exhibition of some of the incidents in the youthful life of Krishna, maintained also in extempore dialogue, but interspersed with popular songs. The Rása partakes more of the ballet, but it is accompanied also with songs, while the adventures of Krishna or Rama are represented in appropriate costume by measured gesticulation." A theatre really worthy of the name needed the dignity of that language which contained the treasures of India's lyric and epic poetry and wore a look of permanence and universality to which none of the spoken dialects could pretend.
The Sanskrit dramas, like those of Athens, are primarily written for but one specific performance, which, since their length often extends to as many as ten acts, must have occupied, not the two hours' traffic of the Shaksperian stage, but probably from five to six hours. Resembling the Athenian in their sacred character and not written, like the plays of modern Europe, for permanent theatrical companies with their professional ends, these dramas seem to have been acted only on solemn occasions which may be compared with the spring and autumn festivals of Bacchus in the Athenian theatre. "According to Hindu authorities," says Wilson, "the occasions suitable for dramatic representations are the lunar holidays, a royal coronation, assemblages of people at fairs and religious festivals, marriages, the meeting of friends, taking first possession of a house or a town, and the birth of a son; the most ordinary occasion, however, was the season peculiarly sacred to some divinity." While this association of the Indian drama with sacred festivals may remind us of our European miracle-plays, or the Persian tazyas, or passion-plays, represented in the first ten days of the month Moharrem, as described by Count Gobineau, the infrequency of the Indian spectacle,
