Sambodhi 1978 Vol 07

Author(s): Dalsukh Malvania, H C Bhayani, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 80

78
Vijay Pandya
eyes of the reader upto the end of the book rather than to usher her early and then not finding the central place on the stage in the story for her."
Even this late entrance of Kādambari is compensated as her character is endowed with the most poetic feelings. Peterson's quotation would not be amiss here. "On Kadambari in particular Bāņa has spent all his wealth of observation, fullness of imagery and keepness of sympathy. From the moment when for the first time her eye falls and rests on Candrāpida, this image of a maiden heart torn by the conflicting emotions of love and virgin shame, of hope and despondency, of cherished filial duty and a new born longing, of fear of the world's scorn and knowledge that a world given in exchange for this will be a world well lost takes full possession of the reader"?.
Many critics have found faults with the general structure of the plot. Mm. P. V. Kane says, “Another serious blemish is that in the Kādambari we meet with a defect in constructive art which is due to the device of weaving stories within stories. The reader is unable to carry in his head the bewildering turns and convolutions of the story and the confusion of curses and counter-curses. The fact that the greater part of the story is put in the mouth of a parrot is a serious draw back to the verisimilitude of the work." Now this emboxing tales within tales which C. Kunhan Raja terms as 'relay method of narration'' was a well-tried one in the ancient Indian literature. If at times it sounds confusing and clumsy it has its merits also. The story deals with a world in which super-natural elements are galore! Now in this atmosphere it is neither unrealistic nor bizzare that the story is put into the mouth of a parrot ! This is not a drawback to the verisimilitude of the work but quite keeping in with the supernatural background of the story. Moreover narration by the charaoters themselves as the story proceeds makes it a first-hand account. This is in itself quite dramatic and leads itself a great deal of convincing credibility. Dr. De tries to defend Bāņa by attributing all the defects of intricacies and confabulations of the story to Bhüşanabana who is the author of the Uttara-bhāga in which all these convolutions of the story occur. He says 'these elaborate intricacies occur in the second part of the work. This important fact is ignored when one criticises Bāņa for his highly complex plot and charges him with deficiency of constructive power."10 This opinion presumes that denoument of the story is not properly brought about as well as someother denoument is possible. And critics are not wanting in casting aspersions on the ability of Bhūşaņa in bringing the story to its natural end. Critic after critic has expressed doubts about the development of the plot in the Uttarabhāga but has not paused to deliberate whether there is any other denoument possible. Dr. De opines. “We have no means except from scattered and uncertain hints