Note 30 — IV BHĀSA

The number of Bhāsa’s dramas, and the variety of their themes, indicate the activity and originality of his talent. Even the limitations imposed by the choice of epic subjects are often successfully surmounted. In the Rāma dramas only is there lacking any sign of his ability; the Abhiṣekanāṭaka is a somewhat dreary summary of the corresponding books (IV–VI) of the Rāmāyaṇa, nor is the Pratimānāṭaka substantially superior. The variations are in the main few and unimportant; the two struggles between Sugrīva and Vālin are condensed into one, which leaves the treacherous slaying of Vālin without shadow of excuse, and casts a blemish on Rāma’s character which later dramatists avoid. The pathetic scene of the epic in which Tārā, his wife, laments Vālin’s death is omitted, Vālin forbidding any woman to gaze on him in his fall. The two efforts of Rāvaṇa to deceive Sītā, first by showing her Rāma’s head, and later Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa bound and seemingly dead, are reduced to one, the showing of the heads of both, and Sītā’s constancy is made inhuman by denying her the comfort of a consoler. To secure a happy ending, Agni is made to vindicate Sītā by the test of fire, and to hand her over to Rāma as Lakṣmī and his fit mate. The characters remain stereotyped and dull; Rāvaṇa is nothing more than a miles gloriosus, if not comic, and Lakṣmaṇa cuts a very poor figure.30