{"id":2434,"date":"2013-07-13T01:41:35","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=2434"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:41:35","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:41:35","slug":"23-kalidasa-hindu-drama-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/03-cwsa\/01-early-cultural-writings\/23-kalidasa-hindu-drama-vol-01-early-cultural-writings","title":{"rendered":"-23_Kalidasa – Hindu Drama.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Hindu Drama
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The origin of the Sanscrit drama, like the origin of all Hindu
\narts and sciences, is lost in the silence of antiquity; and there one
\nmight be content to leave it. But European scholarship abhors a
\nvacuum, even where Nature allows it; confronted with a void in
\nits knowledge, it is always ready to fill it up with a conjecture and
\nthis habit of mind while it has led to many interesting discoveries, has also fostered a spirit of fantasy and dogmatism in fantasy,
\nwhich is prejudicial to sane and sober thinking. Especially in the field of Sanscrit learning this spirit has found an exceptionally
\nfavourable arena for the exercise of its ingenuity; for here there is no great body of general culture and well-informed lay opinion to check the extravagances to which a specialised knowledge is
\nalways prone. Undaunted therefore by the utter silence of history on the question, European scholars have set about filling up the
\nvoid with theories which we are asked or rather bidden to accept
\nnot as ingenious scholastic playthings, but as serious solutions
\nbased upon logical and scientific deduction from convincing
\ninternal evidence. It is necessary for reasons I shall presently
\ntouch on to cast a cursory glance at the most important of these
\nattempts. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The first thought that would naturally suggest itself to an
\naverage European mind in search of an origin for Hindu drama is a Greek parentage. The one great body of original drama
\nprior to the Hindu is the Greek; from Greece Europe derives
\nthe beginnings of her civilization in almost all its parts; and
\nespecially in poetry, art and
\nphilosophy. And there was the alluring fact that Alexander of Macedon had entered India and
\nthe Bactrians established a kingdom on the banks of the Indus
\nbefore the time of the earliest
\nextant Hindu play. To the European mind the temptation to build upon this coincidence a
\ntheory was irresistible, more especially as it has always been<\/span><\/p>\n

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incurably loath to believe that the Asiatic genius can be original or vigorously creative outside the sphere of religion. In obedience to this [incomplete<\/i>] <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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Deftness
\n& strength in dialogue, masterly workmanship in plot-making & dramatic situation and vital force of dramatic poetry
\nare enough in themselves to make a fine and effective poetical
\nplay for the stage, but for a really great drama a farther & rarer
\ngift is needed, the gift of dramatic characterisation. This power bases itself in its different degrees sometimes on great experience of human life, sometimes on a keen power of observation
\nand accurate imagination making much matter out of a small
\ncircle of experience but in its richest possessors on a boundless
\nsympathy with all kinds of humanity accompanied by a power of imbibing and afterwards of selecting & bringing out from
\noneself at will impressions received from others. This supreme
\npower, European scholars agree, is wanting in Hindu dramatic
\nliterature. A mere poet like Goethe may extend unstinted &
\neven superlative praise to a Shacountala but the wiser critical & scholarly mind passes a far less favourable verdict; there is
\nmuch art in Hindu poetry, it is said, but no genius; there is
\nplenty of fancy but no imagination; beautiful and even moving
\npoetry is abundant, but the characters are nil; the colouring is
\nrich but colour is all. Indian scholars trained in our schools to repeat what they have learnt do not hesitate to add their
\nvoice to the chorus. A Hindu scholar of acute diligence and
\nwide Sanscrit learning has even argued that the Hindu mind is constitutionally incapable of original & living creation; he has alleged the gigantic, living and vigorous personalities of
\nthe Mahabharat as an argument to prove that these characters
\nmust have been real men and women, copied from the life;
\nsince no Hindu poet could have created character with such
\ntruth and power. On the other side the Bengali critics, men of no mean literary taste and perception though inferior in pure verbal
\nscholarship, are agreed in regarding the characters of Kalidasa
\nand Bhavabhuti as beautiful and energetic creations, not less
\ndeserving of study than the personalities of Elizabethan drama.  <\/span> <\/p>\n

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This contradiction, violent as it is, is not difficult to understand,
\nsince it takes its root in an element always more or less present in criticism, the national element. National character, national
\nprejudices, national training preordain for the bulk of us the
\nspirit in which we shall approach unfamiliar poetry. Now the
\naverage English mind is capable of appreciating character as
\nmanifested in strong action or powerfully revealing speech, but
\nconstitutionally dull to the subtleties of civilized character which
\nhave their theatre in the mind and the heart and make of a slight
\nword, a gesture or even silence their sufficient revelation. The
\nnations of Europe, taken in the mass, are still semicivilized; their
\nmind feeds on the physical, external and grossly salient features of life; where there is no brilliance & glare, they are apt to
\ncondemn the personality as characterless. A strength that shuns
\nostentation, a charm that is not luxuriant, not naked to the first
\nglance, are appreciable only to the few select minds who have
\nchastened their natural leanings by a wide and deep culture.
\nThe Hindu on his side distastes violence in action, excess in
\nspeech, ostentation or effusiveness in manner; he demands from
\nhis ideal temperance
\n<\/span><\/p>\n


\nमिताचारः<\/font>
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and
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\nमितभाषी<\/font>
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restraint as well as nobility, truth and beneficence; the Aryan or true gentleman must be
\nand , restrained in action and temperate in speech.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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This national tendency shows itself
\neven in our most vehement work. The Mahabharat is that section of our literature
\nwhich deals most with the external and physical and corresponds
\nbest to the European idea of the epic; yet the intellectualism of
\neven the Mahabharat, its preference of mind-issues to physical
\nand emotional collisions and
\ncatastrophes, its continual suffusion of these when they occur with mind and ideality, the
\ncivilisation, depth and lack of mere sensational turbulence, in
\none word the Aryan cast of its
\ncharacters, are irritating to European scholars. Thus a historian of Indian literature complains
\nthat Bhema is the one really epic character in this poem. He
\nmeant, evidently, the one character in which vast and irresistible
\nstrength, ungovernable impetuousness of passion, warlike fury & destroying anger are grandiosely displayed. But to the Hindu,
\nwhose ideas of epic are not coloured with the wrath of Achilles,   <\/span><\/p>\n

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epic motive and character are not confined to what is impetuous,
\nhuge and untamed; he demands a larger field for the epic and does not confine it to savage and half savage epochs. Gentleness,
\npatience, self-sacrifice, purity, the civilized virtues, appear to
\nhim as capable of epic treatment as martial fire, brute strength,
\nrevenge, anger, hate and ungovernable self-will. Rama mildly
\nand purely renouncing the empire of the world for the sake of
\nhis father’s honour seems to them as epic & mighty a figure as Bhema destroying Kechaka in his wild fury of triumphant
\nstrength and hatred. It is
\nnoteworthy that the European temperament finds vice more interesting than virtue, and in its heart of
\nhearts damns the Christian qualities with faint praise as negative,
\nnot positive virtues; the difficulty European writers experience in making good men sympathetic is a commonplace of literary
\nobservation. In all these respects
\nthe Hindu attitude is diametrically opposed to the European. This attitude of the Hindu mind as evinced in the Mahabharata is so intolerable to European
\nscholars that they have been forced to ease their irritation by
\nconjuring up the phantom of an original ballad-epic more like
\ntheir notions of what an epic should be, an epic in which the
\nwicked characters of the present Mahabharata were the heroes
\nand the divine champions of right
\nof the present Mahabharata were the villains! The present Mahabharata is, they say, a sanctimonious monastic corruption of the old vigorous and
\nhalf-savage poem. To the Hindu the theory naturally seems a
\ngrotesque perversion of ingenuity but its very grotesqueness is
\neloquent of the soil it springs from, the soil of the half barbarous
\ntemperament of the martial & industrial Teuton which cannot,
\neven when civilised, entirely sympathise with the intellectual
\nworking of more radically civilised
\ntypes. This fundamental difference of outlook on character, generating difference in critical
\nappreciation of dramatic and epic characterisation is of general
\napplication, but it acquires a peculiar force when we come to
\nconsider the Hindu drama; for here the ingrained disparity is
\nemphasized by external conditions. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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It has been pointed out, perhaps too often, that the Hindu
\ndrama presents some remarkable points of contact with the   <\/span><\/p>\n

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\n

\n

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Elizabethan. In the mixture of prose and poetry, in the complete
\nfreedom with which time & scene vary, in the romantic lifelikeness of the action, in the mixture of comedy with serious matter, in the gorgeousness of the poetry and the direct appeal to the
\nfeelings, both these great literatures closely resemble each other.
\nYet the differences, though they do not strike us so readily as the
\nsimilarities, are yet more vital and go deeper; for the similarities
\nare of form, the differences of spirit. The Elizabethan drama was a great popular literature which aimed at a vigorous and realistic
\npresentation of life and character such as would please a mixed
\nand not very critical audience; it had therefore the strength and
\nweakness of great popular
\nliterature; its strength was an abounding vigour in passion & action, and an unequalled grasp upon
\nlife; its weakness a crude violence, imperfection and bungling in workmanship combined with a tendency to exaggerations,
\nhorrors & monstrosities. The Hindu drama, on the contrary, was written by men of accomplished culture for an educated,
\noften a courtly audience and with an eye to an elaborate and
\nwell-understood system of poetics.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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The vital law governing Hindu poetics is that it does not seek to represent life and character primarily or for their own
\nsake; its aim is fundamentally
\naesthetic, by the delicate & harmonious rendering of passion to awaken the aesthetic sense of
\nthe onlooker and gratify it by
\nmoving or subtly observed pictures of human feeling; it did not attempt to seize a man’s spirit by the hair and drag it out into a storm of horror & pity &
\nfear and return it to him drenched, beaten and shuddering. To
\nthe Hindu it would have seemed a savage and inhuman spirit
\nthat could take any aesthetic pleasure in the sufferings of an
\nOedipus or a Duchess of Malfi or in the tragedy of a Macbeth or an Othello. Partly this arose from the divine tenderness of
\nthe Hindu nature, always noble, forbearing & gentle and at that
\ntime saturated with the sweet & gracious pity & purity which flowed from the soul of Buddha; but it was also a necessary
\nresult of the principle that aesthetic & intellectual pleasure is the first object of all poetic art. Certainly poetry was regarded as a
\nforce for elevation as well as for charm, but as it reaches these   <\/span><\/p>\n

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objects through aesthetic beauty, aesthetic gratification must be the whole
\nbasis of dramatic composition; all other objects are superstructural. The Hindu
\nmind therefore shrank not only from violence, horror & physical tragedy, the
\nElizabethan stock-in-trade, but even from the tragic moral problems which
\nattracted the Greek mind; still less could it have consented to occupy itself
\nwith the problems of disease, neurosis and spiritual medicology generally which
\nare the staple of modern drama and fiction. An atmosphere of romantic beauty, a
\nhigh urbanity and a gracious equipoise of the feelings, a perpetual confidence
\nin the sunshine & the flowers, are the essential spirit of a Hindu play; pity
\nand terror are used to awaken the feelings, but not to lacerate them, and the
\ndrama must close on the note of joy and peace; the clouds are only admitted to
\nmake more beautiful the glad sunlight from which all came & into which all must
\nmelt away. It is in an art like this that the soul finds the repose, the
\nopportunity for being, confirmed in gentleness and in kindly culture, the
\nunmixed intellectual and aesthetic pleasure in quest of which it has turned away
\nfrom the crudeness & incoherence of life to the magic regions of Art. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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When therefore English scholars, fed on the exceedingly strong & often raw meat
\nof the Elizabethans, assert that there are no characters in the Hindu drama,
\nwhen they attribute this deficiency to the feebleness of inventive power which
\nleads "Asiatic" poetry to concentrate itself on glowing description and imagery,
\nseeking by excess of ornament to conceal poverty of substance, when even their
\nIndian pupils perverted from good taste and blinded to fine discrimination by a
\nlove of the striking & a habit of gross forms & pronounced colours due to the
\ntoo exclusive study of English poetry, repeat & re-enforce their criticisms, the
\nlover of Kalidasa & his peers need not be alarmed; he need not banish from his
\nimagination the gracious company with which it is peopled as a gilded & soulless
\nlist of names. For these dicta spring from prejudice and the echo of a
\nprejudice; they are evidence not of a more vigorous critical mind but of a
\nrestricted critical sympathy. Certainly if we expect a Beautiful White Devil or
\na Jew of Malta from the Hindu dramatist, we<\/span><\/p>\n

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shall be disappointed; he deals not in these splendid or horrible masks. If we come to him for a Lear or a Macbeth, we shall go
\naway discontented; for these also are sublimities which belong to cruder civilisations and more barbarous national types; in
\nworst crimes & deepest suffering as well as in happiness &
\nvirtue, the Aryan was more civilized & temperate, less crudely
\nenormous than the hard, earthy & material African peoples whom in Europe he only half moralised. If he seeks a P\u00e8re Goriot or a Madame Bovary, he will still fail in his quest; for though such types doubtless existed at all times among the mass of the people with its large strain of African blood, Hindu Art would
\nhave shrunk from poisoning the moral atmosphere of the soul by elaborate studies of depravity. The true spirit of criticism is to seek in a literature what we can find in it of great or beautiful,
\nnot to demand from it what it does not seek to give us.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hindu Drama   The origin of the Sanscrit drama, like the origin of all Hindu arts and sciences, is lost in the silence of antiquity;…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-early-cultural-writings","wpcat-49-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2434\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}