Jayāpīḍa (around 800 CE) says that Ratnāvalī was authored by the king. Jayadeva (around 11th Century CE) also concurs with this opinion – he says that the play is by Harṣavardhana. Madhusūdana (circa. 1654 CE) calls him kavi-jana-mūrdhanya and ratnāvalyākhya nāṭikā-kārtā.[1] In fact, we don’t even have to rely upon external testimonies to attest that Harṣa was a poet and a playwright. In the prologue of all three plays, we see the phrase śrī-harṣo nipuṇaḥ kaviḥ … – this, in fact, suffices; nevertheless, if it is popular among the masses that the author is actually Bāṇa (or Dhāvaka), we don’t have enough material to prove or disprove this notion. It is unlikely that Bāṇa authored the plays; a mere glance at the linguistic style in Kādambarī and Harṣacarita on one hand and the plays on the other reveals that they are of different authors.[2] We learn that Bāṇa was a rich man; there was no need for him to write a work in the king’s name and sell it, merely to make a livelihood. In fact, if he wanted to make money, he could have attributed his grand works – Kādambarī and Harṣacarita to the king; anyway, this line of argument is not very strong either. If we are to accept that Ratnāvalī and Priyadarśikā were authored by Bāṇa, it is natural to think that Nāgānanda is by him as well; however, this is unlikely. Bāṇa, who was a sincere practitioner of the vaidika-sampradāya, wouldn’t have authored a work connected with bodhi-sattva. We don’t know who Dhāvaka-Bhāsa is; he is certainly not the playwright Bhāsa of antiquity; a talented poet in Harṣa’s court might have penned the works and attributed the authorship to the king.
The three plays are certainly composed by the same author, irrespective of who he was – single authorship is evident from the praise for the poet that occurs in the prologue of the plays. Ratnāvalī and Priyadarśikā are similar to each other in their language, style, dialogues, plot, nature of the hero and the heroine, and the genre of the rūpaka they belong to; they evoke similar rasas as well. The two can be classified as nāṭikās; in both, we hear the story of Vatsa-rāja, who falls in love with a lady in his garden; the woman, who appeared like a maid in the antaḥpura, turns out to be a princess. His friends aid in his rendezvous with the lady. Vāsavadattā, who spots this, is angered and puts the lady in captivity. The lady, who is now in a helpless state, prepares to give up her life, only to be rescued by her own people. It is then revealed that the princess was meant to be married to Vatsa-rāja and was a distant relative of Vāsavadattā; this pleases Vāsavadattā as well and she happily gets her husband married to the maiden.
A nāṭikā is said to possess a klpta-vṛtta, i.e., its story is created by the poet. The story of Vatsa-rāja is ‘prakhyāta’ (popular), and it was the favourite of people of ancient India as well.[3] People hold the stories of Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata in great respect, but they love the story of Vatsa-rāja.[4] Many works of classical literature are, therefore, based on his story and its offshoots. The Ratnāvalī and Priyadarśikā are also based on the story of Vatsa-rāja. Nevertheless, we must keep in mind that though the raw material for the plays is from the Bṛhatkathā tradition, much of the storyline is created by the poet.
The following is the summary of the Priyadarśikā –
Dṛḍhavarmā, the king of Aṅga had given his word to Vatsa-rāja that he would give his daughter Priyadarśikā in marriage to him. The king of Kaliṅga, who was angry that Aṅgarāja did not offer Priyadarśikā to him, attacks his province and captures him. In the chaos that prevailed, the kañcuki rescued Priyadarśikā and escorted her to safety. He left her under the care of a king called Vindhyaketu[5] and promised that he would return after a tīrtha-yātrā. He intended to leave her with Vatsa-rāja upon his return; however, by the time the kañcuki returned from his tīrtha-yātrā, Vatsa-rāja’s army had vanquished Vindhyaketu. The commander-in-chief of Vatsa-rāja’s army, who found Priyadarśikā helpless and sorrowful there, brought her to the safe custody of Vāsavadattā. As she was found in the forest, she was named Araṇyakā. Everyone thought that she was the daughter of Vindhyaketu.
Once, when Araṇyakā was fetching lotuses for the pūjā that Vāsavadattā was performing, bees that were hidden within the flower started bothering her. The king who happened to be taking a stroll in the garden around the same time, spotted the maiden in trouble and warded off the bees. The two fell in love with each other quite spontaneously.
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] Ind. Ant., (II. Pp. 127-8); See the article On the Authorship of the Ratnavali by Georg Bühler
[2] Examine the prose passages that occur in the third act of Ratnāvalī, where the vidūṣaka describes the sunset and the gardens
[3] loke hāri ca vatsa-rāja-caritaṃ - from the prastāvanā of Ratnāvalī and Priyadarśikā
[4] See Ratnāvalī, Act 3, verse 118
[5] This part of the story brings to mind the incidents connected with King Harṣa; his sister Rājyaśrī, who had lost her husband, finds refuge in Śarabhaketu in the forest of the Vindhyās.
