Note 137 — III DRAMATIC THEORY XIII THE THEORY OF THE DRAMATIC ART

The bourgeois comedy, Prakaraṇa,137 is a comedy of manners of a rank below royalty, which in the main follows the laws of construction of the Nāṭaka. The subject-matter is to be framed at his good pleasure by the poet. The hero should be a Brahmin, minister, or merchant, who has fallen on evil days and is seeking through difficulties to attain property, love, and the performance of duty, in which he at last succeeds. The heroine may be of three types, a lady of good family, as in the lost Puṣpadūṣita (°bhūṣita); a hetaera as in the lost Taran̄gadatta; or a lady of good family may share the honours with a hetaera, with whom, however, she may not come in contact, as in the Cārudatta and the Mṛcchakaṭikā. The drama offers an appropriate place for slaves, Viṭas, merchant chiefs, and rogues of various kinds. The erotic sentiment should dominate, though Dhanaṁjaya allows also the heroic, and the structure should include all five junctures. The number of acts should be as in the Nāṭaka, and the name be derived from the hero or heroine or both, as in the Mālatīmādhava and the Çāriputraprakaraṇa of Açvaghoṣa. It must, however, be noted that the Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa has but four acts, and the Mṛcchakaṭikā, unlike the Cārudatta, does not follow the rule as to name.