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Literary and Performing Arts
(c) The Carcari Song31
We know that in Sanskrit drama, music, dance and drama? in the Western sense were closely interlaced. The former twoelements were predominant in the minor dramatic types. From Harşa's Ratnāvali and other sources, Carcari is known to us as a type of dance connected with the spring festival. On the other hand Bhoja. says it was an alternative name of Nātyarāsaka which was a type of Uparūpaka. In fact from numerous references in Sanskrit and Prakrit literature it is clear that Carcari signified in different contexts (1) a kind of song, (2) a kind of dance, (3) a kind of Tāla, (4) a kind of metre, and (5) a troupe singing and dancing. These meanings are evidently interrelated.
Carcari as a type of musical or dance performance seems to be closely allied to some other Uparūpakas like Rāsaka, Halliśaka and Nātyarāsaka. All of them had, quite palpably, several features in common, so much so that the Alamkāra authorities at times have identified any one of them with any other. In fact there has been considerable confusion about the shared and exclusive features of these types-especially in later writings, which had no direct contact wiih a living tradition.
Reference to Carcari and Rāsaka as musical and dance performances connceted with the festive celebrations at the advent of the spring season are found in numerous Prakrit, Apabhramsa and Old Gujarati narrative and poetical works. Besides this, some actual Carcari or Rāsa32 songs are given in several Jain works in Prakrit or Sanskrit. Further, we know some short poems called Carcari from Apabhramśa and Old Gujarati literatures.
From an examination of the relevant passages we can conclude that during its long course of evolution Carcari got transformed from a short musical piece accompanying dance to a substantiat poem with some narrative and descriptive content. The connection with the festival and dance also altered substantially, and theoriginal metrical form and structure too changed beyond recognition. The Rāsaka types also had the same history.
