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Two plays of Ramacandra: An aesthetic study
coming temptation of dice play and the desertion of the bride, 29 the shadow
of the future event.
11
This information is given to the audience at the beginning of act V in a longish monologue of Kalahamsa. In spite of the earnest advice of the family priest and wise citizens, and probably acting under the spell of fate operating from previous birth,30 Nala gambled away his own kingdom and Damayanti. Having lost everything to Prince Kubara, Nala is preparing to leave his country till his good fortune returned.
The dramatist works out the expected atmosphere of pathos out of this situation. The citizens are plunged into misery. The faithful attendant Kalahamsa and the merry companion, the Viduşaka, wish to accompany Nala and are ready to die otherwise. Damayanti insists on going with Nala; and, very much like Sita in the Ramayana, argues and pleads with Nala to take her with him. Nala has to do so.
The wanderings of the lone couple are then described with appropriate stress on Dayamantr's tiredness, her agony of over-powering thirst, and her slow weeping, till they meet with a Tapasa, The conversation leads to Nala's present condition and the purpose of his journey. The Tapasa, who is the same Lambodara, the spy and servant of Kapalika, now disguised, advises Nala that the state of the loss of kingdom and being tied down to a woman' is a calamity heaped on calamity; the company of a woman is bound to destroy a man's freedom of movement. The Tapasa gives voluntary advice to Nala that his going to the Vidarbha kingdom and the shelter of his father-in-law will be embarrassing and shameful to him in his present plight. Nala accepts both the observations of the ascetic. He fetches water for Damayanti and points out to her the way to Kundinapur as learnt from the ascetic. In his own mind he has decided to abandon Damayanti.
Damayanti has a feeling of premonition about her desertion. But she is overpowered with fatigue and sleep. And as she is lost in sleep Nala deserts her, with almost the same emotional tension and verbal expression as Bhavabhuti's Rama displayed when he decided to abandom Sita who had gone to sleep on his arm. The seif-reproach, the awareness of cruetly and the inward sorrow of Nala are overwhelmingly similar to those of Rama. Damayanti is still drugged with sleep when Nala leaves her. A traveller from a passing caravan sees her, alone and lost, lifts her and carries her away to safety.
The act is thus intended to depict the circumstances and the actual act of Damayanti's abandonment. The loss of kingdom in the game of dice is a detail which is part of the old legend. But the motive in the old legend, namely, the spirit of Kall taking possession of the mind and
