Indian Antiquary Vol 62

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 108

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THE INDIAX ANTIQUARY
MAY, 1985
In the present case the strikingly original character of Bhasa's work and the exceptional position it occupies in the history of the Indian theatre have, so far as I know, never been adequately appreciated. For if we enquire what point of the story it was that excited Bhasn's mind and led him to creative effort, a remarkable feature of the play instantly obtrudes it. self upon us, and that is that from start to finish Vása vadatta is on the stage almost the whole time and that it is her feelings which the dramatist is forcing us to consider every moment. To this purpose all the other characters are subordinated. Udayana, who might engage our interest or sympathies to the detriment of the real object of the play, is kept off the stage till the fourth act, and even then only those aspects of his character and actions which affect Vása vadatta are presented to us. Of the others, we might, if we had no other knowledge of him, look on Yaugandharayana as a rather futile schemer; how differently he appears in the Pratijñdyaugandharayana ! The Viduşaka's rôle is important only as giving us some change from a contemplation of Vása vadattâ's feelings, which might otherwise become monotonous, and as bridging over the transitions from one climax to the next, ever an awkward point in the construction of plays; while Padmavati becomes a mere foil to Vasavadatta, to give higher relief to the latter's feelings. The same explanation holds good for another feature of the play, which puzzled me much on first reading it years ago, namely, the exiguous way in which the plot is set out in the first act. It was not so much that knowledge of the details of a well-known tale might be presumed in an Indian audience as that their narration W:: superfluous for the dramatist's purpose and was accordingly to be omitted. It is evident that the object of the play is to present the feelings of an ideal woman placed in a cruel situation and that anything which obscured that aim was to be omitted. And with what genius has Bhasa carried out his idea! Every touch in the play has its definite part in the general -scheme, which is never sacrificed as in most of the other works of this group for immediate scenic effect, the staginess' which is, for instance, so apparent in the commercial plays usually to be seen in the London theatres. Notice how admirably each scene enhances the strain on the heroine's feelings and initiates us into new possibilities of the situation, till ultimately the happy dénouement comes ; what a part for a subtle actress!
One scene, it is true, has been held to show defective technique, namely in the last act when Våsavadattâ comes on the stage without being recognised by the king. The objection taken to this by Professor A. B. Keith and the translators seems to me to be without sub
tance. In the first act of the play Vâsa vadattâ makes it plain that, as being separated from her husband, she must not appear before other men, and her conception of proper behaviour is emphasized again in later acts, whenever the conversation turns on Udayana. The exact nature of the arrangement by which she was screened from the king's view escapes our knowle ige now, but it would have been inconsistent with the previous passages for her to have suppeared unveiled at this point. The only weaknesses in the plot are the coincidences with which the play starts, the meeting with Padmavati and the arrival of the Brahman student, whose only raison d'etre is to tell us the heroine's previous history and to provide the opportunity for our first insight into her feelings. But these are not serious blemishes, just because they come at the beginning and are, as it were, the postulates on which the story is based. Thus they do not shock the spectator, as would be the case with similar coincidences occurring in the working out of the plot. A dramatist may draw heavily on our credulity, when setting out the situation of his characters, provided that he is then logical in developing the plot out of the conditions he has originally posited. This principle Bhasa had grasped.
This analysis makes it clear that to him the proper subject of a dramatic problem was the revelation of the various sides of a given character under the stress of emotions gradually heightened almost to breaking point. But we shall look in vain for any later play in Sanskrit which treats the display of a single character under the searchlight of the theatre is the real