Notes to Chapter 10: Wit and Linguistic Ambiguity
1) The alternative reading of the Nātya Shāstra (MK. XX.IV.106; KSS XXXV.57) prescribes the vidūshaka, instead of dvi-janma (‘twice-born’, esp. brahmin), to be dvi-jihva ‘double-tongued’ (cf. Bhat, p.63), which can only refer to his ‘crooked speech’ (vakrokti), ambiguous talk full of symbolic allusions. For vipra, see GOS XII.142, which does not only mean ‘brahmin’ but has the specific connotation Renou attributes to it. The Omkāra, which the brahmin Pāshupata sought to identify himself with and which likewise presides over the vipra-vidūshaka, is itself ‘supremely quivering,’ for the Pāshupata-Sūtra (= PS) V.26 defines it as: rshir vipro mahān eshah. Omkāra as “anirukta par excellence, because it says everything even though not enunciating anything distinct at all” (Renou, VSCV, p.73, IF) is the very symbol of the nonsensical speech of both the Pāshupata and the vidūshaka (not excluding the ritual stammering of the dīkshita) for it is neither silence nor structured coherent speech though it participates in the virtues of both (cf. Coomaraswamy, SP II, p.208). For vip = “la parole tremble,” cf. also Renou, PPHV, p.49. The spandana (feigned trembling of limbs PS III.13) obligatory for the Pāshupata ascetic is only the physical representation of intense but undifferentiated activity, i.e., neither activity nor fixed delimited activity that likewise defines the spanda of Kashmir Shaivism. The vidūshaka Gautama seems to do display it in Act IV of Mālavikāgnimitra. When he is supposedly bitten by a serpent (simsimāyanti, of his limbs). The Pāshupata aimed to betaken for an epileptic; for shamanistic parallels, see Eliade, Chamanisme, pp.37-41.
2)
Renou’s linking of the Rig-Vedic epithet of Rudra as ‘crooked poet’
(vankuh kavih) with on the one hand the brahmán-enigma conceived of as a shamanistic-type revelation
and on the other hand the
vakrokti
of the classical Sanskrit poets has been taken up by T.Y. Elizarenkova and V.N.
Toporov, Vedic Vanku, who
rally around Sāyana’s interpretation of the word vanku: ‘Sāyana’s
glosses are either
vakra- ‘crooked, curved, bent, tortuous, twisted, wry,
oblique’ (derived from the same root vañc- ‘to remove
crookedly’) or kutila
‘bent, crooked, curved, etc.; dishonest, fraudulent’.” (p.100). They conclude
with some observations that greatly contribute to our understanding of the
intimate bond between the vidūshaka and his ‘crooked
staff’ (kuṭilaka): “Many typological parallels can be
mentioned in connection with the idea ‘crooked’, ‘twisting’ as applied to the
poet-priest (…). It would suffice here to remember one of the most striking
examples. The name of the ancient Lithuanian poet-priests was either Krivis
Krivaitis or Krivis-krivaitis from the adjective krivas
‘crooked’ (…). The attribute of such a priest was crooked club
krivulis (it is worth mentioning that up to now in some places in
Lithuania there remains still a custom that peasants are called to a meeting by
a special herald with a stick krivulis)…. This motif, in
turn, leads us to the problem of the ‘indirect’ modus of the archaic poetical
speech of the ancient Indo-European poets, like the Old-Indian kavi
or the Latin vates” (ibid., p.104). Not only does this
explain the constant allusions, mostly by himself, to the vidūshaka’s being as crooked as his kuṭilaka
which he holds in his left
hand (Parikh, pp.31-33), but it also explains why the donor of the
kuṭilaka
had to be Brahmā (compare Kuiper, VV pp.145-46), for the latter is the mythical
projection of the brahmán-priest, bearer of the
bráhman-enigma. This “weapon of Brahmā wielded by the
vidūshaka” (Abhinavabhāratī I, p.27) is
possessed of that magical power invested in the bráhman-enigma,
and if its crookedness is also repeatedly equated to the ‘perversity’ of his own
heart, this is because the ultimate key to the bráhman is
hidden in the transgressive dimension (sato bandhum
asati niravindan; hence the ‘great brahmin’
mahābrāhmana), to which his ‘crooked’ speech often alludes. The sage
Ashtāvakra’s mastery of the cosmological enigmas, which enables him to defeat
Bandin in the riddle-contest (brahmodya), must likewise
be attributed to his congenital crookedness (he was ‘bent in eight’ places,
hence his name). Cursed to be crooked for speaking from his mother’s womb, it is
to this ‘perverse’ capacity that his prowess must be attributed. The total
appropriation of the bráhman
presupposes an embryonic regression to the prenatal condition (jāta-vidyā;
cf. Kuiper, “Cosmogony and Conception”) which, conversely, is facilitated by the
assimilation of the cosm(ogon)ic correlations constituting the
bráhman (cf. Mahābhārata, Sabhāparvan, 132-34,
GP ed., vol. I). These notations of ‘perversity’ expressed symbolically through
physical crookedness (the vidūshaka is also prescribed to
be hunch-backed
kubja or “funny-backboned” hāsyānuka-vibhūshita, and sometimes assumes such a posture in
the classical plays; cf. NS KM XXIV.106; KSS XXXV.57; BP p.289; Bhat p.48,
Parikh p.22) are also because the embryonic regression to the source of the
bráhman is conceived as a mode of transgression; hence the inauspicious
evil character of the dīkshita in Varuṇa’s realm (cf.
Kuiper, CC, Ancient Indian Cosmogony, p.116). One of the
clearest proofs of the transgressive function of the ‘non-Vedic’ (avaidika)
vidūshaka
is his constant profanations of his sacred thread either by putting it to
ridiculous uses or by his irreverent references to it. In Ratnāvalī
Act II, he swears by his sacred thread (satyam
shape brahma-sūtrena…) the blatant lie that the king and
himself had never seen Sāgarikā before. When the maid is inclined to believe
him, the queen Vāsavadattā chides her: “O simpleton (rjuke:
literally ‘straight’ as opposed to crooked)! This is indeed Vasantaka. You do
not know the crooked turns of speech (vakra-bhanitāni)
peculiar to him!” If this lie can attain the status of ‘twisted’ truth, it is
only through allusion to himself as the institutionalized transgressor of
brahmanical status invested in his sacred thread. Brahmins who had thoroughly
mastered the Veda and its inner meaning were legally not permitted—like madmen,
criminals and the king himself—to stand witness. Cf.
Vishnusmrti VIII.2, discussed by Dumézil,
Mitra-Varuṇa, p.217;
3) For the original equality and later opposition of rk and gāthā, see Paul Horsch, Die vedische Gāthā- und Shloka-Literatur (Bern, 1966), passim. Though both belonged to a common Indo-Iranian tradition of verbal esotericism and many Vedic enigmas connected with ritual were in the less hieratic form of gāthās (e.g., yajña-gāthās; Horsch p.250), in the later period gāthās were thrown out of the formal limits of the sacred and stood in symbolic opposition to the Vedic rks in the relation of profane/sacred, and as such were scrupulously distinguished and kept apart. In Ratnāvalī II, the vidūshaka mistakes Sā(ga)rikā’s gāthā (expressing love for the king) for a Vedic rk (…dāsyā-duhitā catur-vedī brāhmana iva rcah pathitum pravrttā); on which the king smilingly comments that only the vidūshaka, being the ‘great brahmin’ (mahābrāhmana), was conversant with this variety of rks. The suggestion seems to be that whereas the orthodox Vedic brahmin scrupulously maintains the distinction between the Vedic and the gāthā verses (because his knowledge of the former is primarily literal?), the mahābrāhmana is able to recognize the same meanings in the latter as conveyed by the former. In that case, the king’s perfectly just comment on the vidūshaka’s—who is a ‘non-Vedic’ (avaidika) Prākrit (vernacular) speaker, despite his claim to know the Veda (veda-vit)—special proficiency could only have been presented in ridiculous (hāsya) aspect as an ironical comment on the latter’s stupidity (dosha). We shall take up this example again as an illustration of the vīthyanga called mrdavam and of the sandhyanga called narmadyuti. It would seem that whereas the brahmins charged with conserving the texts and formal traditions of the Vedas were obliged to seal them off from all foreign contamination, the classical poets drew their creative inspiration freely from their profound understanding of these same traditions and transposed them according to their genius into the profanized and even popular forms of art, reproducing the ancient motifs even in the vernacular. (Compare Dumézil’s opposition between the conserving function of the brahmins under Mitra and the creative license of the Gandharvas under Varuṇa).
4)
Louis Renou,
Religions of Ancient India (RAI), p. 10.
Cf. also Renou, JM, pp.33, 34; Enigma pp.14-15. "This, then, is the origin of
Vedic esotericism, which .... is linked with the esotericism of later
5) The vidūshaka himself seems to be aware of the non-cerebral source of his inspiration; cf. Cārāyana’s boast of having, as a fool (mūrkha), access to knowledge hidden in the ‘root’ (mūla – also ‘radish’) whereas the more cerebral pandits, unable to reach the mūla, are deceived by fanciful considerations (Viddhashālabhañjikā by Rājashekhara, Bhat p.270). That other ‘lover of sweetmeats’ (modaka-priya), Ganesha, is also not only stationed at the ‘root-foundation’ (mūlādhāra), the ‘physiological’ center (cakra) “where psychic components of a lower, say phylogenetic, stratum may be localized” (Kuiper, CC in AIC, p.125), but specially associated with the radish (mūla-kanda) in iconography, the latter being synonymous with mūlādhāra in Tantric parlance. Rājashekhara’s familiarity with Tantric, especially Kaula, doctrine is clearly attested in his Karpūramañjarī. For the continuity between Vedic cosmogony and Tantric mystic physiology, see likewise Kuiper, CC, pp.123-30.
6)
The syllable
7) See V. Raghavan’s paper on Vrttis and on the Dasharūpaka in the Journal of Oriental Research (JOR), vol. VI (pp.346-70) and vol. VII (pp.277-290) where he has “explained the history, nature and development of the type of Rūpaka called Vīthī and its thirteen aspects called Vīthyangas” on the basis of the Nātya Shāstra (Raghavan, SP p.572).
8) Of the two Vīthīs from which Bhoja draws illustrations of the three vīthyangas called udghātyaka, nālikā and trigata (see definitions in this chapter), Mālatikā is “a light love-comedy, a miniature Nātikā with features of a Prahasana grafted on to it” (Raghavan, SP p.874) and, like the former, Indulekhā also is “a light love-comedy featuring a king, his companion Vidūshaka and a lady who is the object of the king’s love” (loc. cit.). Though it is significant that the vidūshaka features in both, the presence of a third female character and the Prakrit dialogue do not conform to the requirements of the original vīthī as part of the verbal style restricted to at most two male characters speaking Sanskrit and without women.
9) The four sub-divisions of the ‘verbal’ (bhāratī) style are the prarocanā, āmukha, vīthī and prahasana (Nātya Shāstra GOS XX.27). Abhinava’s comment seems to imply that, as modes of the verbal style, the vīthī and the prahasana do not refer to particular forms of drama (but to the instances of “crooked speech” and farcical elements introduced into any play) and, as forms of drama, they are especially characterized by the verbal style, though not exhausted by it. [Sanskrit text]?????
10) [text]
11) [Sanskrit text]
12) [text]
13) Compare Raghavan, SP p.557. It is not clear to me on what basis, Raghavan insists that the monologue form the vīthī is definitively earlier than the dialogue form, especially when several of the vīthyangas refer explicitly or implicitly to a context of dispute (vivāda). “The original and earlier Vīthī, or the more common Vīthī, was Ekahāryā” (enacted by a single actor; loc. cit.). Though it could have taken on, like the Bhāna (monologue play), a narrative form, an analysis of the vīthyangas would indicate rather that its defining feature is the exploitation of polysemy, symbolic allusions and all the riddle mechanisms. It is because even ‘narrative’ (kathā) literature (and the epic, see below for an example of avalagita from the Mahābhārata) is teeming with such intricate devices, that the commentators have been able to draw examples of the vīthyangas from kathā. “It is but natural that the vīthyangas, like the sandhyangas and the rest, should form aspects of any course of events, be they in drama or narrative. Says, Abhinavagupta: vīthyangānām ca sarvatra sambhavah” (Raghavan, SP p.573).
14) [text]
15) [Sanskrit text]
16) [Sanskrit text]
17) “A second trait of the kāvya,
and which is developed thanks to the very facilities offered by the
shlesha: often the sentences, the verses (in the versified works) propose
to the reader an enigma, leaving him the trouble of divining it—unless (as it
often happens) the key to it is provided by the immediate context…. Natural
polysemy, tendency towards the enigma, have they been exploited in ancient
18) [Sanskrit text]
19) [Sanskrit text]
20) text
21) [Sanskrit text]
22) For this equivalence and that between an ‘omnivorous appetite’ (sarva-bhakshakatva, characterizing the vidūshaka as Agni) and incest (or sexual transgression), see chap. ???, note ???: citations from Lévi-Strauss. The vidūshaka is constantly making sexual innuendos in terms of food, especially his modakas. We give only some examples in passing. In Avimāraka, when the maid attempts to lure away the fool from the presence of the hero and heroine intent on love-making, he agrees to do so only if she promises him food. She then hands over all her ornaments and declares: “you have now become virtually a lover to me,” and drags him off the stage (Parikh, pp.36-37; Bhat, p.208). To Avimāraka wholly engrossed in his infatuation with the heroine, he says: “You appear to be brooding over the same thoughts, day and night, like a Brahmin duped by an invitation to dinner” and compares his own food-deception to that of a sex-starved harlot (….āmantrana-vipralabha iva brāhmanah…/ aham api … alabdha-bhogā prākrta-ganikeva; cf. Bhat, p.207). When the lovelorn heroine weeps, he attributes it to her “hunger” and urges to “hurry up with the food” insisting that he will be the first to sit at the table (Bhat pp.207, 208: kim etena bubhukshitāyā rudantyā…gaccha shīghram bhojanam ānaya / aham agrāsanīyo bhavāmi). The maid chides this perverse brahmin’s obsession wit food (durbrāhmana! Etad api bhojanam cintayasi) and Bhat rightly observes that “Nalinikā may think that the joke is inopportune; but it reveals the true Brāhmana, no doubt” (p.207). When Avimāraka proposes to lead him into the harem in Act IV (p.160), he thinks that his companion has suddenly become “hungry” (samprati bubhukshito’si) at which he is chided as a “fool” (vaidheya). When king Dushyanta turns to his vidūshaka in Abhijñāna-Shākuntalam Act II, for consolation and advice in his consuming passion for the heroine, he replies: “What, in gobbling sweets (modaka)? Bless the moment!” (Bhat p.157: kim modaka-khādikāyām? / tena hy ayam sugrhītah kshanah). In the play Vikramorvashīyam itself he makes repeated equations of love with eating (cf. Bhat, p.223) and the examples could be easily multiplied.
That the humor (hāsya) with which such assimilations are accompanied in the plays is not the primary motivation can be inferred from the exploitation of the same motif not only in Ganesha but even in such mythic episodes as Agni appearing as a gluttonous brahmin (brāhmano bahu-bhoktāsmi) to consume the Khāndava forest (= modaka) in the Mahābhārata. The present example is funny only if the vidūshaka’s (alimentary) term of comparison is felt to be incongruous but in that case the requirement of the definition would not be fulfilled, for there would be no equivalence and a hidden significance based on it. Moreover, the king could hardly be said to have “clarified” the meaning of “love” to the fool. That an esoteric assimilation of sexual appetite to eating is really intended is confirmed from other numerous instances, like those cited above, from the plays themselves. We have in our example a clear instance of an esoteric equivalence that, in the context of the drama, is presentable only under the semblance of hāsya (hāsyābhāsa). Cf. Shāradātanaya, Bhāvaprakāshana, p.230, lines 15-16 (cited by Raghavan, SP p.873):
Atha vikramorvashīye rājño vidūshakasya samlāpe / kāma-padārtha-prashnād gūdhārtho lakshyate nitarām //
“…a hidden significance is eminently present.”
23) Thus, of Gārgī’s interrogation of Yājñavalkya ad Brhadāranyakopanishad III.8, Renou observes that “she poses then two questions of which the second is a function of the answer given to the first” (NB, p.113). Of the less rudimentary forms of the ‘enigma-contest’ (brahmodya) in the Brāhmana literature, Renou says: “One finds there an interrogator and the interrogated (in India, knowledge has always proceeded through the questionnaire); sometimes several actors enter the scene simultaneously or successively; it also comes about that the interrogator becomes the interrogated, that the answer changes into a trap and gives the impulsion, through a return-shock, to a questionnaire situated in a higher plane. It is no longer a game, it is a test, whose consequences are often redoubtable. The protagonist is not necessarily a priest, it could be a lay person, that is to say a prince, disposing of a rich domain. It is interesting to see laymen not only patronize these enigmas, but take part in them themselves, just as one will see very much later the kings and the patrons participate in the play with enigmas that take place among poets or scholars” (L’énigme, p.16). The generalization of the ritual enigma into the playful amusement of the prahelikās in a secularized atmosphere; the prahelikā is also one of the recognized elements of the vīthī (see below).
24) [Sanskrit text]
25) [Sanskrit text]
26) [Sanskrit text]
27) [text]
28) In the Rig-Veda, “every proposition is a palimpsest, to be read on two planes, one of direct expression, one of evocation. When the poet gives his instructions: ‘Fashion a vessel, harness the plough, send out the horses for foraging, sew the cuirass!’ he indeed means, certainly, to handle these formulas with their concrete value, or at least he lets it also be understood, but what matters first of all to him, is to describe through these images the putting into action of the ceremonial, the preparations of the sacrifice, as if it had to do with a warlike expedition or an agricultural work. He does not say ‘prepare the sacrifice like one makes a vessel, like one harnesses a plough!’, he does not suggest moreover that ‘vessel’ or ‘plough’ are metaphors for ‘sacrifice’; the two actions progress in parallel, the enigma resides in the very shadow that the words trace on each other” (L’énigme, p.13).
29) [Sanskrit text]
30) [Sanskrit text]
31) [Sanskrit text]
32) [Sanskrit text]
33) [Sanskrit text]
34) [Sanskrit text]
35) The verbal root valh- plays a typical role in the brahmodya: “Pravalhikā is the consecrated name of the ‘enigmatic’ verses of AV. XX 133, 1-6; likewise, the verbal expression pra-valh- signifies ‘vanquish through enigmas’: as Geldner says, we are in the very domain of the brahmodya” (Renou and Silburn, “Sur la notion de bráhman” = NB, p.94; IF pp.83-116). Renou and Silburn go so far as “to consider this root valh- to be the double—proper to a less hieratic state of language—of the root brah/barh- in the sense of ‘to speak through enigmas,’ which would account for bráhman and brahmán” (ibid., pp.94-95). They stress the prolongation of these sacred brahmodyas in the literary milieu of the later period in a diluted and fragmented form. “Important by its origins, the brahmodya is hardly less so by its consequences. We shall evoke here only secondarily the pravalhikās (prahelikā) and the prasnottaras in which the classical Poetics has taken delight—the weakening of a rite into a game…” (NB, p.112). Cf. L. Sternbach, IR, pp.34-35, 51, 82.
36)
Dandin,
Kāvyādarsha
III 96b-124. They have been briefly described by Sternbach, Indian Riddles, pp.34-35, 38-50.
M.C. Porcher has attempted an analysis of the various linguistic devices used in
these sixteen varieties in her contribution “On Prahelikā” to the Ludwig
Sternbach Commemoration Volume (
37)
In this respect,
cf. especially, the monograph of Jan de Vries, Die
Märchen von klugen Rätsellöserrn, Folklore Fellows
Communications no.73,
38)
This privileged
link between (ritual) clown and enigma is not specific to the
vidūshaka nor to
39) Krīdā-goshthī-vinodeshu taj-jñair ākīrna-mantrane / para-vyāmohane cāpi sopayogāh prahelikāh // Kāvyādarsha III.97. Cf. Sternbach, Indian Riddles, p.104; Yashodhara ad Kāmāsūtra 1.3.16. “Prahelikās were also used for testing poets as to their abilities and intelligence; according to some Prabandhas, and particularly the Prabandha-cintāmani, some poets were examined and had to prove their skill by solving riddles and/or completing verses left unfinished (samasya)” (Indian Riddles, p.104). Like Yashodhara, Bhoja too stresses the exploitation of prahelikās in poetic disputation (vāda: wit-contest) which may be compared to Welsford’s description of the Irish wit-combats between poets (see below, asat-pralāpa). “Prahelikā, Gūdhā and Prashnottara. These are the well-known riddles and puzzles of various kinds which are for entertainment in social gatherings and for contest with rivals” (Raghavan, SP p.360). See especially Raghavan’s section on Pravalhikā, SP pp.600-02, “Of the grammatical authorities that have discussed this root (valh), the Purushakāra throws valuable light on the meaning of the word Pravalhikā. It quotes Bahvrca Brāhmana where this word occurs, and on the authority of its commentator Govindasvāmin interprets Pravalhikā as a false expression with which one deceives another: pravahlya anrtam bhāshitvā” (SP p.602). If we restitute to the term anrta (‘falsehood’) its original ritual connotations which link it to the primordial (cosmogonic) chaos asat, it would not only explain the term asat-pralāpa (see next vīthyanga, number 5) but also explain its ‘confusion’ with the nālikās in the speech of the vidūshaka. The use of nālikās in the vāda-disputation of the ritual trigata reflecting the mythical opposition of Indra and Varuṇa reconciled by Brahmā (Kuiper, Varuṇa and Vidūshaka, passim) points to an adaptation of the brahmodya as a total phenomenon into a dramatic ritual with a pronounced comic element.
40) [Sanskrit text]
41) [Sanskrit text]
42) Bhat p.125. Kāvya-hāsyam tu vijñeyam asambaddha-prabhāshanaih // 140 // an-arthakair vikāraish ca tathā cāshlīla-bhāshanaih / Nātya Shāstra GOS XII. The reading vākya-hāsyam found in some manuscripts (Varuṇa and Vidūshaka, p.214, note 388) though not wrong is a dilution of the original ‘poetic humor’ (kāvya-hāsya). Use of terms like cheka (Monier-Williams Dictionary: chekokti “indirect speech, hint, double entendre; Viddhashālabhañjikā II.5”), cheda “irony, wit, repartee” (vacana-bhangi = vakrokti “crooked or indirect speech”) and uccheda “interruption, interference, cutting short” (reflex of the ganda of the pūrvaranga-trigata) as variants describing the vidūshaka’s utterances (cf. Kuiper, Varuṇa and Vidūshaka, pp.215, 216) confirm his ready wit (pratibhā) and belie Prof. Kuiper’s contention that the vidūshaka is no more than the fool (mūrkha) he is made out to be in the plays themselves (Varuṇa and Vidūshaka, p.225).
43) “The whole Vetālapañcavimshatikā is a collection of riddle stories. In the Jambhaladatta version (…) the stories are called kathā-prahelikas (…). In the Parishishtaparvan the word kūta-kathānaka was used, that meant the story was fictitious and unanswerable. In the Kathāsaritsāgara riddle-stories were simply called kathā-s” (Sternbachm Indian Riddles, p.33; cf. pp.30-32, 55: “Particularly the prahelikā-s occurred frequently in the whole kathā-literature and other literary works. Their aim was to ask the receiver of these riddles to guess, on the basis of an enigmatic description, the object meant.”). That some kind of systematic, though implicit, scheme of transposition was employed right from the Vedic enigma-hymns to the folk-tales passing through mythology, epic narrative and classical ‘poetry’ (kāvya) can be deduced from the commentaries on brahmodyash ca kathā found in Mānavadharmashāstra. “It is not certain whether the expression brahmodyash ca kathā used in Manu means riddles or stories from the Vedas. Medhātithi understand this expression as meaning either: stories told in the Vedas, such as the war between the gods and demons, that of the death of Vrtra, the doings of Saramā; or discourses in ordinary language, upon the meanings of mantras bearing upon Brahma; or riddles” (Sternbach, Indian Riddles, p.21 note 22).
44) [Sanskrit text]
45) [Sanskrit text]
For prashnottara-riddles, cf. L. Sternbach, Indian Riddles, pp.84-87, nos. 102-07. “The prashnottaras are closely connected with brahmodyas from where they seem to be derived. All riddles asking questions with or without replies contained in the verse, belong in principle to the prashnottara-riddles and, particularly, the antar-ālāpa and bahir-ālāpa riddles. Such poetical form i.e., questions and answers in stray verses, is very popular in Sanskrit literature, the best example being the Prashnottararatnamālikā, a famous non-canonical didactic poem consisting of brief questions and brief answers” (ibid., p.85, note 104). However, in their later form, according to Sternbach, they serve to illustrate rhetorical and other forms of speech (note 105), p.86, note 107.2). As the generic form of the prashnottara, there is no reason why vākkeli could not have been exploited to reintroduce the mechanisms of the brahmodya into an aesthetic and dramatic setting.
46) [Sanskrit text]
47) [Sanskrit text]
48) [Sanskrit text]
49) [Sanskrit text]
50) [Sanskrit text]
51)
Marcel Mauss,
The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in
Archaic Societies (with an introduction
by E.E. Evans-Pritchard;
52) [Sanskrit text]
53) [Sanskrit text]
54) Vishvasmād indra uttarah. Some have seen in this hymn a big, almost preposterous, joke whereas others emphasize the serious ritual motivation behind such hymns; cf. especially J. Gonda, The so-called secular, humorous and satirical hymns of the Rgveda, Orientalia Neerlandica, Leiden 1948 and, following him, I. Shekhar, SD pp.3-4.
55) Dosha-pracchādanārtham tu hāsyam narma-dyuti smrtam / Nātya Shāstra XIX.78. Though later theorists do not follow this definition, it is retained by the Nātyadarpana: doshāvrtau tu tad-dyutih / I.49. Cf. Mainkar, SS, pp.61-63. Taken together with Abhinava’s gloss on doshāh ad Nātya Shāstra GOS I, p.312 by “transgression of norms” (among other meanings), the regular exploitation of this formula would suggest that the ridiculous and the hāsya aspect of certain model-situations of the public Sanskrit drama is in reality meant to camouflage symbolic transgressions of socio-religious brahmanical norms.
56) Aho bhavantam mahābrāhmanam muktvā ko’nya evam-vidhānām rcām abhijñah which the ND explains: atra maukhya-dosham chādayitum yat vidūshakenocyate tad rājño hāsya-hetutvān narmadyuti /. Mainkar observes: “The ND follows Bharata but the illustration appears to convey an entirely different idea, the vidūshaka says something to conceal his folly and that gives rise to laughter. In all probability Bharata’s idea seems to be that a character laughs away his or her weakness; it is intentional and the character is conscious of its weakness” (SS p.62). It seems to us rather that it is the dramatist who camouflages the secret valorization of a defect by exaggerating its comic aspect, which he may further underline by the laughter of others or/and by the laughter of the transgressor himself. It is in fact the revelation and not the concealment of his ‘folly’ (maurkhya) that provokes our laughter, and what is really concealed is rather the subtle valorization (gunī-karana) of what appears to be the product of mere ignorance. Apart from the fact that this instance strikes us as an authentic example of narmadyuti interpreted (deliberately?) in superficial inauthentic terms, how could orthodox commentators have been expected to point out true instances of narmadyuti analyzed in such a way as to reveal the vidūshaka’s true role as the violator of a brahmanical taboos? Our interpretation of Vasantaka’s speech and gestures here should be considered in the light of Vāsavadattā’s comment on his ‘crooked speech’ (vakra-bhanitāni), completely missed by ‘straight’ (rjuka) folk (like ourselves?), a little further on in the same Act (cf. note 2 supra). What is significant for our thesis is that, of the only two sandhyangas defined in terms of hāsya, the first narma refers to the positive exploitation of hāsya (with strong ritual associations of the ‘joke-rite’) and the second narmadyuti refers to the negative function of hāsya to divert the focus of public attention away from violations of established norms that are given disguised valorization.
57) [Sanskrit text]
58) [Sanskrit text]
59) Anyonya-vākyādhikyoktih spardhayā’dhibalam bhavet / DR III.28a. This is especially brought out in Sylvain Lévi’s rendering: “exchange of provocative speech whose violence keeps increasing” (Le Théatre Indien, p.115, note 7: “échange de paroles provocantes dont la violence va toujours en croissant”). The complementarity still retained in Abhinava’s gloss ‘paraspara-prajñanopajīvana-balāt’ is completely ousted by the element of hostility and violence.
60)
For the
‘bragging,’ cf. especially
61) “The specious knowledge is that which stops at the literal meaning, the real knowledge is that which goes right till the implications. He who emerges the victor is the evamvid ‘he-who-knows-thus,’ he who ‘realizes’ (in every sense of the word) the energy accumulated in the Formula: energy which, precisely, emanates from the double meaning, the fundamental ambiguity, this property that the direct acceptations have of leaving the field open to implicit perspectives. He who has answered well is put in possession of what he knows; he will be ‘constructed’ (says one text) as is the Fire-Altar, that is to say the very object proposed by the enigma” (Renou, L’énigme, pp.17-18). Compare Abhinava adhibala-sambandhād, note 58 above. Cf. also Renou, on the bráhman as “connective energy compressed into enigmas” (NB, p.114).
62) [Sanskrit text]
63) [Sanskrit text]
64) [Sanskrit text]
65) [Sanskrit text]
66) [Sanskrit text]
67) [Sanskrit text]
68) [Sanskrit text]
69) This would account for the existence of both readings, “exalted” and “non-exalted,” which latter reading Kuiper has been unable to reconcile with his conception of the pūrvaranga-trigata as a serious (i.e., non-comic) ritual presenting exalted mythical personages (Varuṇa and Vidūshaka, pp.182-83, 192). The vīthyanga-trigata, especially the “non-exalted” variant, refers not to the pūrvaranga item of the same name but to its transposition in the play, where the ideal occasion for it would have been the prologue where all the vīthyangas are permissible. Abhinava ad GOS XX.30 interprets it to mean that whereas the ‘stage-manager’ (sutra-dhāra; originally the sthāpaka dressed as the sutradhāra?) must always be present, the other three (which includes the ‘actress’ natī) may participate separately or altogether or in various permutations. One of these combinations is the same as the pūrvaranga one, and if the sutradhāra (or sthāpaka) had now only a profane function (cf. Kuiper SS passim), their speech would have often been non-exalted. Prof. Biardeau has already suggested that the Nātya Shāstra should be approached rather as the brahmanical codification as it were ‘from above’ of the rich variety of living forms appealing to different kinds of audience, instead of a monolithic over-systematic structure (review of Varuṇa and Vidūshaka, p.297).
70)
For
this dialectic, also expressed as
sát,
ásat, sadasat
= upperworld, netherworld, third heaven, cf. Kuiper,
Ancient Indian Cosmogony, pp.19-20, 48-49, 53-54. An example of
such a transposition so as to constitute the basic structure of the play would
seem to be found in the Mudrārākshasa
where Candragupta’s claims to sovereignty, repeatedly thwarted by Rākshasa, are
firmly established by Cānakya. Ad Act III.15 Rākshasa compares himself to Karna,
Candragupta to Arjuna and Cānakya to Vishnu (Krshna); how his (Karna’s) attempt
to bring down Candragupta (Arjuna) has been turned to the latter’s advantage by
Cānakya (Vishnu).
71) [Sanskrit text]
72) [Sanskrit text]
73) [Sanskrit text]
74) [Sanskrit text]
[this concludes the Footnotes to chapter 10: “Wit and Linguistic Ambiguity”]