Note 72 — XI THE DECLINE OF THE SANSKRIT DRAMA

We have no other play of which we can say with even the slightest plausibility that it was a real shadow-drama. There are three works by Vyāsa Çrīrāmadeva from the fifteenth century, his patrons being Kalacuri princes of Raypur. The first, the Subhadrāpariṇayana, produced under Brahmadeva or Haribrahmadeva, deals with the threadworn topic of the winning of Arjuna’s bride; the second, the Rāmābhyudaya appeared under the Mahārāṇa Meru, and deals with the conquest of Lan̄kā, the fire ordeal of Sītā, and the return to Ayodhyā; the third, the Pāṇḍavābhyudaya, written under Raṇamalladeva, describes in two Acts Draupadī’s birth and marriage. But that these were really shadow-dramas is not indicated by anything save the title, for they resemble ordinary dramas in all other respects. The Sāvitrīcarita of Çan̄karalāla, son of Maheçvara, calls itself a Chāyānāṭaka, but the work, written in 1882, is an ordinary drama, and Lüders72 is doubtless right in recognizing that these are not shadow dramas at all. On the other hand, he adds to the list the Haridūta, which tells the story given in the Dūtavākya of Bhāsa of the mission of Kṛṣṇa to the Pāṇḍavas’ enemies to seek to attain peace. This drama, however, does not describe itself as a Chāyānāṭaka, and the argument is, accordingly, without value. But what is most significant, there is no allusion to this sort of drama in the theory which suggests that its introduction was decidedly late.