the Dutarigada that there are as many Dutangadas as there are manuscrips.' is applicable with greater force to the versions of the Hanumannatakan, So that is also one of the insurmountable problems connected with this play. As a play it has some unique features, To mention a few, it has no prologue or prastavana. Though it starts with some benedictory stanzas some of which seem to have been Paper presanted at thc 40th session of Oriental Conference, held at Chennai, during 28 to 30 May 2000. + Reader, Dept. of Sanskrit, School of Languages, Gujarat Uni versity, Ahmedabad-380009

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47 taken from earlier sources, it has no nandi in its usual sense. Morcover it has no Prakrit which has been an ubiquitous feature of the classical Sanskrit drama, it has very little dramatic form worth the name. It has very little prose by way of dialogues. It has a string of generally striking poetic verses some of which are from earlier sources and some of which are not traceable. Some of the scholars like S.K.De3 and S.P. Bhattacharya' who bave paid some attention to the play have discussed whether it would be called a chayanataka. On account of these peculiarities, Maxmuller had opined that the work was more of an epic than a true drama and that it carries us back to the earlier stage of development of the Indian drama. But the case seems to be contrary to what Maxmuller supposes to be. The stringed verses are of a very striking nature and a result of vaidagdhyabhaNiti and hence they do not seem to be the product of the earlier stage of development. In fact this play scens to have come into existence at a time when the rigours of the classical Sanskrit drama were slackened and the cannon of the prescriptive works of dramaturgy was loosened. So this situation obtained in the second millenium A.D. So it is more plausible to date the play in the second millenium, and it should belong to the medieval times, so to say historically. We shall endeavour to narrow down the span of time of the origin of the Hanumannatakam. As the legend goes the work was composed by the son of the wind (Hanumat) but was cast into the sea by Valmiki who feared that the play would eclipse his own Ramayana. Later it was retrieved by the king Bhoja and redacted by Damodara Misra. In his commentary on the verse incorporating this legend, Mohanadasa 'explains that Hanumat wrote this work and engraved it with his nails on

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48 the rocks. To allay the fears of Valmiki who thought that it would be an excellent work which would ibrow his Ramayana into oblivion Hanumat threw it into the sea and after many ages it was retrieved by his avatara. Bhoja with the help of fishermen. Bhojaprabandha has one more anecdote to recount. Once some fishermen found an engraved stone in the river Narinada and brought it to Bhoja. Bhoja recognised it to be the work of Hanumat. He then got it completed by his courtpoet. In the Mahanataka version, at the end of the every act, it is stated that the 'work of Hanumat was rescued by Vikrama and then it was redacted with proper context by Madhusudana (Sandarbhya Sajjikste). From these legendary accounts it emerges that certain portion was a sort of a nucleus and then either Madhusudana Misra or Damodara Misra redacted it. As S.K.De puts it 'the three versions of the story certainly suggest the redaction of an old anonymous work or al best the writing of a new work with the embodiment of old matter?. 10 And S.P. Bhattacharya interprets the legend, it is not at all strange that such a work should be associated in critical tradition with the name of king Bhoja of Dhara, the author of Srrgaraprakasa, a greater name than of whom it is difficult to mention amongst the collectors of precious literary gems and of Hanumat-The monkey-warrior well-known for his devotional fervour.!! So from this chaf of legendary accounts, a grain of historical truth that the Hanumannataka acquired the present shape, more or less in the days of Bhoja who flourished in the 11th century A.D. can be obtained. It is not unlikely that the play has gone on acquiring some more verses from the different later-day sources.

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49 So we can tentatively endorse the upper limit of the play Hanumannalakam as the 10th century A.D. Further it is to be noted that the play Hanumannatakam devotes one entire act i.e. Vill act to the episode in which Angada goes as a messenger of Rama to the assembly of Ravana and very hot exchanges take place beiween Angada and Ravana. Now this act has a close resemblance to the Dutariyadan a one-act-play, thematically but there are centain verses which are also found in the Dutarigadam. Dutangadam is also culpable of borrowing the verses from its preceding sources, but the Hanumannatakam is a wholesale borrower. And the verses found in the Hanumannatakam in the eighth act are also found in the assembly-scene of the Datangadam, which has elicited a high encomium from his junior contemporery Somesvara, who stated subhaTena padanyAsaH saH ko'pi samitau kRtaH / yenAdhunApi dhIrANAM romAJco nApacIyate / / (Kirtikaumudi 1-24) In the assembly Subhata planted his foot (arranged his words) in such a way that even now the horripilation on the part of the brave people (also learned people) does not subside. The verse, by way of pun, clearly alludes to the Datargada play and the remarkable assembly scene in the Ravana's Lanka. Subhata, the playwright of the Dutangadam was connected with the literary circle of Vastupala, a minister of the king Viradhavala, a feudatory of the king Bhimadeva II of Caulukya dynasty of Anhilvad Patan, in the first half of the 13th century A.D.

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50 And the Hanumannatakam in the VIII aci draws very heavily upon the Dutangada play. So it can be safely surmised that, Hanumannatakam followed Dutangada in time and the date of the Hanumannatakam is around the 13th century. Further this Hanumannatakan apart from the Dutangadam bcars some affinity with some of the plays composed during this period in Gujarat. Candralekhavijayaprakarana by Devacandragani, a disciple of Hemacandracarya, a multi-splendoured personality of the medieval Gujarat and India, is one of them. Another play by the same author Manamudrabhanjika, still in a manuscriptural form has also a resemblance to this Hanumannatakam. Then there is one more play Ullagharaghava by Somesvara who flourished in the second half of the 12th century and probably beyond the first half of the 13th century, during the reign of the Caulukua kings of Anahilvad Patan in Gujarat. So these three plays viz. Candralekhavijayaprakarana, Manamudrabhanjika and Ullagharaghava along with the Dutangada form a homogenous group of plays having the close resemblance with the play Hanumannatakani under discussion. As noted above there are some peculiar features of the Hanumannatakam. Hanumannatakam has very long stage directions, at times turning into descriptions and verses. Sometime there is a mix-up between a stage-direction and a description. To illustrate, in the Hanumannatakam 1-19, there is a stage-direction zrIrAmaH nATyan and then what does Srirama natayan is described in a verse. The entire passage runs like this: zrIrAmaH nATayan kapole jAnakyA: karikalabhadantadyutimuSi smarasmeraM gaNDoDumarapulakaM vaktrakamalam /

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muhuH pazyan zRNvan rajanicarasenAkalakalaM jaTAjUTagranthi racayati raghUNAM parivRDhaH // 1-19 Looking to his own image of his lotus-like face in the cheeks of Janaki, which excel the lustre of the tusk of the elephant-cub bloomed open and horripilated, on the other hand, listens to the tumultous noise of the armies of the demons, Rama is tying the not of his matted locks. In the Candralekhavijayaprakarana, the character Vijayendra speaks. ___priye nizIthasamayapravRtto vartate'ta: saudhamalaMkriyatAm iti vadan priyAM haste vidhRtya tattvaprapaJcanena samaM saparivAra: parikAmati kSaNAntaH sopAnamalaMkurvANa: saudhamadhirohati / One more curious feature of the Hanumannatakam is that there is a proseportion in the form of an explanation, a sort of a tika. The proseportion gives itself out when, like usual tika, it ends with the word scufura: as in a passage which purports to explain the preceding verse 14. Similarly in the Candralekhavijayprakarana, some verse like 3fa aasta: (2-28 and 5-46 of the Candralekhavijayaprakarana) is a IG or health and there is a sort of commentary explaining the verse in the body of the play itself. Further we must also remember that Hanumannatakam is also called a chayanataka. Now the Dutangada play, the oldest chayanataka available hails from Gujarat as noted above. Moreover, Ullagharaghava by Somesvara is also referred to as chayanataka in the play itself. Ramaji Upadhyaya has observed that, that age i.e. of the 12th and 13th century A.D. was the age of chayanataka. Hanumannatakam is also termed as chayanatakam. The two inost genuine chayanatakas i.e. Dutaligada and Ullagha

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raghava have originated in Gujarat and during the 12th and 13th century. And so, Hanuniannatakan also must have originated during this time, perhaps following Dutangada, as it incorporates in the VIII act, a scene from the Dutarigada, as remarked carlier. Then I have received further succour in this matter from an unexpected quarter, a source which would not normally be available to the scholars not knowing Gujarati language. In Gujarati, there is a Ramayana in a versified form composed by a certain Giradhara who flourished in the eighteenth century A.D. The remarkable thing about this Ramayana is that it constantly draws upon the Hanumannatakani. He acknowledges two sources for his Ramayana, viz. Valmiki Ramayana and the play Hanumannatakam. He says in the beginning of the Giradhara-ramayana vAlmIki rAmAyaNano artha mAMhe nATaka kRta hanumaMtajI / te thakI bhASAgraMtha ko che, leI dRSTAnta anaMta jI || Further in the Aranyakanda of the Giradhararamayana, also, the poet says AdhAra rAmAyaNa taNo vAlmIki jenuM nAma / 6146-127-17 772 H Hoa 3114 || (3-1-5) e artha vAlmIki taNo hanumAnanATaka sAra / T he Hodata faran I (3-77-79) Then in the Yuddhakanda also the author says vAlmIki rAmAyaNa thakI prAkRta ko vistAra / 64aare Hoch Tray AT HTL II (--) Apart from this candid admission on the part of the poet, even in some specific instances also, he indicates that the source of this episode is Hanumannatakam or for example the episode of the confrontation of Rama and Parasurama.

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53 bhRgupatimRtyunirodhakRta raghupati bhANa vicitra | e kathA che hanumAnanATaka, vize parama pavitra // 1-46-7 Further Giradhara-Ramayana has a very curious puspika, at the end of every capter iti zrIrAmacaritre vAlmIkisammata nATakadhArAyAM bAlakANDe prathamo'dhyAyaH / (Kanda and adhyaya will change) Giradhara, of course, has been influenced by that epoch-making work Ramacaritamanasa by Tulsidasa, Anandaramayana and Bhavartha-Ramayana in Marathi as well. However, nowhere, he mentions these works by name, except the Hanumannatakam. Can this deep influence of the Hanumannatakam be not attributed to the geographical proximity of the play Hanumannatakam, which in all likelihood, must have originated in the land of Gujarat or in the vicinity of Gujarat and it was easily accessible to the poet Giradhara who profitably utilised the play. The relationship between the Giradhara-Ramayana and the Hanumannatakam and other Ramayanas require further probings. But for the present, in all probability I think, the Hanumannatakam originated in Gujarat during the 12th or 13th century A.D. 1. References In the Histories of Sanskrit Literature, the play is discussed under the title of Mahanatakam as in Sanskrit Drama by Keith, History & Sanskrit Literature by De and so on. The scholars like De and S.P. Bhattacharya have also discussed the play under the title of Mahanataka. See their articles entitled 'The problem of Mahanataka' by De and 'The Mahanataka Problem' by S.P. Bhattacharya in Indian Historical quarterly, September 1931 and September 1934 rcspectively.

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3. 54 Quoted by S.P. Bhattacharya, Indian Historical Quarterly. September 1934. As referred to in the first til. Ibid racitamanilaputreNAtha vAlmIkinAbdhI nihitamamRtabuddhayA prAG mahAnATakaM yat / sumatinRpatibhojenoddhataM yatkrameNa grathitamavatu vizvaM mizradAmodareNa // (Hanumannatakam, 14-96) Hanumannatakam ed. by Pt. Jagadisha Mishra in Hindi, published by Chowkliainba Sanskrit Series officc, 1998. This edition is referred to in this article. 6. atreyaM kathA- pUrvametena-nakharaTaddegirizilAsu vilikhitaM tat tu vAlmIkinA dRSTaM tadetasyAtimadhuratvamAkarNya rAmAyaNapracArAbhAvazaGkayA hanumAn prArthitastvametat samudre nidhehIti / tatheti tenAbdhau prApitaM tadavatAreNa bhojena sumatinA jAlikairuddhRtamiti / 7. Bhojaprabandha with Gujarati translation, Sastun Sahitya Vardhak, Third Edn. 1981. 8. The whole verse restored runs like this zivazirasi zirAMsi yAni rejuH ziva ziva tAni luThanti gRdhrapAdaiH / ayi khalu viSamaH purAkRtAnAM bhavati hi jantuSu karmaNAM vipAkaH / Ibid p. 305 9. Mahanataka ed. by Pandit Jibananda Vidyasagar, Calcutta 1874. 10. De, The Problem of Mahanataka, Indian Historical Quar terly, 1931, p. 540. 11. S.P. Bhattacharya, Mahanataka problem, Indian Historical Quarterly, 1934 p. 505 Ramaji Upadhyaya, Madhyakalin Sanskrit Nataka, 1974,p. 313. 12.