‘MĀLATĪ AND MĀDHAVA’ OR ‘THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE’
The author of the play whose story is narrated below is Bhavabhuti who stands next onlv to Kalidasa in point of eminence among Sanskrit poets. He is one of the few old Indian writers about whose personal history something definite is known. He was born in the early part of the 8th century a.d. and passed, though a native of Vidarbha, the longer part of his literary life at the court of Yasovarman, king of Kanouj. Besides being a poet, he was also a great scholar learned in the Veda and the 3astras. We know this from the stanzas prefixed by him to his dramas and it is borne out by the fact discovered in recent years that he was a pupil of Kumarila, the renowned mlmamsaka. Unlike Kalidasa who excelled in nearly all forms of the poetic art, Bhavabhuti appears only as a dramatist. There are three plays to his credit. Two of them — the Mahdviracarita and the Uttara- ramacarita — give us a dramatized version of the Rdmayana . The latter which, as its name signifies, relates to the later life of Rama, has for long been held in high estimation by critics, some of them enthusiastically claiming for it a higher place than the Sakuntala of Kalidasa. Whether such a claim can be justified or not, the play is undoubtedly a masterpiece of Indian literature. The plot of the third play — Mdlati-madhava — is the invention of the poet. It has been described as ‘an Indian Romeo and Juliet' with a happy ending. Its main theme is that there is always in true love an element of mystery which shapes its ends rough-hew them how we may. Bhavabhuti writes in a chaste and elevated style and achieves distinction both in the construction of plot and in the development of character. His particular appeal like that of Kalidasa is in the faithful manner in which he interprets the spirit of Hindu life in some of its essential characteristics — such for example as its simplicity, its devotedness and its gentleness combined with a readiness for self-sacrifice of the most austere type in the cause of what it holds to be right.
