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Literary and Performing Arts
of one act only. It has a tragic end. Silānka calls this drama ‘Anka’. Nilanjana Shah has shown that the dramatic characteristics of the Vibudhānanda clearly establishes it as an instance of the type called Utsrstikānka or Arka, which was counted among the ten major types and was defined by Bharata and others.
The importance of the Vibudhānanda lies in the fact that it is the one and only specimen of Utsșstikānka preserved in the whole range of classical literature and it is fairly early. The Vibudhānanda also shares with Bhāsa's Karnabhāra and Urūbhanga the credit of being one of the few dramas having a tragic end.
(b) Dima and Vithi
Bharata has divided the dramatic types into two classes : robust or forceful (āviddha) and delicate or graceful (sukumāra). Dima belonged to the former class and Vīthi to the latter12. In a passage in Dhanapāla's Tilakamanjari, a Kathā in Sanskrit prose written in the first half of the eleventh century, it is said that performers ignorant of the tradition of Daśarūpaka (the ten major dramatic types) destroyed the basic quality of a Vithi by staging it in a violent and forceful style (appropriate for the presentation of Vira and Raudra sentiments) as in a Dima, instead of the tender and graceful style (appropriate to the presentation of Sțngāra)13. Dhanapāla's remark can be appreciated if we keep in view the real character of the Vithi: “Vithi was a love-comedy, a mixture of Nātikā with features of Prahasana grafted on it."14
(c) Some other types
The Uparūpakas were an ill-defined, open class, with no specimens preserved for us. Dramaturgical literature has handed down a collection of descriptive statements about them, which give the impression of a tradition that was no longer living. The reason for this probably lies in the fact that these dramatic types were mostly dominated by song and dance. The use of verbal text was marginal. Most of them were in Prakrit or its later regional modifications 15.
