A Bibliography of the Sanskrit Drama

Front matter

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

INDO-IRANIAN SERIES

EDITED BY

Preface

PREFACE

It has long been desirable that students of Sanskrit literature should have as complete a catalogue as possible of all Hindu authors and their writings, in order that they might be able to tell at a glance how many manuscripts of each work are known, how many editions and translations have been made, and what has been written concerning them. It is the purpose of the present volume to fill this need for the Sanskrit drama. The material here presented has been collected for several years, but unforeseen circumstances have delayed the publication long beyond the time originally proposed, although some portions of the work have already appeared in print.

In a book of this character it is practically impossible to secure absolute completeness, and this is especially true of lists of manuscripts, since new catalogues of collections both in India and in Europe are constantly being published. Many titles of earlier editions and of the older ancillary literature, moreover, were accessible to me only in catalogues of various descriptions, frequently compiled with scant regard to bibliographical accuracy and by no means complete. The conditions under which I labored precluded the possibility of access to all the actual manuscripts and editions, and I was therefore obliged to cite a large number of entries at second or even at third hand. Absolute fidelity to the original titles has consequently been denied me, and—a far more serious matter—it has only too often proved impossible for me to secure the pagination and other details of very practical import for Sanskritists. Even when the volumes were at hand, however, I did not think it necessary to reproduce all the padding with which native scholars adorn their title-pages, so that a long entry has frequently been abridged in the following pages to the simple phrase 'edited with notes by …'

The arrangement of names and titles follows the order of the English alphabet, and no separate positions have been assigned to the vowels and consonants distinguished by diacritical marks. Heavy-faced type is used for the names of playwrights, ordinary Roman type for the names of plays. Plays are inserted under the author's name, when it is known, and cross-references are given under the titles of his various works. Anonymous plays are listed under the names by which they are known. Some titles, although identical with those of works by known authors, have had to be recorded in like manner as anonymous, merely because the necessary data for a determination of their authorship were not available. For the same reason no exact statement as to the number of extant dramas can be made at the present time.

Such honorific designations as 'Śrī,' 'Kavi,' 'Bhaṭṭa,' 'Paṇḍita,' and 'Rāja' have usually been omitted, unless they form a part of the name as commonly known or are necessary to avoid confusion with some other playwright of the same appellative. Editions and translations are arranged as far as possible in chronological order, critical works are classified alphabetically by authors. Volumes containing both text and translation are listed under text editions, and critical essays and notes are not separately recorded under critical works when included in editions of the text or in translations. Criticism relating entirely to a single author or play is catalogued under that author or play, but general books and papers are separately listed before the main body of the bibliography. A reference such as 'Amṛtodaya, A 1. p. 29' indicates that Aufrecht in his Catalogus Catalogorum has listed on that page one manuscript of a play called Amṛtodaya. When more than one manuscript is referred to, the number is given. In the case of commentaries the number of manuscripts is also stated. Thus 'Com. 5, by Jagaddhara 2' indicates that there are five manuscripts of unspecified or anonymous commentaries and two manuscripts of a commentary by Jagaddhara. In this way each entry shows the number of extant manuscripts of the work and of the various commentaries on it, if such exist. Some entries from Part 7 of the India Office Catalogue, however, duplicate those already given by Aufrecht from the Catalogue of the Mackenzie Collection; these were added because the early catalogue of Wilson gives no adequate description of the manuscripts, and because it seemed desirable to include all material not given by Aufrecht. The same is true of the Catalogue of Two Collections in the India Office Library, by Tawney and Thomas, which includes manuscripts recorded by Aufrecht from an old list by Sir William Jones. An introductory sketch of the Sanskrit drama has been incorporated in the volume, in order that students may have a convenient epitome of the whole subject readily accessible to them.

For the manuscripts listed in this bibliography I have relied in the main on the marvelously accurate and learned Catalogus Catalogorum of Aufrecht, although I have supplemented it by such catalogues as have appeared subsequently. For many titles of editions of plays and records of literature on the drama of India I am indebted to the bibliographies of Gildemeister and Zenker and to the Catalogue of Sanskrit books in the British Museum, although my richest source has naturally been the Orientalische Bibliographic. Antiquarian catalogues, especially those of Harrassowitz (Leipzig) and Luzac (London), have also been consulted with advantage.

My thanks are due to the librarians of the Royal Libraries of Copenhagen and Stockholm for information in regard to certain publications, while through the kindness of Professor Serge Oldenburg of St. Petersburg I had access to the large collections of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Oriental Seminar of the University of St. Petersburg, and certain queries were answered for me by Professor Carl Cappeller of Jena. My friend and former fellow-student, Dr. Louis H. Gray, placed his library at my disposal and gave me several additions and suggestions, while both he and Mrs. Gray most generously aided in the correction of the proofs. The main part of this toilsome revision, however, which my absence from America compelled me to forego, has been most kindly undertaken for me by Mr. George C. O. Haas, Fellow in Indo-Iranian in Columbia University, who has also added the new material from Hultzsch's Reports and the India Office Catalogue, and made many corrections and improvements. To my friend and teacher, Professor A. V. Williams Jackson, who, from the inception of the book to its completion, has grudged neither time nor pains to aid me, my deepest gratitude is due for his inspiration and assistance.

Montgomery Schuyler, Jr.

United States Legation, Bangkok, Siam, November 1, 1905.

Introduction

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE SANSKRIT DRAMA

It is now more than a hundred years since Sir William Jones gave the Western world its first knowledge of the dramatic literature of the Hindus by the publication, in 1789, of a translation of the Śakuntalā of Kālidāsa. From that time on, the labors of Sanskritists have gradually made accessible most of the chief works of the Sanskrit drama, and a large number of editions, translations, and commentaries are now available for the general student of literature.

The earliest manifestations of a dramatic idea in India are to be found in the hymns of the Rig Veda. Certain of these hymns are in the form of dialogues between various personages of the Vedic pantheon, such as Yama and Yamī, Saramā and the Paṇis, while the myth of King Purūravas and the nymph Urvaśī is the foundation for one of the plays of India's greatest dramatist. The lack of accurate data precludes our knowing much about the origin of the drama in India, but it is probable that it had its beginning in a combination of these hymns in dramatic form and in the religious dances, in which certain pantomimic features came to be conventionalized and stereotyped in later times until we get the classical Sanskrit drama. This theory is borne out by the fact that in Sanskrit the words for play (nāṭaka) and actor (naṭa) are from the root naṭ which is the Prākrit form of the Sanskrit nṛt 'to dance.' The native Hindu account of the origin of the drama was that it came down from heaven as a fully developed art invented by the divine sage Bharata. This theory, however satisfying to the Hindu mind, cannot be accepted by modern scholarship, and we are forced to presuppose a development from the religious to the dramatic, as outlined above, which is not essentially different from that found in Greece. The earlier stages, which were con with religious festivals, and especially with the worship of Kṛṣṇa-Viṣṇu, were not unlike the early primitive Christian mystery-plays of the Middle Ages in Europe.

Whatever may have been its beginnings, it is certain that the drama flourished in India, and had a high development. The earlier plays as we know them had considerable freedom of choice of subject and treatment and they can be described, for the most part, as melodramas or tragi-comedies. Primarily their elements are mixed: gravity and gaiety, despair and joy, terror and love—all are combined in the same play. Tragedy, in our sense of the term, there is none, for every drama must have a happy ending. As, according to the rules, death cannot be represented on the stage, it follows that one great source of inspiration for European tragedy is entirely eliminated. The usual subject for dramatic treatment is love, and according to the rank or social position of the hero and heroine the play is placed in one or another of the ten chief (rūpaka) or eighteen minor (uparūpaka) divisions of the drama recognized by the Hindu text-books. The trials and tribulations of the lovers, relieved by the rather clumsy attempts at wit of the vidūṣaka, or court jester, the plotting of the viṭa, or parasite, and the efforts of the rival wives to establish themselves in the favor of their lords and masters, with the incidents of every day life in the harem and court, constitute the plot of the play. The laments of the hero to his confidant, the jester, serve to introduce lyrical stanzas descriptive of the beauties of nature, the wiles and graces of woman, and the tender passion which fills the hero's heart for some fair maiden or celestial nymph. According to the Sanskrit treatises on dramatic art the subject of a nāṭaka is to be taken from some famous legend, and its hero must be high-minded and of noble birth, sprung from a race of gods or kings. The expression of all feelings is allowed, but preponderance is to be given to love and heroism. There must be not less than five, nor more than ten, acts of mingled prose and verse. The Sanskrit tongue itself, as the learned or court language, is spoken by gods, Brahmans, heroes, kings, and men of good birth and position in general. Women and the lower classes of men speak various dialects of the Prākrit language, the old vernacular tongue of India. Among the Prākrits the most important is the Śaurasenī, the form usually found in the dramas, the Mahārāṣṭrī being confined to the poetical stanzas. The rules for distinguishing the various individual kinds of characters are all carefully classified and divided; so far does this subdividing go that no less than three hundred and eighty-four types of heroine are given. In practice, of course, this is never carried out, but it must be acknowledged that the great defect of the Sanskrit drama is that in general it is too conventional, with the result that originality and life are sacrificed for a hackneyed arrangement and a stereotyped manipulation of threadbare sentiments and action.

In the invention of plots the dramatists show little fertility of imagination; on the other hand cleverness is certainly clearly shown in the way in which the details of the plot are worked out and the development of the intrigue is presented. In the majority of cases the plot is somewhat as follows: the hero, who is usually a king or a prince and already has one or more wives, at the opening of the play suddenly becomes enamored of the charms of some girl or nymph. Although she is equally in love with him she is too bashful and modest to let her passion be observed. Hope and fear alternately cheer and dismay both hero and heroine. She confides in some girl friend, he in the jester, who is always a brahman, but a person of slow intelligence whose uncouth attempts at wit seem often lacking in every element of humor. The jester, moreover, is a glutton, greedy for money, and, as is to be expected, an inveterate gossip, always on the watch for some fresh bit of news. One of the most curious features of the Sanskrit drama, fostered as it was by the court society of India, which was almost always under the control of brahman priests, is that this figure of a degraded and besotted brahman should be allowed to appear as a typical stage-figure. In an article written some years ago I advanced the theory that such a seeming inconsistency might be due to the fact that the drama had its origin in the religious dances and ceremonies of the common people, who were of course largely non-brahmanic, and was therefore an outgrowth of the many popular religions of India rather than a development of pure brahmanism. In this way the conventional figures, having become in the course of time crystallized into permanent types, were retained when the folk-drama became popular at court, and thus even brahman authors did not hesitate to perpetuate the type, though really derogatory to their class. Other stock characters in the plays are the parasite (viṭa), ministers, Buddhist monks and nuns, servants of the harem, dwarfs, mutes, and the female attendants of the king.

For the technical divisions of a drama and the development of the plot there are carefully elaborated rules, but of the actual scenic arrangement of a play, the manner of producing it, and the assignment of the roles we know comparatively little. Plays seem to have been usually presented at the spring festival. A drama always opens with a nāndī, or benediction, usually addressed to Śiva, for the prosperity of the audience, by the sūtradhāra, or director. This director must have been very accomplished and versatile, for the rules say that among other things he must know music, technical treatises, dialects, the art of managing, works on poetry, rhetoric, acting, industrial arts, metre, astronomy, geography, history, and the genealogies of royal families. He was to have a good memory, and to be honest, intelligent, dignified, and noble. According to the text-books he had two associates: the sthāpaka and the pāripārśvika. It is probable that in the actual practice of the theatre the duties assigned by the treatises to the sthāpaka were all performed by the sūtradhāra. At the end of the nāndī there is a dialogue between the manager and some actor complimenting the audience on their critical ability and ending by introducing one of the characters of the play, after which the action goes on with regular divisions into acts and scenes. Scenes are marked by the exit of one person and the entrance of another, as on the Classical and the French stage, and the stage is never left empty until the end of the act. Between the acts a connecting scene called viṣkambhaka is often introduced, in which occurrences that have taken place since the preceding act are explained. The theory of the unity of time, place, and action, which played so important a part in the Greek drama, appears in rather a modified form in India. The time of the action is supposed to be the same as that occupied in the performance, or else to fall within twenty-four hours. But this rule is not always observed, and we find in the Uttararāmacarita of Bhavabhūti a lapse of twelve years between the first and second acts. Unity of place is not strictly observed, and journeys are often made, sometimes even through the air in celestial cars.

As to the stage-setting and decoration very little is yet known. Special buildings for the presentation of plays are described in the Nātyaśāstra but it is probable that dramas were usually given m a hall (saṃgīta-śālā 'concert-room') of the palace. Behind the stage, which occupied a quarter of the whole hall, was a curtain divided in the middle, and behind that again was the greenroom (nepathya) whence the actors came on the stage. The greenroom had an entrance from the outside 'separate from the entrance for the audience.' Scenery and decoration were apparently very simple and much was left to the imagination. Elaborate directions for gestures, pantomime, and clothing are given. Thrones, seats, chariots, weapons, and armor were employed, and some sort of mechanical contrivances were perhaps not unknown. We must infer, however, from the frequent use of the word nāṭayitvā, 'having gesticulated,' nāṭayati, 'mimics, acts as if doing,' as a stage direction, that pantomime and gesticulation were largely resorted to for filling out the deficiencies of the staging.

The age of the Sanskrit drama may roughly be given as extending from 400 to 1100 A.D. This period does not, of course, include the earliest efforts at dramatic composition, nor take in a large number of late and inferior plays. Very little is known of the earliest dramatists before Kālidāsa, and none of their compositions excepting scattered verses are extant. For example, the poets Bhāsa, Rāmila, Somila (or Saumillaka), and the Kaviputras were well known and popular playwrights among the Hindus of Kālidāsa's time, but our knowledge of them is practically confined to their names.

Most students of the Sanskrit drama are of the opinion that the Mṛcchakaṭikā, or 'Clay Cart,' of Śūdraka is the oldest extant Sanskrit play. The arguments in favor of this view are based upon the state of civilization shown in the play, the general style of the drama and the richness and diversity of the Prākrit dialects employed in its composition. Some scholars, however, whose researches in the Hindu drama entitle them to speak with great authority upon this subject, believe that the play is not earlier than the sixth century of our era, or approximately of the same period as Kālidāsa's dramas. I must confess, nevertheless, that I find myself among the number of those that are inclined to consider it of much earlier date. The question of the authorship of the Mṛcchakaṭikā is also still under discussion. In the prologue the play is stated to be the production of King Śūdraka, but not all kings are authors, and it is thought that in this case, as probably in others, the real author, like a wise courtier, may have attributed his work to his royal master in order to gain favor. Many of the rulers of ancient India delighted in playing the part of patrons of art and literature; Śūdraka may well have been one of these. Professor Pischel, after a careful study of the material, thinks that the real author was a poet named Daṇḍin. However that may be, there is no question that the Mṛcchakaṭikā is in many respects the most human of all the Sanskrit plays. There is something strikingly Shaksperian in the skilful drawing of the characters, the energy and life of the large number of personages in the play, and in the directness and clearness of the plot itself It is a ten-act prakaraṇa, or comedy of middle-class life, and the scene is laid in the city of Ujjain. The subject of the plot is the love and marriage of Carudatta, a brahman merchant reduced to poverty by his generosity, and Vasantasenā, a rich courtesan. In the third act there is a long and humorous account of a burglary in which stealing is treated as an art or science provided with rules and conventional procedure. The chief value of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, aside from its interest as a drama, lies in the graphic picture it presents of a very interesting phase of everyday life in ancient India. The elaborate description of the heroine's palace in the fourth act gives us a glimpse of what was considered luxury in those days. The name 'Clay Cart' is taken from an episode in the sixth act, which leads to the finding of the heroine's jewels in the terra cotta cart of the hero's little son and to their use as circumstantial evidence in a trial. This complicates the plot until all is resolved in the dénouement.

The greatest name in Sanskrit literature is that of Kālidāsa who lived at the court of Ujjain, probably about the first half of the sixth century of our era, although his date is not settled and the question is still a mooted one. He is the author of three plays, Śakuntalā, Vikramorvaśī, and Mālavikāgnimitra. The first two of these compositions reach the highest level attained by the Hindu dramatists and win for their author a place among the greater poets of the world. Their richness of fancy and appreciation of nature, added to the beauty of poetic technique and choice of language, have never been equaled in India, and bear favorable comparison with the dramas of any nation.

The play of Śakuntalā has been known in Europe since its translation by Sir William Jones in 1789, by which work that great Orientalist really introduced Sanskrit poetry to the West and started the study of Hindu literature. The play is a nāṭaka, or heroic comedy, of seven acts, and its plot is drawn from the first book of the Mahābhārata. The subject of the drama is the love of King Duṣyanta for Śakuntalā, their separation by accident, and their ultimate reunion in the presence of their son after the lapse of some years. The importance of this play lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect Sanskrit drama extant, but also in the fact that its great literary merit, as was evident from Sir William's translation, aroused a widespread interest in the literature of India throughout Europe. It was enthusiastically received by the followers of the Romantic School and exercised a genuine influence upon them. Jones's English version was soon rendered into other languages, and independent translations from the original Sanskrit have since been made into almost all the tongues of Europe, so that I am able to record versions and adaptations of the play in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and Bohemian.

Kālidāsa's other important play is the Vikramorvaśī. It was first translated into English into 1827 by Horace Hayman Wilson, a scholar who devoted a great part of his life to the study of the Sanskrit drama, and whose 'Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus' is a standard work even to-day. Later investigations have rendered some of his views antiquated, but his book remained for years the only work upon the Sanskrit drama as a whole, until the appearance, in 1890, of Sylvain Lévi's admirable and scholarly treatise, Le Théâtre indien, a work indispensable to students. The plot of the Vikramorvaśī is briefly as follows: King Purūravas rescues the nymph Urvaśī, who has been carried away by the demons, and his heroism wins her love. The lovers become separated by accident, but after various vicissitudes are reunited in the presence of their son when the latter is about twelve years old.

The third play of Kālidāsa, entitled Mālavikāgnimitra, or 'King Agnimitra's Love for Mālavikā,' is a conventional drama of harem intrigue at the court, and is decidedly inferior to the author's other two plays. So marked is this inferiority that some scholars have even gone so far as to question its right to bear Kālidāsa's name.

We now come to an interesting group of three plays ascribed to Harṣadeva, king of northern India, which have been the object of much discussion. As in the case of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, it is probable that they were the work of some poet who, to curry favor, ascribed their authorship to that famous patron of art and literature, Harṣadeva. These three plays are Ratnāvalī, Priyadarśikā, and Nāgānanda. The first two are dramas of harem intrigue and court life, composed, it is true, upon conventional lines, but showing some ingenuity in the manipulation of plot and the invention of incident. In the Ratnāvalī, or 'Jewel Necklace,' the subject is the story of the loves of Vatsa, or Udayana, king of Kauśāmbī, and Sāgarikā, an attendant of his wife, queen Vāsavadattā, who ultimately is discovered, by a necklace she wears, to be Ratnāvalī, princess of Ceylon, who had been shipwrecked and had found her way to Vatsa's court. The characters are clearly defined and not mere puppets, as in the case of some dramas. The poetical part is rather conventional, but there are several pretty lines descriptive of natural scenery, moonrise, and the like. The drama Priyadarśikā, named after its heroine, is much the same sort of play, but not so good. The lack of a good critical edition and English translation of this play has made it difficult for students, but this lack is soon to be overcome, and a translation by G. K. S. Nariman, with an introductory memoir from the pen of Professor Jackson, will soon be ready. The third play, Nāgānanda, 'Joy of the Serpents,' is in some respects quite unique. It is a highly-colored melodrama with a pronounced Buddhistic tendency, as Buddha is invoked in the nāndī, and the hero himself is a Buddhist. In this respect the Nāgānanda stands alone among the extant Sanskrit plays, although we know that there were other Buddhist dramas which have not been preserved. Such was the Lokānanda of Candragomin, of which there is a Tibetan translation. The Nāgarāja and Śānticarita are, perhaps, imitations of the Nāgānanda or even identical with it. In the Avadānaśataka (75) there is a record of the representation of a Buddhist drama, according to Oldenburg. Several Jain plays are also known.

The dramatist Bhavabhūti, who lived during the first half of the eighth century, was a native of Vidarbha, the Province of Berar, in south-central India, and he wrote under the protection of king Yaśovarman of Kanauj. He is the author of three plays, the Mālatīmādhava, Mahāvīracarita, and Uttararāmacarita, which are distinguished by great poetic beauty and feeling, exquisite verse, polished style, but little humor or wit (the jester being absent from all), and only moderate dramatic power. They are, perhaps, dramatic poems rather than dramas. Bhavabhūti's home in the mountain regions of south-central India doubtless gave him a love of the grand and titanic aspects of nature instead of the mild and gentle phases described by the other Hindu authors. His characters have much grace and tenderness and also possess energy and life. His most popular play is the ten act prakaraṇa, or melodrama, Mālatī-mādhava, the scene of which is laid in Ujjain. It is the story of the love of Mālatī, daughter of a cabinet minister, and Mādhava, a young student. This charming play is often called the Romeo and Juliet of India, but it has a happy ending, as all Sanskrit plays must have. The whole drama is a succession of contrasted situations, first of love and then of the weird incantations of the terrible priestess of Durgā, scenes which are used to heighten the dramatic effect as well as to contribute to the plot. In the fifth act the scene is laid in the field where the bodies of the dead are burned. The two other plays of Bhavabhūti form a history of the deeds of the hero Rama, and are based on the epic poem Rāmāyaṇa. I shall omit a detailed description of these.

The next dramatist, Rājaśekhara, who lived about the year 900 A. D., is the author of four plays which have come down to us. Two of them are much like the comedies of Harṣadeva in construction and subject. These two are the Viddhaśālabhañjikā, or 'The Lady of the Statue' and the Karpūramañjarī, or 'Camphor Cluster.' They are both dramas of harem and court life. The chief interest of the Karpūramañjarī, which has been admirably edited in the Harvard Oriental Series by Dr. Sten Konow with a translation by Professor Lanman, consists in the fact that it renders accessible the only extant example of the kind of drama called saṭṭaka. The saṭṭaka is nearly the same as the nāṭikā, or minor heroic comedy, except that it is composed entirely in Prākrit. Of the Viddhaśālabhañjikā I had hoped to publish a translation, upon which I was engaged, but the pressure of other duties has prevented me, and the work has now been done by my friend and fellow-student, Dr. Louis H. Gray.

One of the few historic plays of India is the Mudrārākṣasa by Viśākhadatta. The scene of this elaborate drama is laid in the city of Pāṭaliputra during the reign of Candragupta, or shortly after the invasion of India by Alexander. The time of composition of the play, however, is probably to be placed about the year 1000 A. D. The plot deals with the story of the founding of a new dynasty by Candragupta who had deposed the former ruler. The latter's minister Rākṣasa refuses to recognize the new monarch. Candragupta's minister tries to win Rākṣasa over to his own political plans, which are well conceived, and he at last succeeds. The drama gives us a remarkable picture of the political conditions of the time in which the author has placed its action, centuries before his own.

The Veṇīsaṃhāra, or 'Binding of the Braid,' by the playwright Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, is a six-act drama based on the incident of the Mahābhārata in which the Pāṇḍu wife Draupadī is dragged by the hair into the assembly and outrageously exposed before the Kurus. The play is written in exact accordance with the rules of text-books and largely for that reason it has always been a favorite in India.