4. Uttararāmacarita in Kuntaka’s treatment

Uttararāmacarita is a seven act drama. It is the most beautiful composition among the three dramas of Bhavabhūti. It describes the story of the second half of Rāmāyaṇa dealing with the abandonment of Sītā by Rāma. Bhavabhūti is one of the famous dramatists in Sanskrit literature belonging to 8^th century C.E. He is famous of his three works like Mahāvīracarita, Uttararāmacarita and Mālatīmādhava. The sentiments of the two dramas Mahāvīracarita and Uttararāmacarita respectively are vīra and karuṇa. The two dramas are written based on the story of Rāma. The absence of jester is one of the specialties of his dramas. The role of jester in Sanskrit dramas is to entertain the king and to support him for his secret love. Rāma plays do not usually have jesters.

1. Compositional figurativeness

Kuntaka takes an instance from this drama for explaining the first variety of compositional figurativeness.

The definition given for it is as follows:

itivṛttānyathāvṛttarasasampadupekṣyayā/
rasāntareṇa ramyeṇa yatra nirvahaṇam bhavet//
tasyā eva kathāmūrtterāmūlonmīlitaśriyaḥ/
vineyānandaniṣpattyai sā prabandhasya vakratā//^[1]

“When there is a departure from the enriched rasas of the sourcebook and a new delightful rasa is delineated by the poet at the conclusion of his work, so that the delight of the readers is ensured, we should regard it as beauty of a whole work.”^[2]

For instance, the sentiment of Rāmāyaṇa is pathos. At the end, Sītā is taken away to the nether world by goddess of earth. Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa end their life in Sarayū river. This creates great pangs in the mind of readers. Sanskrit dramaturgy always prefers a happy end. Bhavabhūti brilliantly crafts a happy end for this drama by depicting love in union of Rāma and Sītā, and also by depicting the heroic performance of their son Lava etc. Kuntaka’s citations from this drama is discussed below.

2. Contextual figurativeness

Kuntaka cites few verses from this drama as an example of one of the varieties of contextual figurativeness and its definition is as follows:-

prabandasyaikadeśānām phalabandhānubandhavān/
upakāryopakartṛtvaparispandaḥ parisphuran//
asāmānyasamullekhapratibhāpratibhāsinaḥ/
sūte nūtanavakratvarahasyam kasyacitkaveḥ//^[3]

“An organic unity which strikingly underlies the various incidents described in different parts of the works leading to the ultimate end intended, each bound to the other by a relation of mutual assistance, reveals the essence of creative originality which is most aesthetic only in the case of a very rare poetic genius who is endowed by nature with the gift of an extraordinary inventive imagination.”^[4]

In the first act, Rāma and Sītā along with Lakṣmaṇa watch the portraits painted on the wall for removing the melancholy state of Sītā. Lakṣmaṇa first of all shown the famous jṛmbaka missile handed down from Agnideva to Viśvāmitra and from Viśvāmitra to Rāma for destructing Tāṭakā. Sītā gave veneration to this missile by the advice of Rāma. Then Rāma says to Sītā that this auspicious missile will be beneficial to her progeny. Later on, in the fifth act Lava applied this missile against the army of Chandraketu, the son of Lakṣmaṇa.

Realizing the use of jṛmbaka missile of Lava, Chandraketu said this to Sumantra:-

vyatikara iva bhīmo vaidyutastāmasaśca praṇihitamapi cakṣurgrastamuktam hinasti/
abhilikhitamivaitat sainyamaspandamāste niyatamajitavīryam jṛmbhate jṛmbhakāstram//^[5]

“A dreadful combination, as if of darkness and lightning, baffles the eye, although directed towards an object, as it is lit up and suddenly obscured; moreover, this army stands motionless as if painted in a picture; verily it is the jṛmbhaka missile, of unlimited power, that is at work.”^[6]

Thus Lava’s use of jṛmbhaka missile helps to recognize him as the son of Rāma and Sītā. Here the incident of the first act supports Lava’s recognition scene of the fifth act in an unexplainable manner. In this drama Rāma’s recognition of his own child touches the readers’ heart. So the incident of the first act acts as a supporting context to bring forth the main aim of the story. In this variety it is well explicit that beauty does not lie in a single context but is interrelated.

Only a brilliant poet can incorporate such connection between the contexts without a deliberate attempt.

sāmājikajanāhlādanirmmāṇanipuṇairnaṭaiḥ/
tadbhūmikām samāsthāya nirvarttitanaṭāntaram//
kvacitprakaraṇasyāntaḥ smṛtam prakaraṇāntaram/
sarvaprabandhasarvasvakalpām puṣhṇāti vakratām//^[7]

“When actors, expert in the art of pleasing the audience, are seen to play the role of an audience themselves on the stage with other actors performing, such a play-episode within a play-episode may be regarded as illustrating a literary art which beautifies the entire drama exquisitely.”

Here the actors also play the role of a spectator and it really delights the readers though they have a passive role with some minute expressions. Inclusion of such a garbhāṅka in a drama is really a great task and only a brilliant one can depict it properly. As one of the examples to this, Kuntaka cites the garbhāṅka from the seventh act of the Uttararāmacarita of Bhavabhūti. Here the pathetic plight of pregnant Sītā who is left alone in the forest by Lakṣmaṇa on the advice of Rāma is very beautifully depicted as garbhāṅka. In the play within a play Sītā cries deeply saying that she would end her life by jumping in to the River Bhāgīrathī because there is nobody to rescue her from the wild beasts. Here the actors Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa now playing the role of spectators really shed the tears seeing Sītā’s helpless situation and doubtlessly this artistic innovation will cause charm to the readers too.

3. Kuntaka’s evaluation of single verses

One of the verses cited from this drama by Kuntaka is as an example of sahokti. Bhāmaha in his Kāvyālaṅkāra gave the definition of sahokti as:-

tulyakālam kriye yatra vastudvayasamāśraye/
padenaikena kathyete sahoktiḥ sā matā yathā//^[8]

It means where simultaneously two actions relating to two different subjects are denoted by a same word is known as sahokti.

The example cited for this by Bhāmaha is mentioned below.

himapātāviladiśo gāḍhāliṅganahetavaḥ/
vṛddhimāyānti yāminyaḥ kāminām prītibhiḥ saha/ /^[9]

“The night that obscures the quarters by snowfall and makes one long for close embraces lengthens just like the amours of lovers.”

According to Kuntaka it is similar to upamā because here the similarity between the night and the amorous of lovers are delighting the readers. If there is no such similarity the plane expressions like ‘the teacher reads with the student’ and ‘the father stands with his son’ etc. will also be considered as sahokti even when they do not have any charm at all.

So refuting the definition given by Bhāmaha, Kuntaka propounded a new one which is as follows:-

yatraikenaiva vākyena varṇanīyārthasiddhaye/
uktiryugapadarthānām sā sahoktiḥ satām matā //^[10]

According to Kuntaka, sahokti means, two meanings are expressing at the same time by a single sentence to enrich the beauty of the described subject.

Kuntaka cites the incident of Rama’s killing of a śūdra sage named Śaṃbūka for explaining his sahokti and it is given below.

he hasta dakṣiṇa mṛtasya śiśordvijasya jīvātave visṛja śudramunau kṛpāṇam/
rāmasya pāṇirasi nirbharagarbhakhinna devīvivāsanapaṭoḥ karuṇā kutaste//^[11]

“O my right hand, to bring back to life. The dead child of a pious Brahmin, let fall thy sword on the śūdra sage! Indeed thou art Rāma’s hand, one who banished even his innocent queen, in a sad state of advanced pregnancy. How can there be any pity in thee?”

For explaining sahokti, Kuntaka quotes a beautiful verse from Uttararāmacarita of Bhavabhūti, here the poet incorporates two meanings simultaneously in a same sentence very brilliantly. The first idea conveyed here is that it is the hand of Rāma who very cruelly banished his pregnant wife without any mercy. So it is proper for Rāma to be merciless once again to kill the śūdra sage, though it is undeserving, in order to protect the dead child of a Brahmin. The second idea of this verse is, if the hand of Rāma is reluctant to kill the śūdra sage thinking that he himself is kind and generous, it will never be acceptable because it is the hand of such Rāma who has already proven his cruelty by banishing his innocent wife at the time of her advanced pregnancy. So the killing of the sage is an easier thing for Rāma and it will also never depreciate his quality. Here in both the meanings, the word Rāma possesses an unexplicable rūḍhivaicitryavakratā by enriching the sentiment of love-in-separation

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

ibid,p.275.

[2]:

ibid,p.569.

[3]:

ibid,p.252.

[4]:

ibid,p.545.

[5]:

Ramashankar Tripathi, Uttararāmacharita of Mahakavi Bhavabhuti, p. 386.

[6]:

M.R. Kale, The Uttararāmacarita of Bhavabhūti, p.56.

[7]:

K. Krishnamoorthy,op.cit,p.270.

[8]:

P.V Naganatha Sastry, Kāvyālaṅkāra of Bhāmaha, p.67.

[9]:

ibid, p.67.

[10]:

K. Krishnamoorthy, op.cit,p.227.

[11]:

idem.