Note 18 — VIII BHAVABHŪTI

Bhavabhūti in fact proclaims here as his own merit richness and elevation of expression (prauḍhatvam udāratā ca vacasām) and depth of meaning, and we must admit that he has no small grounds for his claims. The depth of thought and grandeur which can be admitted in the case of Bhavabhūti must be measured by Indian standards, and be understood subject to the grave limitations which are imposed on any Brahmanical speculation as to existence by the orthodoxy which is as apparent in Bhavabhūti as it is in the lighter-hearted Kālidāsa. When, therefore, we are told18 that ‘with reference to Kālidāsa he holds a position such as Aeschylus holds with reference to Euripides’, we must not take too seriously the comparison. No poet, in fact, suggests less readily comparison with Euripides than does Kālidāsa. He has nothing whatever of the questioning mind of the Greek dramatist, contemporary of the Sophists, and eager inquirer into the validity of all established conventions. In style again he aims at a level of perfection of achievement, which was neither sought nor attained by Euripides. Unquestionably, if any parallel were worth making, Kālidāsa would fall to be ranked as the Sophokles of the Indian drama, for as far as any Indian poet could, ‘he saw life steadily and saw it whole’, and was free from the vain questionings which vexed the soul of Euripides. Bhavabhūti again cannot seriously be compared with Aischylos, for he accepted without question the Brahmanical conceptions of world order, unlike the great Athenian who sought to interpret for himself the fundamental facts of existence, and who found for them no solution in popular belief or traditional religion. There can, moreover, be no greater contrast in style than that between the simple strength of Aischylos, despite his power of brilliant imagery,19 and the over-elaboration and exaggeration of Bhavabhūti. The distinction between Kālidāsa and his successor is of a different kind. Both accepted the traditional order, but Kālidāsa, enjoying, we may feel assured, a full measure of prosperity in the golden age of India under the Gupta empire, viewed with a determined optimism all that passed before him in life, in strange contrast to the bitterness of the denunciations of existence which Buddhism, then losing ground, has set forth as its contribution to the problems of life. Bhavabhūti, on his part, recognized with a truer insight, sharpened perhaps by the obvious inferiority of his fortunes and failure to enjoy substantial royal favour, the difficulties and sorrows of life; his theme is not the joys of a pleasure-loving great king or the vicissitudes of a Purūravas, too distant from humanity to touch our own life, but the bitter woes of Rāma and Sītā, who have for us the reality of manhood and womanhood, as many a touch reminds us:20