________________
(Lxxxi)
any reserve or restraint. The only exception is that of the Setubandha which, barring a few verses45 in the 10th and the 12th Aśvāsakas, is fairly chaste, untainted by the distemper of love. These poets were indeed lucky to be born in an age of 'permissiveness', when there was no censorship nor any fear of proseccution for obscene writing! Nature :
Our Poet's rapport with Nature stands in glaring contrast with that of his predecessors. It appears that by the time of Vākpatirāja, there had evolved two mutually differing schools of Poetry. One was, what we may style, the Romantic school, headed by Kālidāsa and his ilk, like Harsa and Bāna, and the other, Realistic school of Bhavabhūti and his Sadharmās. Bhavabhūti, for instance, like Kālidāsa, could not be one with Nature, a part and parcel of it, feeling paternal affection for trees and creepers, mountains, rivers and clouds, receiving vibratory responses of joys and sorrows in his own similar moods. He felt no attraction and was never drawn to its soft and beautiful aspects of bright, lovely nights with their full moon, the vernal glory of rich mango-blossoms with humming bees and warbling cuckoos, a sisterly Navamālikā-a veritable Vanajyotsnā - fit to be married to an upabhogakşama mango-tree, or a young fawn to be nursed and nurtured daily by Nīvāra handfuls. These features of Nature never appealed to his serious mind. Alone would he wander on high hills and dales to satisfy his inner cravings of a poet and remain there for long in mystic awe and wonder at the grim, frightful scenes they presented-wild, fearsome forests, the mellow peaks of 45. Only 27 verses (56 to 82 ) in the 10th Āśvāsaka and
5 verses ( 12 to 16) in the 12th Āśvāsaka. S. 6
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