2. Bālarāmāyaṇa in Kuntaka’s treatment

Bālarāmāyaṇa of Rājaśekhara is a ten act play. It describes the story of early life of Rāma till his return from Laṅkā along with Sītā after killing Rāvaṇa. Rājaśekhara modified the story of Rāmāyaṇa while writing this play. In this play the playwright emphasizes the love of Rāvaṇa towards Sītā than his cruelty. It is a great task to express the whole story of Rāmāyaṇa in ten acts. But Rājaśekhara takes the risk to depict Rāmāyaṇa in ten acts without losing its charm. His other works are a saṭṭaka named Karpūramañjari and a nāṭika named Viddhaśālabhañjikā. He has also written a drama known as Bālabhārata and a famous poetic work Kāyamīmāṃsā. From some available evidences his date may be fixed between the last quarter of the ninth century and the beginning of the tenth century C.E.

Kuntaka cites two from Viddhaśālabhañjikā and fourteen verses from Bālarāmāyaṇa. Viddhaśālabhañjika is a four act nāṭika. This is an imaginary love story between the prince Vidyādharamalla with two princesses named Mṛgāṅgavallī and Kuvalayamāla.

1. Contextual figurativeness

One of the notable points about this drama is a variety of contextual figurativeness. In this variety, Kuntaka explains how a play within a play contributes extreme charm to the whole plot. In the third act of Bālarāmāyaṇa, Rāvaṇa eagerly watches the marriage of Sītā depicted on the stage. On seeing the marriage of Sītā with Rāma, Rāvaṇa gets angry and asks as to who has the power to accept Sītā while Rāvaṇa is alive. Hearing the words of Rāvaṇa, Prahastha reminds him that this is a drama and not reality. Thus here someone as a spectator watch his own story performed by the actors. This will really evoke excitement in real spectator and they are interesting to watch the reaction of those spectators whom are watching their own role on the stage. As the name indicates this garbhāṅga is really small and complete essence of the whole plot.

2. Kuntaka’s evaluation of a single verse

Among the fourteen verses cited from Bālarāmāyaṇa, his striking observation is undoubtedly in this particular verse.

Kuntaka cites this particular verse for showing the absence of aesthetic pleasure in a verse.

sadyaḥ purīparisare'pi śirīṣamṛdvī sītā javāttricaturāṇi padāni gatvā/
gantavyamadya kiyadityasakṛdbruvāṇā rāmāśruṇaḥ kṛtavatī prathamāvatāram//^[1]

“Even on the outskirts of the city, the delicate girl Sītā who had walked hardly three or four steps, started asking Rāma more than once; How much more distance remains to be covered yet? Where-upon tears were brought for the first time in Rāma’s eyes.”^[2]

According to Kuntaka, it is not proper for an ideal heroine to ask such a question. He also opines that she should not utter these words even when she has such a thought. Moreover very first complaint itself is enough to shed tears in Rāma and it is not necessary for Sītā to repeat her complaint. So Kuntaka suggests plausible modification here as avaśam instead of asakṛt. It is sure that such keen observation and criticism of Kuntaka will really help the poets to take utmost care in their compositions.

Rājaśekhara makes lots of modifications in his drama from original source. One of the main innovation is the depiction of the marriage of Sītā as mentioned before. Another notable innovation is the depiction of disguised demons Māyāmaya and Śūrpaṇakhā as Daśaratha and Kaikeyī for inducing Rāma for exile. Thus the poet tries to protect Daśaratha and Kaikeyī from their blames. Other innovations are the presence of Bharata in Ayodhyā at the time of exile of Rāma, depiction of artificial Sītā in front of Rāvaṇa, his sad plight due to the separation of Sītā, completion of the entire war in Laṅkā within five days etc. Kuntaka could have cited these innovations as an instance to the second variety of contextual figurativeness. He says that the inclusion of a new idea or development from original source will render extreme charm to a composition. There are a lot of innovations in this drama, but the uniqueness of this drama lies in the garbhāṅka. Thus Kuntaka brings forth the beauty of this drama by citing this particular context. Beauty of other innovations can be envisaged by the readers themselves

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

K. Krishnamoorthy, Vakrokti-jīvita of Kuntaka, p.19.

[2]:

ibid,p.306.