4. Characterization of the Tilakamanjari (Introduction)

As has been clearly pointed out by Kobald Knight, in order to make a reader believe the characters to be real, live human beings, it is essential that all characters should be endowed with seperate and distinct individualities, as men and women are in actual life. Characterization is not 45. Gui.Fict.Wr., pp.97-101.

902 solely achieved by a description of the characters, thoughts or through the dialogues. His action, and its consistency with what he thinks and says, are factors as important as any. Without real characters no story will "get across". Characterization in Sanskrit prose-romances occupies only a secondary position, superseded as it is by the elaborate descriptions and episodes. Consistent development and deep analysis of a character has no great scope in the frame work of Sanskrit prose-romances of Subandhu and Bana and Dhanapala could not be an exception to this inherited tendency of Sanskrit Novel as it obtained in his days. Even then, of the fifty-two male characters and twenty- -six female ones in the Tilakamanjari of Dhanapala, about twelve male■ ■ ones and an equal mumber of female ones are endowed more or less with life and distict personality, and represent a variety of human traits. The rest of them are rather shadows, as they are mentioned but once or twice in the course of the narration or do not play a vital part in the story. A complete list of all the characters in the Tilakamanjari of Dhanapala is attached as Appendix P.