Our Oriental Heritage
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And my Sita, best of women, follows thee in death or life.”40
So Rama returns to Ayodhya with his princess-bride—“ivory brow and lip of coral, sparkling teeth of pearly sheen”—and wins the love of the Kosalas by his piety, his gentleness, and his generosity. Suddenly evil enters into this Eden in the form of Dasa-ratha’s second wife, Kaikeyi. Dasa-ratha has promised her any boon she may ask; and now, jealous of the first wife, whose son Rama is heir to the throne, she requires Dasa-ratha to banish Rama from the kingdom for fourteen years. Dasa-ratha, with a sense of honor which only a poet unacquainted with politics could conceive, keeps his word, and, broken-hearted, exiles his favorite son. Rama forgives him handsomely, and prepares to go and live in the forest, alone; but Sita insists upon going with him. Her speech is part of the memory of almost every Hindu bride:
“Car and steed and gilded palace, vain are these to woman’s life;
Dearer is her husband’s shadow to the loved and loving wife. . . .
Happier than in father’s mansions, in the woods will Sita rove,
Waste no thought on home or kindred, nestling in her husband’s love. . . .
And the wild fruit she will gather from the fresh and fragrant wood,
And the food by Rama tasted shall be Sita’s cherished food.”41
Even his brother Lakshman begs leave to accompany Rama:
“All alone with gentle Sita thou shalt trace thy darksome way;
Grant it that thy faithful Lakshman shall protect her night and day;
Grant it with his bow and quiver Lakshman shall all forests roam,
And his axe shall fell the jungle, and his hands shall rear the home.”42
The epic becomes at this point a sylvan idyl, telling how Rama, Sita and Lakshman set out for the woods; how the population of Ayodhya, mourning for them, travel with them all the first day; how the exiles steal away from their solicitous company at night, abandon all their valuables and princely raiment, dress themselves in bark and matted grass, clear a way through the forest with their swords, and live on the fruits and nuts of the trees.
Oft to Rama turned his consort, pleased and curious ever more,
Asked the name of tree or creeper, fruit 01 flower unseen before. . . .
Peacocks flew around them gayly, monkeys leapt on branches bent. . . .
Rama plunged into the river ’neath the morning’s crimson beam,
Sita softly sought the waters as the lily seeks the stream.43
They build a hut beside the river, and learn to love their life in the woods. But a southern princess, Surpa-nakha, wandering in the forest, meets Rama, falls in love with him, resents his virtue, and instigates her brother Ravan to come and kidnap Sita. He succeeds, snatches her away to his distant castle, and tries in vain to seduce her. Since nothing is impossible to gods and authors, Rama raises a great army, invades Ravan’s realm, defeats him in battle, rescues Sita, and then (his years of exile having ended) flies with her in an airplane back to Ayodhya, where another loyal-brother gladly surrenders to him the Kosala throne.
In what is probably a later epilogue, Rama gives way to the sceptics who will not believe that Sita could have been so long in Ravan’s palace without being occasionally in his arms. Though she passes through the Ordeal of Fire to prove her innocence, he sends her away to a forest hermitage with that bitter trick of heredity whereby one generation repeats upon the next the sins and errors which it suffered from its elders in its youth. In the woods Sita meets Valmiki, and bears two sons to Rama. Many years later these sons, as traveling minstrels, sing before the unhappy Rama the epic composed about him by Valmiki from Sita’s memories. He recognizes the boys as his own, and sends a message begging Sita to return. But Sita, broken-hearted over the suspicion to which she has been subjected, disappears into the earth that was once her mother. Rama reigns many years in loneliness and sorrow, and under his kindly sway Ayodhya knows again the Utopia of Dasa-ratha’s days:
And ’tis told by ancient sages, during Rama’s happy reign,
Death untimely, dire diseases, came not to his subject men;
Widows wept not in their sorrow for their lords untimely lost,
Mothers wailed not in their anguish for their babes by Yama crost;
Robbers, cheats and gay deceivers tempted not with lying word,
Neighbor loved his righteous neighbor, and the people loved their lord.
Trees their ample produce yielded as returning seasons went,
And the earth in grateful gladness never-failing harvest lent.
Rains descended in their season, never came the blighting gale,
Rich in crop and rich in pasture was each soft and smiling vale.
Loom and anvil gave their produce, and the tilled and fertile soil,
And the nation lived rejoicing in their old ancestral toil.44
It is a delightful story, which even a modern cynic can enjoy if he is wise enough to yield himself now and then to romance and the lilt of song. These poems, though perhaps inferior to the epics of Homer in literary quality—in logic of structure, and splendor of language, in depth of portraiture and fidelity to the essence of things—are distinguished by fine feeling, a lofty idealization of woman and man, and a vigorous—sometimes realistic—representation of life. Rama and Sita are too good to be true, but Draupadi and Yudhishthira, Dhrita-rashtra and Gandhari, are almost as living as Achilles and Helen, Ulysses and Penelope. The Hindu would rightly protest that no foreigner can judge these epics, or even understand them. To him they are not mere stories, they are a gallery of ideal characters upon whom he may mould his conduct; they are a repertory of the traditions, philosophy and theology of his people; in a sense they are sacred scriptures to be read as a Christian reads The Imitation of Christ or The Lives of the Saints. The pious Hindu believes that Krishna and Rama were incarnations of divinity, and still prays to them; and when he reads their story in these epics he feels that he derives religious merit as well as literary delight and moral exaltation. He trusts that if he reads the Ramayana he will be cleansed of all sin, and will beget a son;45 and he accepts with simple faith the proud conclusion of the Mahabharata:
If a man reads the Mahabharata and has faith in its doctrines, he becomes free from all sin, and ascends to heaven after his death. . . . As butter is to all other food, as Brahmans are to all other men, . . . as the ocean is to a pool of water, as the cow is to all other quadrupeds—so is the Mahabharata to all other histories. . . . He who attentively listens to the shlokas* of the Mahabharata, and has faith in them, enjoys a long life and solid reputation in this world, and an eternal abode in the heavens in the next.46
IV. DRAMA
Origins—“The Clay Cart”—Characteristics of Hindu drama—Kalidasa—The story of “Shakuntala”—Estimate of Indian drama
In one sense drama in India is as old as the Vedas, for at least the germ of drama lies in the Upanishads. Doubtless older than these Scriptures is a more active source of the drama—the sacrificial and festival ceremonies and processions of religion. A third origin was in the dance—no mere release of energy, much less a substitute for coitus, but a serious ritual imitating and suggesting actions and events vital to the tribe. Perhaps a fourth source lay in the public and animated recitation of epic verse. These factors coöperated to produce the Indian theatre, and gave it a religious stamp that lingered throughout the classic age† in the serious nature of the drama, the Vedic or epic source of its subjects, and the benediction that always preceded the play.
Perhaps the final stimulus to drama came from the intercourse, established by Alexander’s invasion, between India and Greece. We have no evidence of Hindu dramas before Ashoka, and only uncertain evidence during his reign. The oldest extant Hindu plays are the palm-leaf manuscripts lately discovered in Chinese Turkestan. Among them were three dramas, one of which names as its author Ashvaghosha, a theological luminary at Kanishka’s court. The technical form of this play, and the resemblance of its buffoon to the type tra
ditionally characteristic of the Hindu theatre, suggest that drama was already old in India when Ashvaghosha was born.47 In 1910 thirteen ancient Sanskrit plays were found in Travancore, which are dubiously ascribed to Bhasa (ca. 350 A.D.), a dramatic predecessor much honored by Kalidasa. In the prologue to his Malavika Kalidasa unconsciously but admirably illustrates the relativity of time and adjectives: “Shall we,” he asks, “neglect the works of such renowned authors as Bhasa, Saumilla, and Kaviputra? Can the audience feel any respect for the work of a modern poet, a Kalidasa?”48
Until recently, the oldest Hindu play known to research was The Clay Cart. The text, which need not be believed, names as author of the play an obscure King Shudraka, who is described as an expert in the Vedas, in mathematics, in the management of elephants, and in the art of love.49 In any event he was an expert in the theatre. His play is by all means the most interesting that has come to us from India—a clever combination of melodrama and humor, with excellent passages of poetic fervor and description.
A synopsis of its plot will serve better than a volume of commentary to illustrate the character of Indian drama. In Act I we meet Charu-datta, once rich, now impoverished by generosity and bad fortune. His friend Maitreya, a stupid Brahman, acts as jester in the play. Charu asks Maitreya to offer an oblation to the gods, but the Brahman refuses, saying: “What’s the use, when the gods you have worshiped have done nothing for you?” Suddenly a young Hindu woman, of high family and great wealth, rushes into Charu’s courtyard, seeking refuge from a pursuer who turns out to be the King’s brother, Samsthanaka—as completely and incredibly evil as Charu is completely and irrevocably good. Charu protects the girl, sends Samsthanaka off, and scorns the latter’s threat of vengeance. The girl, Vasanta-sena, asks Charu to keep a casket of jewels in safe custody for her, lest her enemies steal it from her, and lest she may have no excuse for revisiting her rescuer. He agrees, takes the casket, and escorts her to her palatial home.
Act II is a comic interlude. A gambler, running away from two other gamblers, takes refuge in a temple. When they enter he eludes them by posing as the idol of the shrine. The pursuing gamblers pinch him to see if he is really a stone god, but he does not move. They abandon their search, and console themselves with a game of dice at the foot of the altar. The game becomes so exciting that the “statue,” unable to control himself, leaps off his pedestal, and asks leave to take part. The others beat him; he again finds help in his heels, and is saved by Vasanta-sena, who recognizes in him a former servant of Charu-datta.
Act III shows Charu and Maitreya returning from a concert. A thief, Sharvilaka, breaks in, and steals the casket. Charu, discovering the theft, feels disgraced, and sends Vasanta-sena his last string of pearls as a substitute.
In Act IV Sharvilaka is seen offering the stolen casket to Vasanta-sena’s maid as a bribe for her love. Seeing that it is her mistress’ casket, she berates Sharvilaka as a thief. He answers her with Schopenhauerian acerbity:
A woman will for money smile or weep
According to your will; she makes a man
Put trust in her, but trusts him not herself.
Women are as inconstant as the waves
Of ocean, their affection is as fugitive
As streak of sunset glow upon a cloud.
They cling with eager fondness to the man
Who yields them wealth, which they squeeze out like sap
Out of a juicy plant, and then they leave him.
The maid refutes him by forgiving him, and Vasanta-sena by allowing them to marry.
At the opening of Act V Vasanta-sena comes to Charu’s house to return both his jewels and her casket. While she is there a storm blows up, which she describes in excellent Sanskrit.* The storm obligingly increases its fury, and compels her, much according to her will, to spend the night under Charu’s roof.
Act VI shows Vasanta leaving Charu’s house the next morning. By mistake she steps not into the carriage he has summoned for her, but into one which belongs to the villainous Samsthanaka. Act VII is concerned with a subordinate plot, inessential to the theme. Act VIII finds Vasanta deposited, not in her palace as she had expected, but in the home, almost in the arms, of her enemy. When she again spurns his love he chokes her, and buries her. Then he goes to court and lodges against Charu a charge of murdering Vasanta for her jewels.
Act IX describes the trial, in which Maitreya unwittingly betrays his master by letting Vasanta’s jewels fall from his pocket. Charu is condemned to death. In Act X Charu is seen on his way to execution. His child pleads with the executioners to be allowed to take his place, but they refuse. At the last moment Vasanta herself appears. Sharvilaka had seen Samsthanaka bury her; he had exhumed her in time, and had revived her. Now, while Vasanta rescues Charu, Sharvilaka accuses the King’s brother of murder. But Charu refuses to support the charge, Samsthanaka is released, and everybody is happy.50
Since time is more plentiful in the East, where nearly all work is done by human hands, than in the West, where there are so many labor-saving devices, Hindu plays are twice as long as the European dramas of our day. The acts vary from five to ten, and each act is unobtrusively divided into scenes by the exit of one character and the entrance of another. There are no unities of time or place, and no limits to imagination. Scenery is scanty, but costumes are colorful. Sometimes living animals enliven the play,51 and for a moment redeem the artificial with the natural. The performance begins with a prologue, in which an actor or the manager discusses the play; Goethe seems to have taken from Kalidasa the idea of a prologue for Faust. The prologue concludes by introducing the first character, who marches into the middle of things. Coincidences are innumerable, and supernatural influences often determine the course of events. A love-story is indispensable; so is a jester. There is no tragedy in the Indian theatre; happy endings are unavoidable; faithful love must always triumph, virtue must always be rewarded, if only to balance reality. Philosophical discourse, which obtrudes so often into Hindu poetry, is excluded from Hindu drama; drama, like life, must teach only by action, never by words.* Lyric poetry alternates with prose according to the dignity of the topic, the character, and the action. Sanskrit is spoken by the upper castes in the play, Prakrit by the women and the lower castes. Descriptive passages excel, character delineation is poor. The actors—who include women—do their work well, with no Occidental haste, and with no Far-Eastern fustian. The play ends with an epilogue, in which the favorite god of the author or the locality is importuned to bring prosperity to India.
Ever since Sir William Jones translated it and Goethe praised it, the most famous of Hindu dramas has been the Shakuntala of Kalidasa. Nevertheless we know Kalidasa only through three plays, and through the legends that pious memory has hung upon his name. Apparently he was one of the “Nine Gems”—poets, artists and philosophers—who were cherished by King Vikramaditya (380-413 A.D.) in the Gupta capital at Ujjain.
Shakuntala is in seven acts, written partly in prose, partly in vivid verse. After a prologue in which the manager invites the audience to consider the beauties of nature, the play opens upon a forest glade in which a hermit dwells with his foster daughter Shakuntala. The peace of the scene is disturbed by the noise of a chariot; its occupant, King Dushyanta, appears, and falls in love with Shakuntala with literary speed. He marries her in the first act, but is suddenly called back to his capital; he leaves her with the usual promises to return at his earliest convenience. An ascetic tells the sorrowing girl that the King will remember her as long as she keeps the ring Dushyanta has given her; but she loses the ring while bathing. About to become a mother, she journeys to the court, only to discover that the King has forgotten her after the manner of men to whom women have been generous. She tries to refresh his memory.
Shakuntala. Do you not remember in the jasmine-bower,
One day, how you had poured the rain-water
That a lotus had collected in its cup
Into the hollow of your hand?
&nb
sp; King. Tell on,
I am listening.
Shakuntala. Just then my adopted child,
The little fawn, ran up with long, soft eyes,
And you, before you quenched your own thirst, gave
To the little creature, saying, “Drink you first,
Gentle fawn!” But she would not from strange hands.
And yet, immediately after, when
I took some water in my hand, she drank,
Absolute in her trust. Then, with a smile,
You said: “Each creature has faith in its own kind.
You are children both of the same wild wood, and each
Confides in the other, knowing where its trust is.”
King. Sweet, fair and false! Such women entice fools. . . .
The female gift of cunning may be marked
In creatures of all kinds; in women most.
The cuckoo leaves her eggs for dupes to hatch,
Then flies away secure and triumphing.53
Shakuntala, spurned and despondent, is miraculously lifted into the air and carried off to another forest, where she bears her child—that great Bharata whose progeny must fight all the battles of the Mahabharata. Meanwhile a fisherman has found the ring, and seeing the King’s seal on it, has brought it to Dushyanta. His memory of Shakuntala is restored, and he seeks her everywhere. Traveling in his airplane over the Himalayas, he alights by dramatic providence at the very hermitage where Shakuntala is pining away. He sees the boy Bharata playing before the cottage, and envies his parents:
“Ah, happy father, happy mother, who,
Carrying their little son, are soiled with dust
Rubbed from his body; it nestles with fond faith
Into their lap, the refuge that he craves—
The white buds of his teeth just visible
When he breaks out into a causeless smile,