Plot Structure and the Development of Rasa in the Śakuntalā. Pt.

I
Author(s): Edwin Gerow
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 99, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1979), pp.
559-572
Published by: American Oriental Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/601446
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 PLOT STRUCTURE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF RASA

IN THE SAKUNTALA. PT. I

EDWIN GEROW

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

The Sakuntala is generally taken to be the finest example of a rasa drama in Classical Sanskrit
literature. Here the relation of plot-structure to rasa is explored, and an attempt is made to show that the
Indian theory of plot, often overlooked or regarded as a mechanical formula, is a carefully crafted
complement to the rasa theory, of great help in the interpretation of dramatic works.

IT HAS BECOME CONVENTIONAL to study Indian
aesthetics as a philosophical or psychological
problem. While it is generally recognized that the
aesthetic doctrine par excellence, the rasa, bears
peculiar and doubtless original relations with the
dramatic literature in Sanskrit, studies of this
emotional tone have tended to follow the line
established by Abhinavagupta and Bhatta Nayaka in
the 9th and 10th centuries, in emphasizing its
intuitive, cognitive and even transcendental (or
theological) character, instead of seeking to under-
stand it in and through the plays that articulate it.'
And again, although the very same early "poetic"
literature (the Natyaiastra of Bharata) provides us
with an elaborate analysis of dramatic plot-structure,
our modern critics have tended to dismiss it either as
artificial or self-evident,2 with the rather odd result
that no extant Sanskrit drama has to my knowledge
been shown to demonstrate or illustrate a plot as
crucial to the realization of drama's aesthetic effect
(its "rasa")!
On the other hand, the Sanskrit Drama is studied
almost exclusively in its historical or cultural
dimensions.3 It is remarkable that the great dramas of
the classical period: of Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti, Bhatta
Narayana, etc., have not been subjected to the kind of
stringent structural analysis, concentrated on the
drama's action, that our own critical tradition insists
upon. Indeed, steeped in an Aristotelian poetics that
postulates first of all the autonomy of the literary
product (creation) we might think it more likely that a
Western indologist would follow this line than his
Indian counterpart. It is probably our tendency to
equate the Indian drama as plot with dramatic forms
in our tradition that are not serious (melodrama, etc.)
that has inhibited what would otherwise be a normal
interest in plot as such. The inevitable historical bias
of modern Indology (Western and Indian) tends to be
satisfied with the discovery that plots, as such, are
rarely original, but are likely to be borrowed from
epical or Katha literature. Though most indologists
would probably deny the bald proposition, there
seems to be an unspoken agreement that what is so
clearly borrowed or adapted from other media cannot
be the key element in the drama's aesthetic
achievement.
And so, it is in effect not remarkable that plot
(despite the intricate traditional analysis) has been
undervalued in our discussions of Sanskrit drama; we
find, in fact, that dramas tend to be judged (insofar as
they are judged) not as dramas at all but as kavyas:
we find treatments of Kalidasa's imagery, the
delicacy of Harsa's style, the force of Bhavabhfiti's
depiction of character.4 The writers rarely distin-
guish between Kalidasa's natakas and his kavyas.5-
Mrcchakatika and Mudraraksasa are often discussed
in terms of their realism (an unexpected quality!) or
as versions of the narrative poetry of the Brhatkatha
of the late Gupta period.6 And there is a truth
embedded in this confusion of genres, for the
Sanskrit drama has been, for the past millennium at
least, a purely literary form.7 Drama, written without
hope or possibility of performance, is accepted as
kavya, stylistically variant. And it is the plot, in
Aristotle's words, the "imitation of actions," that
tends to characterize the drama among other poetic
forms-not in the sense that kavyas can have no plot
(though this is in effect true for the Indian exemplars)8
nor in the sense that poetic elements are not present
in the drama (one cannot abstract the language and
verse forms of the Sanskrit drama from its aesthetic
effect anymore than one can do the same in
Shakespeare). It is rather that, in written poetry, the
verbal arts acomplish the entire aesthetic purpose,
and have effectively substituted other means for the
properly representational domain of the drama
(spectacle, dance, characterization)-what we sum
up in the ironical term "acting." This paper hopes to
bridge the gap between these two kinds of treatment
of the drama, by showing in a dramatic work of art
the internal coherence of traditional dramatic theory,
and thereby to suggest an aesthetic insight into the

559

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560 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.4 (1979)
drama that is not dependent on a mere psychology.
Inevitably, the central question will be: how and for
what purpose is the drama constructed?
It is taken for granted that the consequences, and
also the purpose, of the Sanskrit drama (and every
extant Sanskrit drama) in performance is an
awakening of a rasa (latent emotional state) in the
spectators or audience. Much controversy surrounds
this process of awakening, extensively dealt with
both in tradition and in modern scholarship.9 Modern
interest has tended to focus on the psychological
fact, and to inquire into the relation between rasa
and other states of consciousness (taking its cue, no
doubt from Abhinava's interesting analogy between
the enjoyment that is rasa, released through the play,
and the enjoyment that is moksa, released through
the real [world]). The pre-Abhinavagupta critics,
however, whose writings often are not preserved
except as Abhinava and others have quoted or
characterized them, seem less interested in the
condition or state as such, and more in the question
of its coming-to-be or origin-taking their cue from
the enigmatic phrase in the Natyasastra, whereby the
rasa is said to "arise" (nispatti, as noun) from a
combination (samyoga) of various elements (vibhczva,
anubhova, vyabhicdribhdva are named), all of
which characterize, in a quite technical sense,
dimensions of the play as performed."0 Hence the
focus of this older stratum of criticism might be said
to be on the play itself, conceived as means (in what
precise sense, most controversial) suited (and thus
composed) to evoke a rasa.
I have written elsewhere on the character of the
experience that qualifies rasa as an aesthetic
concept. It is to the other half of the question that I
wish to turn here, the question of production'2 of the
rasa; and to do so in as neutral a way as possible-
taking no position on the psychological status of the
rasa, except that it is (as we have said) an emotional
result, and that the play (in some sense) is uniquely
able to produce it. We ask the question the first
critics of Bharata asked: how? While this approach
may nto lead us to any novel understanding of the
rasa experience, it may heighten our appreciation of
the aesthetic instrumentality of the work itself, seen
as doing what it is most suited to do. We may even be
able, in this way, to "feel ourselves into" an alien art-
form, and thus find in ourselves new predispositions
to experience.
I am not going to follow, however, the lead of
Bhatta Lollata, and the other pre-Abhinava critics, in
considering the play abstractly-already qualified in
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terms of its rasa-destiny, so to speak. The grouping
of "elements" (vibhazvas, anubhazvas, etc.) is already
an analysis of the "body" of the play that is
functional, and therefore for our purposes, somewhat
circular: "character" (to take an example) (or a type
of character, the noyaka) is a vibhava (an
Olambanavibhova, to be precise) only insofar as its
relation to the bhdva (dominant expressed emotion)
and thus to the rasa (latent emotional state) is
granted. In this functional analysis, the "body" of
the play is immediately reflected through the
emotional medium of the play's purpose. The quality
of the "body" as such, is somewhat reduced,
precipitated, made to appear evanescent- nothing
but a means, freed from any determinations not
having to do with the dominant emotion of the play.
We cease to be aware of Ram-a, the individual divine
personaltiy, and instead are absorbed in his
" character" qua hero: the divine lover, the male
aspect of the dharmic relationship. The process that
Abhinava terms "generalization" thus applies even
at the level of determining the elements of a play.
And while this analysis may be perfectly consonant
with the dominant aesthetic effect of the drama, and
explains both the play's sentimentality and the
appearance of improbable or random plots, it is well
to keep in mind that the analysis, by its strength-
which is in fact its circularity-hides from us the
body of the play, seen in and of itself. And it
certainly is a legitimate question to ask whether any
constraints are put upon the construction and
organization of the plot that are not presupposed by,
and may in fat themselves condition, the ultimate
rasa-experience. Another way of phrasing the
question is to ask whether there is a structure of the
play that is not immediately in subordination to a
rasa; further, whether such a non-sentimental
structure is necessarily involved in the expression of
the rasa. Does the rasa (conceived of as an
architectonic medley of related but inherently
"static" moods) need a plot, a sequence of events in
and for its manifestation? If so, the rasa will have a
dynamic aspect as well thatt cannot be reduced to the
logic of the moods as such. Bharata appears to pose
these questions in his 19th chapter-distinguishing at
least provisionally itivrtta (sarira of the play) from
rasa (its atman or soul).
Accounts of this chapter 19, which is repeated
essentially unchanged by later Scistris, notably
Dhana .jaya, Vigvanatha and many of the writers on
rasa (Saradatanaya) are limited in modern scholar-
ship to inventorying the various analytical categories
 GEROW: Plot Structure in the Sakuntalh. Pt. I 561
and to illustrating them by reference to typical
Sanskrit dramas. Still best is S. Levi, Theatre
Indien, pp. 30-57. It is not clear from what sources
Levi takes his illustrations, but they are in general
accord for the Sakuntala with its standard commen-
tary (of Raghavabhatta), and also appear to be
consistent with Abhinavagupta's commentary on the
19th chapter in his Bharatr (which draws its
illustrations from several sources, among them the
Venisamhara), and with Dhanika on the Dasaripaka
(who illustrates the Ratnavalf). The following essay
will use these sources heavily and constantly, and the
indebtedness will be acknowledged only when the
detail is of some special interest.
The Polish indologist, M. Christopher Byrski, has
recently rekindled interest in this mode of interpret-
ing the Sanskrit drama with his article "Sanskrit
Drama as an Aggregate of Model Situations";' 3 it is
to this work that the following essay owes its
inspiration (without of course presuming to attribute
its methods or conclusions to Byrski). I do not wish
to confront here his major thesis, that of parallelisms
between the ritual and the drama as models of
(fruitful) action. The distinction between "process"
and "form," drawn above, is certainly none other
than that of the Mfmamsa, which distinguishes
criteria (pram ana) of principal and subordinate
relationships (adhyayas 3, 4) from criteria of
sequentiality (adhyaya 5). Byrski's insight, however,
that the analysis of the action (scil., "plot") of the
drama provides a wholly coherent account of "body"
of the play is accepted here without reservation.
What I will try to add to his treatment is a tentative
integration of the rasa mode into the theory of plot-
structure: the aesthetic final-cause into the aesthetic
formal clause.
The "body" (sarra) of the play, given the special
technical designation "itivrtta"I 4 appears to place
the drama in the context of the epic-as different
modes of what is essentially narrative."5 The sarira
is by Bharata immediately subjected to three five-
fold distinctions, which involve a theory of action,
motivated and, particularly, successful action, and
attempt to adapt that theory to the conventions of
drama.
Noteworthy about the first of the three sets of
distinctions is that its basis lies not in any
presumption of response on the part of an audience,
but in the motives and character of the actors
represented: action at this level is in other words not
already dramatized, is ordinary, worldly action
viewed ethically, determined in its immediately
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relevant context: agent, means, aim, result. The
inherent ambiguity of the term "actor" (in our
dramatic language) is thus brought out; and this
characterizes also the sense in which the nayaka is
the kartr (or rather the adhikartr) of the dramatic
action. Furthermore, the "ethicality" of the action
defines its essential sequentiality: from "motive" to
" result." Subsequent distinctions, the "artha-
prakrtis" and the "samdhis" (especially) link this
"real world" more directly to the "play" as such. In
this sense the drama is indeed an "imitation" of the
world (Dasarupaka 1.6.). Firstly,
(1) The five "avasthas" (19.7)16 are not dramatic
at all (unless life is a drama), but count as the five
sequential aspects of any purposive undertaking
(vyapdra), namely: (19.8) the beginning (prarambha,
viz., the motive, preceding all activity); the effort
(prayatna, which is of course a consequence of the
implanted motive); the (understanding of the)
possibility of success (prapteS ca sambhavah, or
"praptyasa" in Dhanarpjaya and most later litera-
ture, "the hope of attainment"); the certainty of
success (niyata ca phalapraptih, viz., "certainty"
but not yet actuality"); and success, or as it is aptly
termed, conjunction with the fruit (phalayoga).
These five stages of the action pertaining necessarily
and properly (adhikarika: 19.2) to the hero (that
character whose actions are the drama) state at the
beginning his functional significnace and "entitle-
ment." His is the success, provided the action is
complete. Such optimism by definition, appears to
preclude even the possibility of failure, of "tragedy,"
but we would do well to go cautiously here, for it is
not clear that the five avasthas are in the drama at
all; as an analysis of "worldly" action, they do little
more than state the evident implications of the ritual
karma theory - which in no sense precludes errors,
incompetence and the divine malice that may
postpone "phalayoga" well into the next life. And as
an analaysis of action relevant to the agent, it is also
unexceptionable, in the sense (even for Western
tragic man) that no one acts for a goal thought
un attainable.
According to Byrski, the five avasthas locate the
"actions" of the hero, but also of others, in relation
to the motive and the goals of an agent, and
constitute a "subjective" reading of the sequence of
acts that gives it unity as activity, make it possible as
a "plot."
(2) That same activity, viewed without reference
to its agent or "subject," but therefore "objectively"
is divided again into five aspects, called "arthaprakgis"
562 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.4 (1979)
(or, "matter of action," a term well chosen from
Byrski's point of view: 19.20).' The second five do
not however correspond neatly to the first, despite
some efforts to make them do so (see Venkatacarya,
ibid.). The first of the five "matters" is termed
"bja," or "seed" (19.22); the second, "bindu" or
"drop(let)" (19.23), and the fifth, "karya," or'thing-
to-be-done" (19.26: yad adhikczrikam vastu... tat
karyam ... ). The last seems clearly to refer to the
"fruit," subjectivization of which constitutes the
motive, and reference to which is implied by all five
of the avasthas; similarly, brja and bindu appear to
be implied by all the avasthas, the former as that
aspect of the eventual fruit sufficient to provoke
action (thus also the "motive" pure and simple, as
grasped in the "prarambha" avastha, and the latter
the capacity of that action to be sustained through
various sorts of circumstances, many of them
hostile-prayofanana-m vicchede. The image of the
"drop" has been variously explained (as a "drop" of
oil spreads out on a water surface, etc.),'8 but may be
as simple as a (rain)drop making its way down any
surface, now hesitant, now quick, never ceasing and
never disappearing. Just as "karya" seems logically
(if not sequentially) to correspond to the last
avasthd, and bija to the first, so bindu appears the this theory of action become
(3) How does
"objective" doublet of the second (effort), for the
sustinant quality of the thing pursued is manifest only
in our effort.
But the third and fourth arthaprakrtis do not seem
to refer to the main action of the plot (the
"adhikdrika" aspect of the play). The pataka
(19.24) is defined essentially as a sub-plot furthering
the main story line (pradhdnasya upakdrakam) and
parallel to it (pradhanavac ca); the prakarr (19.25)
is simply a diversionary sub-plot (pararthayaiva
kevalam). Here the lack of correspondence, logical
or sequential, to the five avasthas is clearest,
inasmuch as the patakd, and presumably the prakart
are not allowed to intrude upon the "phalayoga"
(19.29). But it is still inviting to seek a rationale for
the inclusion of these two dissonant terms among the
arthaprakrtis that do apparently correspond to
avasthas. If the pataka, or "relevant sub-plot" does
logically relate to the "possibility of success" it may
be in the sense that it is precisely an aspect of the
action not related directly to the "matter" at hand,
which does nevertheless contribute to the attainment
of that matter, and thus proves "possibility of
success." And the prakari, if related to the
"certainty" of success in any way at all, might be as
an irrelevant episode,19 that is by its nature
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incompetent to arrest the movement toward the main
goal. If so the patdka and the prakart are mirror
images of each other and express possibility and
necessity respectively, vis a vis the "actuality" of
phalayoga: "possession." From this point of view, it
is perhaps clearer why the sub-plots cannot intrude
on the final "actualization" of the play!
(Abhinava gives the episodes of Sugriva and
Vibhfsana in the Ramayana as examples of patdkd:
the monkey sub-plot is distinctly relevant to Rama's
karyam and has a character of its own; and in the
Venmsamhdra, Krsna is an example of aprakarf sub-
plot, having no business of his own in the play to
accomplish yet being distinctly useful to the
Pandavas.)20
The evident rationale for introducing the "objec-
tive" and "subjective" categorizations of "action" is
certainly that they aid in defining the dimension of
action pertinent only to the play-the doctrine of the
samdhis as such-but perhaps a less obvious
purpose is to underscore the difference between the
"real world" and the "play," for however the
avasthds and arthaprakrtis may enter into the play,
it is only the five samdhis that immediately define it,
as a plot.
dramatic? While the attainment of goals may be
intrinsically interesting, it is so chiefly to the
participants, not to any observers who may attend.
And on this level, as we know, the play differs from
the "real world" in just the sense that the
"participants" are fictions-actors (as we so
ironically say), and the focus of interest shifts to the
spectators-now an audience (sahrdaya). While we
seem here to be drawn back toward the notion of
rasa, away from our theory of action as such,
Bharata (or whoever wrote this part of the text) does
first attempt (before moving to questions of aesthetic
response) to understand the consequences of this
shift in focus for the theory of action itself;
"actions," though they may not be ultimate, are the
inescapable ground of the play, the play's perform-
ance, understood in some sense as an imitation of
other actions, more or differently real. The relation
of performance to this sense of reality is crucial to
our understanding of the action of the play as play,
and it is this issue that the analysis of the samdhis
confronts directly. How are the actions of the play
different from those of the world? How must actions
be modified to make them suitable to the expectation
of rasa?
According again to Byrski, "the samdhis are the
 GEROW: Plot Structure in the Sakuntalz. Pt. I 563
projection of the action set onto the entire manifold
nature of the subject matter." 2' By "action," he
means the avasthas: action determined subjectively
from the actor's point of view. Looking toward the
avasthas, the five samdhis appear to have the same
property of sequential purposiveness leading to the
attainment of a desired object, but now the "actor"
has become "character" in the play. In the mukha
samrdhi (19.39 "head") occurs the arambha; in the
pratimukha (19.40: "head [reflectedi back"), the
yatna; in the garbha (19.41: "womb" or "foetus")
occurs the prdptvysS: in the vimarsa (19.42:
"reconsideration") is the niyatdpti; and in the
nirvahana (19.43: "conclusion"), comes the phala-
gg~ma. So close is this relationship that it does not at
first seem clear why two sets of five distinctions are
needed by the theory. Bharata's text in part responds
to this problem by defining the samdhis not in terms
of the avasthas, but in relation to the arthaprakrtis,
the "matters" of action of the play-or perhaps more
accurately, in relation to the , the first "matter"
of action. The "seed" analogy is fully developed: in
the mukha, it is "produced" (i.e., planted), in the
pratimukha, it unfolds-to the point of seeming to
disappear each time it is seen (drstanastam iva
kvacit); in the garbha (scil., "womb") it develops-
to the point where its fruition or attainment seems
possible (and therefore its non-fruition becomes an
issue: praptir apraptir eva va); in the virmarsa, the
bija thus developed is subjected to a test in the form
of anger or contrary passion, thus certifying its
viability; and of course, in the nirvahan.a, the "seed"
is resolved, has effect, becomes its fruit through the
essential contrasts of development and the tensions
of survival. Stated here is the insight that the
"matters" of action, the arthaprakrtis are not given
in a temporal sense at all,22 but "are" in the play as
the basic material worked over and given subjective
shape. That "union" is the "samdhi" (indeed, it its
audience
literal sense). The btja, as well as the bindu, and the
karya, are in all five sam.dhis, but conceived
differently in each, as differently validated in each
other. The proper business of the play is the relation
of those matters to a subjective purpose, according to
the "map" given by the five avasthas. That relation
of the objective and subjective in all its constructive
reality, is the play. The theory of action presented is
not merely subjective, not merely my action, but is
generalized and objectivized as that of a "character"
potentially universal, who thus becomes my guide
(nayaka), and leads me through the intricacies of my
self. The notion of subjective action determined in its
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own necessity, not merely as motive, is what gives
special force to the properly dramatic notion of hte
samdhis. The relationship also accounts for the
instructive quality of drama, indeed of narrative art
generally.
In this sense the play is nothing but an ideal vision,
different from the "real world" only in its perfection:
the bfja, bindu, phala, etc., are related correctly to
the subjective condition of man, not only in that the
fruit is won (for it often is in the real world too), but
in the more philosophical sense that time as an
obstacle is itself overcome in the process. Time,
sequence, in the form of the samdhis have become
necessities and therfore instrumentalities in the
drama: the element of chance, of choice, that marks
time as a problem, has been mediated. Our interest
realigns itself when we realize that this seed will bear
fruit, for it can no longer remain fixed on the worldly
red herring: whether it will bear fruit.
This same process of "realization" or generaliza-
tion marks the transformation of "content" into
dramatic element (vibhava, etc.), and expresses the
sense in which (in Abhinava's view) the drama
constitutes an inversion of the "real"; what are
preconditions or "causes" in reality (circumstance,
time) become in the drama effects of (predicated
upon) "causes" that in reality are only consequences.
In the "world" I need a woman, and the right set of
conditions to experience "love"; in the drama,
"love" (the rasa) becomes the ground which
determines the character and actions of us all. And
because this is an ideal action, it is not of the agents
(actors, in either of the two senses) anymore, but
may be participated in by all and all equally.
This fact of participation, this broadening of
'actor" to include "audience" is the minimum
transformation necessary to involve the audience in
the play, and as such becomes the central issue of
dramatic reality. But our interest here is not in the
as such: we note only the conclusion that
the treatment of the plot also is crucial to the rasa.
Let us return to the drama as an action-model,
reviewing these matters in terms of a concrete drama,
the Sakuntala of Kalidasa.
PART I: THE SAMDHIS
Raghavabhatta's commentary, the "Arthadyotani-
ka,"23 on the Devanagarf rescension of the Sakuntala,
is remarkable for the careful attention paid (among
other things) to the question of plot-structure. In
what follows, we take his analysis of the plot for
granted, and attempt to show what his explanation
564 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.4 (1979)

explains. The many prior questions such a procedure Sakuntala as drama, we are also at the center of the
raises are largely ignored, for lack of evidence, and Indian poetic problem. By the judgment of the
also for lack of relevance: it will be enough if tradition itself, the Sakuntala is the validating
Raghavabhatta can be shown to have provided some aesthetic creation of a civilization. Form and content
help, to have outlined a possible interpretation. Our unite in this play to express persistent cultural
interest in other words is not historical, and we leave verities; the aesthetic success, the formal aspect per
historical issues aside-recognizing fully well that se, is certainly a function of that relation of a culture
our procedure is open, from an historical point of to itself. The Sakuntala is not merely a document
view, to the charge of circularity: Raghavabhatta's that provides evidence about culture, it is not just a
vyakhyo, many centuries later than the Sakuntala, cultured exemplar; it defines an integral part of the
may not be a direct explanation of the play at all, but outlook and internal relationships of a civilization.
reflect the imperiousness of the Natyasastra, which Let us inquire how its form contributes to that
had by that time through an authoritative tradition success.
decreed its relevance to all dramatic literature; it The Sakuntala, like all the Indian drama,
may be (as some think) that the play serving as fact- impresses the Western reader as a drama of
model for the plot theory of the Natyagastra was certitudes, emphasizing through many twists of fate
indeed the Sakuntala, and so in applying that theory and much tension to be sure, a stable and proper
to the play, we may be demonstrating the Sakuntala- condition of life. This sense of well being is in part a
.tvam of Sakuntala. So many thorny chronological function of the style of the play-its scenes of
issues are irresolvably posed that the best we can do peaceful hermitage and royal pleasure grove, its ideal
is resolutely put them aside; not to do so condemns hero and heroine and the absence of a veil between
us to interminable fact-bargaining that not only themselves and Gods, but is even more strongly
makes it impossible to rise to the level of aesthetic stated by the form and structure of the play. An
concerns, but seems to deny even the importance of interpretation based primarily on the play's content
the effort. We then take Raghavabhafta (one tends to exaggerate the cloying sweetness of ideal
commentator among many on thefour rescensions!) characters and stately language (and to undervalue
as an expositor of the play, and ask: what has he the moments of incipient violence, cruelty and pathos
exposited? [scil., Durvasas, the King's abjuration, his lone-
That the samdhis are the level on which the play's linessj-for these appear quite clearly secondary,
existence is determined is further illustrated by the functions of chance or error, and ultimately are
intricate analysis of each samdhi into 12, 13 or even erased in the final reintegration). From the point of
14 sub-samdhis (samdhy-aflgas)- an analysis not view of content, the play's real drama, its dramatic
paralleled by any similar treatment of the avasthas moments, seem genuinely less important, less real,
or the arthaprakrtis. What these sub-divisions are than its happy optimism-and I am sure this has
and how they function in relation both to the main much to do with the difficulty we have in taking it
samdhi and to the play, will be questions that seriously (for in our view of "serious" existence, it is
provide us an entree into the more general issues of happiness that is fleeting and suffering that is real).
the Sakuntala's plot-construction and its relation to But if we take our standpoint on the play's form,
relevant aesthetic purposes. For we take it as another view of the world emerges, one more solemn
established, again, that the samdhi analysis sums up for us, and more diagnostic of his condition for the
Raghavabhatla's (and likely his tradition's) under- Indian. The Indian dramatic tradition persists in not
standing of Sakuntala as plot. discussing "content" as such. Content, as we have
seen is already determined by its emotional tone-a
kAvyesu natakaramyam "vibhova"; it is not significant per se, not
tatra ramyA sakuntala representative of a world elsewhere, but only
tatrApi ca caturtho'nkal evocative of the special world (already in principle
tatra sMokacatustayam within us) of the drama.24 While noting that this
yAsyatyadyeti tatrApi tendency to disvalue content in its "objective" (or
padyaip ramyatamarn matam Anon. "significant") mode in favor of a subjective or
emotional construction is entirely consistent with
Such traditional verses exaggerate a point that leading Indian philosophical viewpoints (Vedanta),
nevertheless deserves our attention: in discussing the we do not rest our case on such intra-cultural

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 GEROW: Plot Structure in the Sakuntala. Pt. I 565
analogies, but stress again the issue of dramatic form
per se, and the message it may carry precisely
because its content is revalued. Formally, the
certitude that the play conveys derives in part from
the circularity of its plot, and from the harmonics that
the plot's symmetrical repetitions suggest. In the
preliminaries of Act I-the hunting scene, the entry
into hermitage grounds-before Sakuntala is even
mentioned, is contained the entire play; both the
result (karya) or the play and the suitability of
Dusyanta's superintendence of it: the King subordi-
nates his power to the ascetic symbolism of the
hermitage, and therefore becomes a dharmic hero,
who thereby receives the gift of a son ( 1.1 1 ) as token
of his submission. Where there is certainty as to the
result,25 our interest can reside only in a demonstra-
tion of that certainty, the raising of that sense of
success to a conviction. The play thus appears as a
structure of circles extending from this kernel-result
("bija" ).26 But also, as the play makes clear, the
natural production of a son, ridiculously easy as it is,
is not the mode in which the King is properly related
either to his wife or son, for the son is to be a
"cakravartin," inheritor of the King's moral quality,
his ethical estate, his "dharma," as well. The tension
between these two themes, of nature (which is
expressed in loving), and of duty (which is expressed
in dharmic heroism) is the dramatic mode of the play
and only when a proper resolution between them is
found, can the play end.
Still there is no tension in the sense that the two
emotional tones or "rasas" actually do battle for
supremacy; such would indeed blur the distinction
between the drama and the world, where emotions
are indeed dependent and consequential. Rather it is
clear that the tension is that of "primary" and
"subordinate," the very terms suggesting both the
certainty and the mode of their eventual reconcilia-
tion (Dhv. 3.20 ff.). By his act of submission the hero
states the accessory character of his dharma to the
nature of the hermitage, and to the love implicit
therein for the forest-sprite Sakuntala, soon to be his
wife.
Reinforcing the impression that the play ends
where it began is the studied parallelism of incident
between the first and last acts: in both the King, virile
qualities rampant, enters, accompanied by a charioteer;
they soon discover a hermitage; the King experiences
a "nimitta"; in the first act, the King hides in bushes
to discover Sakuntala, the mother of his promised
son, in the last, in bushes to discover his son, through
whom the mother is found; the King is subjected to a
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test of his valor, the bee (in the first), and the serpent
(in the last), passing which the King enters into a
conversation that validates the relationship of the
persons involved (lover, mother, son, etc.). This
parallelism, suggesting so strongly the inevitability of
the lovers' union, forces us to consider what may
have changed in their relationship between the
termini of the play. And an answer emerges in
reflecting on the major tension of the play: love and
duty. At the beginning of the play, the King, though a
dharmic hero (and in this he does not change) has yet
to discover love: his respect for nature is founded
only on the authority of the hermits; Sakuntala,
whose affection for living things marks her immedi-
ately as a child of nature, knows nothing whatever of
the harsh world of social duties (how easy is her
conquest therefore! and how certain her downfall, as
soon as she meets an irascible ascetic). At the
beginning of the play, the two characters appear to
embody (separately) the two principles of the play.
But at the end, just as obviously, and without any
fundamental change in character, the two have found
in the other the very abolition of their own one-
sidedness: the King has found a love consistent with
his royal duty (through rediscovery of his son!), and
Sakuntala has won in her husband her rightful place
in the dharmic world (without losing one whit of her
natural beauty). And of course, the rczhasya of the
play, if it has one, must lie in the growing conviction
that the two principles really are not as separate as
they did appear, but in mysterious ways, must relate
to each other, involve each other, for each to be
successful in itself. For they are not successful apart.
Act I, according to Raghavabhatta, is the first, or
"mukha" sam. dhi; of course Act VII is the last, the
"nirvahana," together expressing the reciprocity of
the seed (bija) and the fruit (karya) therein
demonstrated.
Other significant parallelisms of action are
observed: the second and third acts have the same
ethical structure: in the second, the King, and in the
third, Sakuntald, are shown ab initio separated,
therefore in the Indian conventions, lovelorn,
emaciated; in the course of the acts, the "central"
characters pursue their love as an alternative to an
"obligation" (the King to remain in the forest while
sending his clown to the palace with civil messages;
Sakuntala to declare her love to the King via the
Gandharva route), and the third act ends with both
principals being recalled to "duty": the King to his
"dharma" as protector of the roksasa infested
hermitage, and Sakuntala by Gautamf, the hermit's
566 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.4 (1979)
wife, to her forest life, seen as a duty (for the first
time?). In these acts, the opposition between duty
and love is further developed beyond its initial
statement in Act I, to a condition of active
confrontation, by which it is clear that neither
character can resolve the difficulty either by
remaining separate, or by "uniting" (if this be done
as an alternative to duty). Doubtless the ethical
parallelism of the second and third acts is reflected in
Raghavabhatta's determination of them together as
the second (or pratimukha) samdhi of the play. We
have an illustration also of the sense in which the
theme or blija of the play is taken up and given new
complexity (bindu!), and also the sense in which the
"object" (karya) of the play emerges from a state of
pure potentiality (that the King and Sakuntala are
attracted to each other) to the first level of actuality,
accompanied by effort (prayatna), such that it can
now be said to be something (to disappear as soon as
it appears).
The fourth and the sixth acts are also ethically
parallel, and show the principal characters being
shorn of that which till then had been their very
"nature": in the fourth Sakuntala leaves the
hermitage and all her "natural" affections and
experiences "viraha" for the first time, compounded
by forebodings centering on the absent King. In the
sixth, the King experiences viraha for the girl he now
knows he has abandoned, but even more pointedly,
has also lost all touch with his own self; his courage,
fortitude, his dharmic character are as surely
abandoned as was the hermitage by Sakuntala. In
both acts, the other (first the King, then Sakuntala) is
conspicuously absent (in his/her own place; the
city/heaven). Not surprisingly, these two characters,
having become quite other than what they were, have
also become quite incapable either of loving (each
other) or doing their duty (and this is pointedly
referred to by Matali, Indra's charioteer, who calls
Dusyanta back to service at the end of Act VI). This
opposition, now developed to an open contradiction
by the playwright, is taken by Raghavabhatta as the
basis for defining the third and fourth samdhis of the
play. In the "garbha," Sakuntala, innocently, fails in
her duty to the ascetic Durvasas, and yet is made to
abandon also her natural world (and her love of
nature) for a social position suited to her dharma.
Action has here passed beyond the vague explorings
of the two infatuated lovers to a positive hope of
attainment (praptyasM), in the sense that Sakuntala's
duty (both omission and commission) is known to be
the key to the lovers' eventual reunion. Similarly the
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King's viraha is a direct manifestation of (his or the
play's) "vimarda": because of Sakuntala's lapse in
duty (the curse of Durvasas is the poetic medium of
the communication) the King also "forgets him-
self"-lapses from his own sworn oath, his dharma,
for indeed he is not able to have a queen of this sort.
Thus both, as lovers, disappear, Sakuntala to
heaven, the King to his despondency of spirit. But
concealed in this apparent futility and contradiction
is the solution (and thus the certainty of attainment:
niyatapti) to the problem of love and duty, for the
divorce of the King and Sakuntala, inasmuch as it is
a function of having abandoned their own natures,
will be resolved as soon as their natures are found
again. But this does not mean a return to their
original condition (innocence?) for it is now
recognized that love and duty are inseparable and
reciprocal. Indeed Sakuntala's lapse in duty has led
directly to her failure in love, as the King's failure at
recognizing his beloved had led directly to his
abandonment of duty.
The fifth act, the "climax" of the play in Western
dramatic terms, in which the King and Sakuntala
confront one another and express in anger and
contempt their failure of recognition, is not regarded
per se by Raghavabhatta as an integral part of the
drama, but is divided between the garbha and the
vimarsa samdhis (though it is the precise point at
which Sakuntala's veil is put aside (5.18/19 p. 173)
that demarcates the two sam. dhis). In the fifth act,
the latent emotions of the characters reach such a
sharp opposition that the very texture of the play
seems on the verge of being rent asunder. Sakuntala
offers her few words of anger and the King is
uncharacteristically coarse. Yet this "climax" is a
turning point only in the sense that it ushers in the
very inversion of both characters' original naive
infatuation (vimarsa samdhi); an inversion out of
which is in turn born the eventual reversion to
character. The "climax" in other words achieves its
impact only by being clearly derivative, unreal.
The seventh act is the "nirvahana" or samdhi of
"resolution." In one sense that "resolution" is
entirely a function of the prince Bharata (who of
course was not present in the first act): as future
cakravartin and dharmic representative of the King,
the son, by his very being, expresses the mutual
dependence of love and order, for he is also
Sakuntala's son. But the resolution is more symbolic
than emotionally integrating; the true resolution must
be sought among the rasas themselves.
How that resolution is achieved through the five
 GEROW: Plot Structure in the Sakuntala. Pt. I 567
samdhis we must deal with next, keeping in mind
Ananda's dictum that the real comes to life in its
disciplined contrasts: this is the essential contribu-
tion of "plot" to dramatic pleasure.27
The division of the play into five sarhdhis that
reflect the progress of an action is also a dissection of
the basic emotional mode of the play and the thereto
subjoined interrelations of the main characters. If we
are correct in asserting that the basic theme, the
spring to action, of the play is the need to relate
dharma (or duty) and love and that the two
protagonists represent that relation in its various
shapes, then each of the five samdhis, insofar as they
are unitary stages in the statement and resolution of
that relation, will reflect through the changing status
of the characters both a mode of that relation, and the
logic of its place in the sequence.
The thematic conflict of the play, viewed as
content, directly provokes a rasa-awareness or
emotional conflict, insofar as certain contexts are
suitable to the statement and evocation of a rasa.
Love of hero and heroine, of course, suggests
immediately s~rigara rasa, and its conventional
development, from vipralambha to sambhoga
(separation to union) is clearly a major issue.
Kalidasa, in the character of Sakuntala, has further
explored the resonance of srnggara in the wider
context of nature and unreflective affection, thus
complicating the tone of the rasa. Srngara looks here
both to the love relationship, narrowly defined, of the
hero and the heroine, and to the universal harmonies
of "pre-societal" life that are embodied in the Indian
czsrama ideal. Similarly, duty, or dharma, involving
renunciation for others' interest, suggests vfra rasa,
the "heroic" sentiment; and it is via the character of
the King that this theme is for the most part stated
and developed. And of the three types of vira, the
King is also the most typical, the yuddhavtra, the
hero in battle, although there are occasional
overtones of the compassionate hero (dayavira) and
the magnanimous hero (danavtra) (DR 4.73 etc.).28
As srFugara looks to the wider world of nature, so
vfra here looks not only to the individual prowess of
the King, but to dharma, in the broadest sense: for
the King truly is a protector and guarantor of the
social order.
In one sense, the two principles of the play are
embodied in its chief characters, but it is to miss the
artistry of the poet (and his purpose) to consider it
only an allegory. In fact, while we have present both
Sakuntala and the King as a "natural" and a
"dharmic" hero(ine) respectively, it is in the play
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only at the beginning that the two relate to each other
as contrasting externals, as "embodiments." We
take it that the "subtle" progress of the hero and the
heroine towards each other must involve some
adjustment in this mode at least of external
relationship, and so severely qualify any simple
allegorical interpretation we might make of the two
figures. It is in fact the series of contrasts, defined by
the sam. dhis, that gives progressively new contents to
the principles of love and duty, and makes of the
King and Sakuntala, even in their generality (and
perhaps because of it) instructive way-farers on the
paths of human experience. If the play be seen as
action it must inevitably be impressed with a deeply
moral character.
A) In the mukha samdhi (whose avasth2 is
arambha, and whose prakrti is bija), as we have
already suggested, the principal characters are
related as externals, "wholly novel in each other's
experience." The King, a dharmic hero, engaged in
the sport of hunting life, though he respects the right
of the czsrama to forbid this activity, discovers
progressively its uncongenial nature in the innocent
but wise nymph Sakuntala. Sakuntala of course is
unacquainted with the personation of dharmic vigor
and social authority that is the King, and he must be
revealed to her only in stages, through explorations
of their mutual suitability. The mode through which
the two characters relate to each other, though each
represents his own principle to the fullest, is external,
and their attraction is only an infatuation (which of
course is both the b-ja, and as a "need to act," the
arambha, of the play).
That their relation is an infatuation puts immedi-
ately the focus of the play on srngara rasa, rather
than on its other basis, vira, and we are invited to
consider the play chiefly as a love story, though in
terms of the outcome a case can be made for
understanding the play primarily in the vtra rasa.
Some of the play's lasting authority may indeed
derive from such knowing equivoque betwen princi-
ples so basic and in experience so constantly
opposed. In any case, Indian theory is unanimous
that in any serious art form one and only one rasa is
"dominant" (pradhana), that this emotional domi-
nance defines the play's basic unity, and that is
expressed or developed out of its inherent contrasts
with related emotions and their typical grounds.
Seeing the play as srrngara pradhana has several
interesting implications: the main story line becomes
that of Sakuntala, insofar as she most directly
represents the notion of love, tenderness, affection,
568 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.4 (1979)
etc.; but gakuntala, at the beginning at least, no more
Sakuntala's embodiment of "love"-at the begin-
"realizes" the full intent of love than does the King.
The poet's wise depiction of "love" in its general
mode of affection for all life (even trees and deer) not
only gives greater resonance to the notion, but also
makes it possible for Sakuntala to be "in love"
without any partner whatever. Her journey of course
involves a farewell to this innocence and a discovery
of "human" love. Dusyanta, as his attitude reveals,
is really interested in little but a good lay, and he too
at the outset has almost no acquaintance with the
nature of love (the good lay is about what one would
expect a yuddhavira to be interested in). In the
mukha samdhi (Act I) the two characters, and the
principles they "represent" are depicted in a state of
"mere" contrast, as externals each having its own
sphere (the King in the capital, Sakuntala in the
hermitage), but still (and here the play properly
begins) not able to remain apart: infatuation. The
play ends, as it must, by each character withdrawing
from contact into his "original" condition: the King
from lover to "protector" of the hermitage,
Sakuntala from beloved to her Osrama duties, etc.
B) In the pratimukha samdhi, the condition of
both lovers has become that of effort (prayatna)-to
find a way to unite, despite the differences of their
estates, and the btja "spreads" (one interpretation of
the "bindu") in that the two principles (love,
dharma) begin to be seen (not as externals but)
perhaps as pretexts to their respective accomplish-
ments. The King, in conversation with his clown,
seeks a way of remaining in the hermitage to pursue
his infatuation, and a pretext is found (au hasard?)
when some deities are reported in the vicinity
threatening the tranquillity of the sacrifices (Act II:
2.15/16, p. 80). Thus the King can maintain his
character ("protector") in propriety while pursuing
Sakuntala. But while "love" and "duty" may no
longer be related as externals, this mode, whereby
duty is demoted to the status of pretext is an amorous
game, deprives both love and duty of their essential
character: the King's "love" for Sakuntala is
explicitly recognized here as something that needs to
be concealed (is "improper"), whereas seeing
dharma as mere propriety reduces it of course to an
appearance. And so when the Devf invites the King
to return to the capital for the performance of a
dharmic ritual, he not only sends the clown(!) in his
place, but has to lie about his reasons (2.18). In view
of these events, we are led to question whether the
King's dharma is anything but appearance (and his
"embodiment" of dharma any more real than
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ning); in any case, the King's "dharma" such as it is,
has not been able properly to relate to love, but has in
fact already been destroyed by it (a theme that
becomes self-evident in the next samdhis), where
"dharma" itself is transferred to an 'absent' and
irascible sage, Durvasas.
Sakuntala's role in the pratimukha samdhi is
somewhat less prominent. She reappears in Act III, a
reenactment of Act I, during which the main focus of
conversational inquiry falls on the dharmic character
of the protagonists' love, instead of (the theme of)
Sakuntala's suitability as a love-object. Having
determined the cause of their respective emaciation
(etc.) to be love for each other, Sakuntala, as did the
King, succumbs to a less than dharmic interpretation
of it; receiving the King's "promise" of a respectable
marriage, in effect she agrees to bed down with him
according to the "gandharva" ritual (i.e., mutual
consent) (3.20). Out of this unseemly haste spring
both the denouement and its many obstructions; but
the point we are to retain is that while love and
dharma must in some sense cease to be externals to
one antoher, love is nothing but desire (longing,
preoccupation) when dharma is treated as a mere
means to its physical accomplishment, bringing
nothing but trouble in its wake. Thus does infatuation
grow to passion. In the "reinterpretation" of love and
duty implied by the characters' actions in the
pratimukha samdhi, we note that Sakuntala has
indeed "progressed" from her generalized state of
affection for living beings, to a definite concentration
on one of them, the King; this must be considered for
her not only change, but progress, as deepening her
love; and the King, in his infatuation, seems also to
be discovering something of love's nature, though at
the cost of his own character. If it were merely a
physical attraction for the girl (as it appears to have
been in the Mahabharata original) we would not see
the issue of the King's dharma so squarely posed
(gandharva "marriages" as the King opines are
entirely in keeping with royal "duty"). The King is,
in Kalidasa's wise revisions, experiencing that form
of true love that wreaks havoc on social arrange-
ments and the conventions of duty. The relation of
love and duty, though necessary in the eyes of the
poet, is not immediately to be sought in reduction of
one to the status of service to the other: a reduction
that destroys the independence of both principles (cf.
Act I), and fails to state their integral subordination.
Act III ends (as did Act I) with a seduction halted
in course of accomplishment; both characters are
 GEROW: Plot Structure in the Sakuntala. Pt. I 569
recalled to "duty" (a duty abandoned by both):
Sakuntala by Gautamf, the symbol of Osrama-
dharma (3.21/22), and the King, by assembled
demons, to his rajadharma (3.24). This recall, so
unnecessary in our view of the plot's progress (for
Sakuntala is obviously seduced), restates the poet's
view that character cannot be abandoned so easily,
and if abandoned in the name of love, turns love into
its opposite.
The mode of love in the pratimukha samdhi,
focussed through the avastha of "effort" is that of
longing and preoccupation with the beloved object:
passion; similarly the mode of heroism suitable to
"effort" is expressed as the King-as-protector (of the
osrama, etc.). These modes differ chiefly from those
of the mukha samdhi-love as affection for life and
the heroism of dharmic vigor-by clearly sustaining
a relation to one another. That relation, though,
founded on circumstantial convenience, seems to
engender only effort, and cannot express the
permanence or necessity of the relation.
C) We have then, in the garbha samdhi (Act IV
to V. 19) the consequences of that effort: Sakuntala's
natural love-for the forest and its denizens-must
be given up; Sakuntala experiences the pains of
separation and annulment which are integral to
human love. The tenderness of the parting is all the
more poignant for it is precisely the generalized
tenderness of girlish adolescence that is being
abandoned, and all concerned are aware of the
necessity of this going-forward into more human and
more dangerous affections.
The appositeness of the sage's curse in this context
is all the more telling, for it not only represents the
forces of convention and protocol that Sakuntala
ignores, and to which she must turn from her beloved
forest, but Durvasas, the irascible muni, is themati-
cally the form of vFra rasa, heroism, suitable to the
expression of love-in-separation: The powers of
renunciation derive precisely from the conquest of
the self, and make a virtue of the very separation
which Sakuntala suffers. Here too, heroism as the
sub-dominant rasa, sustains relation to the dominant
amorous mode that completely revalues the content
of the relation, renews it utterly. It is all the more
obvious that this relation between love and heroism,
however appropriate (and it is more appropriate than
the pretextual one of the pratimukha samdhi!), is not
the final and permanent one we seek, for in effect the
principles of love and heroism (such as we saw them
in happy and self-confidnet expression at the
beginning of the play) have been reduced to
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opposites, and their relation is hostile. But inasmuch
as the relation, for the first time in the play, is now
founded on an internal necessity (rather than on
pretext), it gives form to the third avastha: hope of
attainment, hope of true reconciliation.
The King reappears in Act V, again embodying the
form of vira suitable to the play's progress; it is not
surprising that his character has become (as far as
Sakuntala is concerned) that of Durvasas: he angrily
renounces his gandharva wife and the promised
issue of that union. The mode of his love, imitating
again Sakuntala, is that of renunciation (and
renunciation indeed of all that he holds dear, as we
fully realize); it is only the Sakuntala of the forest
that he refuses to acknowledge, and so, even in his
confusion, he expresses an attitude similar to
Sakuntala's in leaving the forest. Thus are the themes
of 'love' and 'dharma' even more intimately
entwined.
At this point we are obliged to consider the
element of the plot that is always considered weakest
by Western or modern critics: the sage's curse (a
"deus ex machina") and Dusyanta's contrived
forgetfulness that are the very essence of this garbha
samdhi. This departure from psychological realism
is enough to mark the play as a melodrama, and to
remove it for us from the category of fundamentally
serious art. The explanations that have been offered
have a curiously apologetic character, viz.: that one
cannot expect a dramatic representation of a self-
reflecting and responsible individual in a culture that
disvalues that kind of independence; or that the
curse, etc., are effective social realities to the Indian
audience, though they may appear contrived to us; or
that the Sanskrit drama stems from religious and
cultic sources that are essentially normative and
stress edification over insight, etc. Such explanations
appear chiefly to excuse the Indian forms for not
achieving ideals that are self-evidently valid (to us),
and thus assert in variously subtle forms both
weakness of the Indian, and the preeminence of our
own, value systems. But in our effort to trace the
developing thematic contrasts in a rasa-content
through the five samdhis, we have come upon
another kind of explanation entirely: it is the proper
structure of the play that demands the curse and the
forgetfulness because of the inherent logic of the two
emotional modes whose contrast constitute the play.
Should Dusyanta renounce Sakuntala wilfully, as in
the Mahabharata version, we should have greater
psychological realism perhaps, but his renunciation
would have a private quality that in no way expresses
570 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.4 (1979)
the heroic sentiment, nor, ipso facto, defines its
manifold relations with the amorous sentiment. It is
essential that the King not be privately guilty for this
would certainly distract us from contemplating the
truly frightful gulf that separates the emotions
themselves at this stage: for heroism here must be the
very denial of love. The same remark holds good of
course for Sakuntala: her inattention to the sage
Durvasas is not founded on true disrespect, but is a
function of her loving distraction. Disrespect ( as in
the King's case) would imply a motived relation
between the two principles (that one in effect chooses
between love and heroism) that is both at this stage of
the play passe (being in effect that of the pratimukha
samdhi) and foreign to Kalidasa's view of the nature
of things. The curse-ring-recognition theme is thus
the "pataka" or sub-plot that has interest in itself
and also is crucial in developing the main plot. Its
place here in the garbha samdhi (extending into
vimarsa) is typical, and also perhaps in part explains
the designation "garbha" (womb)-for by the pataka
sub-plot the elements of the main plot are being so
reconstituted as to make their proper issue certain.
D) The "hope of attainment" that is the avasthc
of garbha samdhi has meant for the characters and
the principles they represent a withdrawal from
"natural" and contingent affections, and is even in its
apparently negative quality, a decided advance on
the path to success, inasmuch as this last must
involve a relation between emotional modes (love
and duty) that is inherent and proper. But the
negative quality is itself a major obstacle that first
must be exhausted: in the vimarsa samdhi (5.19
through act VI) "love," refined through the hostility
of asceticism, becomes its very opposite: despair
(love in separation); and heroism also (in a form
thereto apposite), in effect, disappears; the King
ceases to be a dharmic hero, withdraws from the
affairs of state into utter depression and loss of
identity.
Sakuntala is not present after 5.29/30 during this
samdhi: her assumption to heaven serves both to
express the existential bereavement of the King, and
poetically, her "non-being": as complete as is the
King's, though somewhat more metaphorical. As
have all the preceding sam. dhis, this one seems to
accept the emotional consequences of the former,
and to develop them in further understanding of the
possible (and sequentially necessary) overtones of
the love-duty relationship. Here both love and duty
(dharma) have become their emotional opposites:
despair and faiblesse which, curiously, are one. This
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is interesting in our sequence of samdhis for one
reason only: it is now clear, in effect demonstrated
(in the logic of the emotions) that love and duty have
both disappeared because of each other: love
because of a failure in dharma (both the King's and
Sakuntala's); dharma because of a failure in love
(both the King's and Sakuntala's). It is this certainty,
now a reciprocity between the two emotional modes,
that marks the vimarsa an advance on the garbha,
where we had "hope" only (niyatapti/praptyasa) of
success. The only thing we must do, is make that
reciprocity positive, and the play will be over. It is
perhaps not such a token of Indian "optimism" that
this inversion can apparently take place only at the
invitation of the Gods: Indra's charioteer enters at
the end of Act VI to recall the King from his
uncharacteristic despondency to reassume his dhar-
mic ideality: in service to the King of Gods. (The
"prakart incident.)
E) In Act VI (the nirvahana samdhi), love
assumes its fully developed human form: that of
sambhoga, or love in union; but he reunion of the
King and Sakuntala is no longer a mere liaison in the
forest: it is fully authenticated, not only by dharma
(the blessings of Marfca and Kanva) and publicly
acknowledged (that Sakuntala becomes the Queen),
but also by the tiny son playing with the lion-cub,
who, as the future cakravartin, is the embodiment of
love and duty's inherent interdependence. The
independent significance of the son should not be
underestimated: as in certain non-European and pre-
modern cultures, we may be dealing with a view that
the love relationship is not itself validated or realized
until its fruit has issued. The King is again a dharmic
hero, but the scope of his heroism is no longer
external to the world of the hermitage: he is King
both in heaven and over nature, and this has become
possible only in his conquest of the forest nymph
Sakuntala. The characters of the King and Queen
now express positively the proper inseparability of
the principles of love and duty, and are the products
of a dramatic achievement across progressively more
adequate statements of their possible tensions. The
play thus becomes in effect a model of the human
condition, insofar as two of its chief drives are
concerned. It is properly an exploration of the stages
of love, in the context of love's most significant
relationship. The sense of the play as a world, as a
paradigm of the psyche, is further enhanced by the
deft way the poet interweaves the other major
emotional tones of human experience into the
dominant warp and woof of srngara and vtra: of the
 GEROW: Plot Structure in the Sakuntala. Pt. I 571
six remaining rasas, five appear to be extremely
important as tones complementing and therefore
communicating the "understanding" we have of love
in the various samdhis of the play. Only in the first,
the mukha samdhi, do we get no clear indication of a
sub-dominant in this sense, perhaps because the
poet's business in mukha samdhi was to introduce us
to srhga-ra and vira themselves, in their natural
condition, and to clarify the fundamental tone of the
play. But inpratimukha, both the playful repartee of
the clown and the bashful play of Sakuntala serve to
characterize the King's love as "comic," or better,
"ironic," at this stage: hasya rasa. And indeed, its
lack of seriousness has been amply documented in
the foregoing. In the garbha samdhi, the twin
emotional tones of fear (bhaya) and anger (krodha)
express the nature of the separation then in course of
achievement: Sakuntala's fear of the unknown
outside the hermitage is indeed the mode of her
parting and pursuit of human love; the sage's heroism
(and the King's) is both founded on anger (at
perceived slights), and is developed to a pitch that
suitably expresses the hostility of love and dharma
(and Sakuntala and the King for that matter) in this
samdhi. After anger, regret. And the mode of love in
the vimarsa samdhi, seemingly becomes its very
opposite, is pitiable (karuna rasa), the mode of
sympathy for the lost and for great enterprises
foundering. The relation between pity and love in
separation is in any case so close as not to require
great defense here. Finally, in the last samdhi, as
decreed by the critics, the appropriate sub-dominant
expression of our final and beatific love is given in
adbhuta rasa, wonder: wonder at obstacles over-
come, and at the perfect symmetry of the human
condition.
It is important to stress that this notion of plot is
subordinate to the emotional tone, and is not the
"chief thing," as per Aristotle. Plot is the "chief'
among the parts of the tragedy, because it expresses
best the sense in which the play (as a work) is a thing,
constituted (by an author "wrought") to accomplish
something proper to it (in the case of tragedy, the
purgation of pity and fear). Even though plot, in that
sense too is subsidiary, it is the subordination of form
to function: an analytical distinction at best within an
organically conceived whole. In the same way, the
"form" of the hammer is what it is in terms of the
hammer's function and through the notion of its
function we can judge better and worse form.
But the Indian plot is itivrtta, a happening, which
bears no such relation to rasa. It accomplishes
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nothing in and of itself, as a chair may be said to
accomplish repose. Rather the plot is thought of in
terms of the condition of reasonable sequentiality,
just as the vibhovas, etc., represent the precondition
of content. Both represent the transformation of
"real" sequentiality and "real" content, a trans-
formation which itself demonstrates the rasa, and in
which the rasa is evoked, sustained and intensified.
But the rasa can no more be derived from plot than
it can from character (a vibhova), as such. Its
constancy is in the soul of the percipient spectator,
and becomes explicit as soon as the inversion of plot
and character have been understood. Both plot and
character are instrumental, not functional, and like
instruments, we may put them aside when the job is
done. The "instrument" has no "thingness" expres-
sive of the "work's" character; that is perceived
perhaps paradoxically in the rasa itself (in its mere
being) and not in the work at all. Thus the Indian plot
is necessary (as precondition) and adventitious (in its
instrumentality). Yet awareness of it as such will
only distract us from the plenitude that is rasa. The
statue exists neither in the tools of the sculptor nor in
the matter of the stone.
This model of the play, may be compared a la
Byrski, to the model of the sacrifice: both are kriya,
both produce an unseen "fruit," the "substance" of
both is modality: itikartavyata. Indeed a world is
crystallized in this play, a world, like all worlds, that
is a construction of basic experiences, but one that
satisfies the Indian thirst for complexity and strain
contained within a perfect stillness, the adamantine
life. As such we moderns may appreciate a
categorically perfect art form that gives life to a
vision of ourselves that we do not share, that lives, in
its stillness, in a region often beyond our capacity to
feel. (To be continued.)
I E.g., S. K. De, History of Sanskrit Poetics, Vol. II,
Chs. IV-VI; Sanskrit Poetics as a Study of Aesthetic, Ch.
4. Gerow, "Rasa as a Category of Literary Criticism"
(Honolulu Conference Vol.). The work of H. R. Mishra,
The Theory of Rasa in Sanskrit Drama, despite its title,
treats of Rasa in one section (2), and Drama in another (1).
Nevertheless in its short third section, some of the issues
developed in this paper are adumbrated (pp. 540-42 on the
Sakuntala). The perspective is still that of the theoretician,
not that of the dramatist.
I wish to express my thanks to T. G. Rosenmeyer and to
James Redfield, who have read earlier drafts of this article,
much to my benefit.
2 A. B. Keith, Sanskrit Drama, pp. 299-300; not so
 572 Journal of the American Oriental Society 99.4 (1979)

(exceptionally): S. Levi, ThPdtre Indien, passim. 18 Laghutfkq ad DR 1.17.

3Keith, idib.; De and Dasgupta, A History of Sanskrit 19 In the sense that it has no independent charcter, as
Literature, Classical Period. does the pataka, and thus must relate to the main plot.
4 E.g., Renou, IC 1877, 1878, 1881; indeed, "Book II" 20 Bharati ad NS 19.25-26: GOS CXXIV, p. 15.
of De, Dasgupta, "Kavya," includes "Natya."! 21 Proceedings, op. cit.
5E.g., De, Dasgupta, op. cit., pp. 146-54. T. G. 22 Apparently contra Dhanarpjaya (1.24, 30, 36, 43, 48)
Mainkar: see note 13. for whom the theory had ossified to the extent of wanting to
6 E.g., De, Dasgupta, op. cit., p. 265-6. link temporally the five arthaprakrtis to the five avasthas
7Exceptionally as a temple drama by the Chakyars of (ipso facto the five samdhis). Cf. Keith, Sanskrit Drama,
Kerala, and of course much of the technique survives in the pp. 298ff.
"dance-dramas" of regional tradition, or in the resurrected 23 See T. G. Mainkar, "Arthadyotanika," pp. 38-54, in
"bharatanatyam." Studies in Sanskrit Dramatic Criticism. On what is known
8 Cf. Renou, "Sur la Structure du Kavya," no.2. of the historical R (15th century?) see P. K. Gode in
9 See my "Rasa as a Category of Literary Criticism" Calcutta Or. Jour., III, 1936.
(Honolulu Conference on Sanskrit Drama in Performance) 24 Though the "anukarana point of view did have its
for references. Indian representatives Srfsafikuka, Mahimabhatta, and esp.
10 NS 6.31/32 and generally adhyayas 6,7. our Dhanarpjaya. Supra p. 560
l l Cf. the discussion of the rasasitra in Abhinavabharati,
25 No other result is conceivable, once we understand the
translated by Gnoli, Serie Oriental Roma XI. King's character; and if the King's character is not certain,
12 "Awakening" is already psychological. the play will not be about him: a King is not a King unless
13 Also in the proceedings of the Honolulu Conference;
distinguishable from the common herd! All this is but
similarly his Concept of Ancient Indian Theatre, esp. Ch. another way of saying that "content" does not carry our
9. My analysis of the Sakuntala also owes much to an interest as such.
unpublished paper of Sanna Deutsch: Sakuntala, An 26 Truistically, there can be no son without Sakuntala,
Interpretation of Classical Indian Drama, also written in and the winning of Sakuntala is the mode of the play!
connection with the Conference. Mrs. Deutsch carefully 27 Sanna Deutsch (op. cit.) suggests another interpreta-
evaluates the five avasthas in their dramatic significance. tion of the plot of the Sakuntala based on the acts (seven),
Cf. also two Indian attempts, less successful. T. G. rather than the samrdhis (five). It has much to recommend it,
Mainkar, On the Samdhis and the Samdhyangas and S. and certainly enables us to focus on the distinctive quality
Chattopadhyaya The Notakalaksanaratnakosa. of the sam. dhi analysis. She notes particularly the
14 "Thus it happened" (was performed?), in contrast parallelisms of acts 1 and 7 (not different from our
probably to "itihosa" 'thus it was said.' analysis), 2 and 6 (penance grove/pleasure grove turned
15 So Aristotle, for whom drama and epic differ only into
in its other), 3 and 5 (seduction and rejection; forest and
their "manner," i.e., "acted out" as opposed to "recited" city): which parallelisms serve to highlight the centrality of
Poetics 1449b 9, 25. the fourth act: the transition and parting.
16 Cf. T. Venkatacarya, in his "Introduction" to his 28 Later texts, Sahityadarpana, etc. add a fourth:
Edition of the DR, pp. lix-lxiv. dhirodatta, even more likely to be our King.
17 Quotations from Honolulu Conference Proceedings (in 29 Levi, p. 53.
publication).

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