1917.] The Dramas of Bhasa : A literary study. 267 



tempered persons, lets him at once forget his hatred. He is 

 himself astonished at this sudden change of his feelings and 

 says : — 



How strange it is : at first when he was proud , 

 I hated him. But when they brought him here, 

 I could not find ill-feeling in my heart. 

 And since they told me of his sorry plight, 

 That he is wounded and his life in danger, 

 I feel the deepest sympathy for him. 



He repents his former hostility with great vehemence and 

 cannot do enough to make Udayana's fate easier. The finest 

 trait is his order that no mention of the unlucky fight should be 

 made in the presence of the prisoner. Throughout it was the 

 poet's aim to give us a psychological study not so much of a 

 king as of a gentleman. Mahasena is certainly one of the 

 liveliest and truest characters of Indian literature, lovable. 



simple and straight. 



" Yaugandharayana " is an essentially manly drama. 



There are only two feminine characters, the queen and a servant. 

 "Rnfli aro ^ iiffi^ i™™vrfono^ Ma.nlv imsHinna. manlv aims 



\ 



strive with each other. Even Udayana's romance is introduce I 



only as retarding moment. 



' - Vasa vadatta , the dream-apparition " is , on the other hand , 

 essentially feminine. Its subject is the self-sacrificing love of a 

 devoted wife. Vasa vadatta. Mahasena's daughter, ranks with 

 Savitri, Sita and Damayanti as an exalted expression of the 

 Indian ideal of a wife's devotion'. 



Udayana and Vasa vadatta have been married for some 

 time and their happiness is boundless. But the political 

 enemies of the King of Vatsa have no understanding for romance, 

 and one of them overruns the state. Udayana is compelled to 

 flee, and lives for some time in Lavan.ika, a frontier town. Th« 

 situation does not improve, and Udayana's ministers come to 

 the conclusion that without help from outside Vatsa would 

 cease to exist. The only hope is to win the support of the 

 strong power of Magadha. This can only be done if Udayana 

 marries the sister of King Darsaka. Pa d ma vat 1. But here 

 arises a difficulty. He cannot make the princess his first wite 

 because he is already married ; on the other hand, he cannot 

 ask the princess of Magadha to be his second wife. Of course 

 the author of this marriage-scheme is our friend Yaugandhara- 

 yana, He finds again a way out of the difficulty, it is a 

 cruel solution ; but when the interests of his state are at stake. 

 he does not spare anybody, least of all himself. Vasavadatta 

 must disappear for some time. She must disappear m a maimer 

 that Udayana believes her dead andean honestly ask Padma- 

 vati to be his wife. Vasavadatta is made to agree to this plan. 

 How, we do not know, as all this happens before our drama. 



