2025-12-29 09:59:43 by ambuda-bot
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ii
The history of Sanskrit drama offers nowhere such
fertile ground for romantic speculations as in this group of
thirteen anonymous dramas which the late Pandit Ganapati
Sastri of Trivandrum attributed to the great poet Bhāsa
on the strength of certain facts which, however, are fast
failing him. It was in the nature of things, that in the
first sensation of this discovery, so fraught with the most
wide-reaching results for the history of the drama, it should
have been hailed by a chorus of applause to which both East
and West joined their voices. If, however, there was an un-
reasoned and uncritical haste in propounding and support-
ing the theory, there was also not lacking the nerve and the
animus of a hot controversy in the arguments urged against
the theory by those who declared these dramas to be the
work of the later play-wrights of Kerala. Thus, if the
supporters of the hypothesis could not advance a single argu-
ment that may be regarded as conclusive, the evidence on
the other side too is mainly negative in character and fails
equally to produce conviction. The problem, even after
many years of heated controversy, appears to be much more
complex than was generally supposed and is as far from a
satisfactory solution as ever.
The views expressed on the problem fall into three
distinct schools, (i) those that have lent their whole-hearted
support to the hypothesis, (ii) those that have opposed the
hypothesis (iii) and those that have found a via media and
have held that the contention of the opposing sides is based
upon partial truths, and that in a sense these plays are Bhāsa
plays and in a sense they are not. Here is a brief résumé of
the principal arguments advanced in support of their thesis
by these different schools of opinion upon the subject.
Although the name of Bhāsa is nowhere mentioned in
the manuscripts, neither in the body of the texts nor in the
The history of Sanskrit drama offers nowhere such
fertile ground for romantic speculations as in this group of
thirteen anonymous dramas which the late Pandit Ganapati
Sastri of Trivandrum attributed to the great poet Bhāsa
on the strength of certain facts which, however, are fast
failing him. It was in the nature of things, that in the
first sensation of this discovery, so fraught with the most
wide-reaching results for the history of the drama, it should
have been hailed by a chorus of applause to which both East
and West joined their voices. If, however, there was an un-
reasoned and uncritical haste in propounding and support-
ing the theory, there was also not lacking the nerve and the
animus of a hot controversy in the arguments urged against
the theory by those who declared these dramas to be the
work of the later play-wrights of Kerala. Thus, if the
supporters of the hypothesis could not advance a single argu-
ment that may be regarded as conclusive, the evidence on
the other side too is mainly negative in character and fails
equally to produce conviction. The problem, even after
many years of heated controversy, appears to be much more
complex than was generally supposed and is as far from a
satisfactory solution as ever.
The views expressed on the problem fall into three
distinct schools, (i) those that have lent their whole-hearted
support to the hypothesis, (ii) those that have opposed the
hypothesis (iii) and those that have found a via media and
have held that the contention of the opposing sides is based
upon partial truths, and that in a sense these plays are Bhāsa
plays and in a sense they are not. Here is a brief résumé of
the principal arguments advanced in support of their thesis
by these different schools of opinion upon the subject.
Although the name of Bhāsa is nowhere mentioned in
the manuscripts, neither in the body of the texts nor in the