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A CRITICAL STUDY
19
Kayastha, etc., are bitter and wounding. This work is thus a remarkable and comprehensive discourse, with a legendary framework, on the various activities of notorious tricksters known to Kşemendra; and his easy and elegant style makes the descriptions amusing and the satire effective.' As observed by Dr. De, Kşemendra's compositions are 'noteworthy satirical sketches exaggerated cum grano salis but substantially faithful, having less frequent lapses into squalor or coarseness, and composed in the best literary manner of Kşemendra. There is nothing of melancholy wisdom in Kşemendra. Knowing full well the castigating use of satire, he deals out his blows too liberally, but with precision, with bitter and often foul-mouthed presumption, but with the unerring, insight of a shrewd observer'. Kşemendra's satirical writings assume all the more importance, because his successors like Jahlana, Nilakantha Dikşita, etc. never rose to his heights. They are all steeped in the time-honoured mould of religious didacticism and hackneyed eroticism. 'Anxious to maintain respectability, they are afraid of descending to the repellent reality which their subject demands, and only touch the fringe of it, from a safe distance, with the stick of romantic verse.'
Among the plays, it is the Bhāna and the Prahasana types that contain a great deal of satirical element. Bhana is a monologue play; the only character is a Vita or Dhurta who narrates, with imaginary questions and answers and with various gestures, either his experience or that of others. Most of the existing specimens of bhanas are comparatively modern and belong to the South; they lack variety and are of the same pattern, almost made to order; and they are predominantly permeated with erotic sentiment, very often coarse in taste. There is very little of genuine satire in them; we get, however, satirical touches in the descriptions of the licentious Pauranika, the old Śrotriya, the fraudulent astrologer and (but this rarely) the Jangamas, Saivas and Vaisnavas (as in the Sṛngaratilaka).' The Hasyacuḍāmaņi of Vatsarāja ridicules the Bhagavatas; while the Mukundananda pours a great deal of pungent satire against the Gurjara people. Such satirical touches are almost thrown into back-ground by their mechanichal characters, the roguish parasites and the haterea and by excessive eroticism. The four Bhāņas, which are edited as Caturbhāņi and which definitely belong to an earlier age, present 'more variety, greater simplicity, a larger amount of social satire and comic relief, a more convincing power of drawing individuals rather than types, easier and more colloquial style, and some measure of real poetry in spite of certain coarseness." In the Padmaprabhṛtaka, the Vita, Sasa by name, a friend of Karpiputra Müladeva (both of them of Ujjaini), gets a specified individuality. The racy speeches of the Vita, in the Padataḍitaka, are remarkably satirical;
1
I have derived much help from two important papers by Dr. 8. K. De: A Note on the Sanskrit Monologue-Play (Bhana) with Special Reference to the Caturbhāṇī, JRAS 1926, pp. 03-90; and The Sanskrit Prahasana, The Poona Orientalist, VII, 3-4, pp. 149-56,
2 Caturbhāpi, ed. by Kavi and Sastri, Patna 1922.
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