Pātra-prāśastya – Excellence of Character
Pātra-viśeṣanyastaṃ guṇāntaraṃ vrajati śilpam-ādhātuḥ!
Jalam-iva samudra-śuktau muktāphalatāṃ payodasya ॥ Act 1, verse 6
The skill of a teacher who imparts his knowledge to a worthy student attains greater excellence, just as a water droplet from a cloud gets, when it falls into a oyster, gets converted into a precious pearl.
Knowledge and Livelihood
yasyāgamaḥ kevalajīvikāyai
taṃ jñānapaṇyaṃ vaṇijaṃ vadanti ॥ Act 1, verse 17
A person who uses his learning only as a means for a livelihood is only a trader of knowledge.
Nṛtyābhinaya
aṅgairantarnihita-vacanaiḥ sūcitaḥ samyagarthaḥ
pāda-nyāso layam-anugatastanmayatvaṃ raseṣu |
śākhāyonirmṛdurābhinayastad-vikalpānuvṛttau
bhāvo bhāvaṃ nudati viṣayād-rāgabandhaḥ sa eva || Act 2, verse 8
The meaning (of the song) was expressed well through her limbs which were eloquent in their skill; her placement of feet was well in accordance with the laya – the rhythm of the song, and she was completely absorbed in the depiction of various rasas. Her enactment made the best use of her hands, arms, and face[1]; one emotion inspired another and they followed each other. The presentation was so engrossing that it entertained the spectators at all moments.
Affection between Co-wives
Prati-pakṣeṇāsi patiṃ sevante bhartṛ-vatsalāḥ sādhvyaḥ |
anyasritaṃ śatāni hi samudragāḥ prāpayantyabdhim|| Act 5, verse 19
Noble wives, who dearly love their husbands, serve them by allowing them to have other wives; for, rivers take along with them hundreds of other streams to join the ocean, their husband.
~
In sum, the Mālavikāgnimitram is a fine play that possesses great poetic quality. Nevertheless, it is an unripe fruit in Kālidāsa’s fruit-bowl of compositions.
Vikramorvaśīyam is, in a sense, the average of Mālavikāgnimitram and Śākuntalam. It is based on the story of love between a king and an apsarā; thanks to the largess of his queen, he marries his beloved as well. While Mālavikā belongs to the human realm, Urvaśī is from the heavenly sphere; she has her footing on the earth too. The outcome of the play is the pleasure of the senses. Their love is intense and drives the participants crazy. Śakuntalā is the daughter of an apsarā and belongs to the terrestrial realm. Her love, however, is of a much superior and deeper kind; her love purifies her own self and sanctifies the person she is associated with. With her deep emotion, she creates heaven on earth. In the Vikramorvaśīyam, however, the love is not that deep and refined. It is more like a rush of emotion than a mature persuasion. Urvaśī is bold and is absolutely not bashful; she is a mature, divine veśyā. She takes along with her, a man she has fallen in love with and enjoys rendezvous with him in Nandana-vana. She does not have to bother herself about her in-laws; she has no worries about co-wives either. Her only co-wife does not bother her like the co-wife of Mālavikā; in fact, she does not even see Urvaśī; she offers complete freedom to her husband and goes way; once gone, she does not appear on the stage ever again. Mālavikā is young and does not have children. Urvaśī gives birth to a son, but leaves him away in a ṛṣi’s āśrama thinking that his presence would come in the way of their love. Śakuntalā conceived in an āśrama and her son, Bharata, grew up in an āśrama too; she never abandoned her son. The king’s reunion with Śakuntalā, brings to him his son as well. Through this, the terrestrial story takes a heavenly path, while on the other hand, the heavenly story of Urvaśī gets reduced to the terrestrial plane.
To be continued ...
The current series of articles is an enlarged adaption of Prof. A. R. Krishnasastri's Kannada treatise Saṃskṛta-nāṭaka. They are presented along with additional information and footnotes by Arjun Bharadwaj.
[1] The term śākhā here may refer to nṛtta-hastas; śākhā tu nṛtta-hastānāṃ yā mātrā citra-nartane (See the commentary of Kāṭayavema on Kālidāsa’s Mālavikāgnimitram)
