interpreting the manners and customs of society, the elements that are likely to be imaginary should be care fully searched out and expunged.
For the verification of dharma injunctions, poems like Raghuvansha also are of very little use. When poets idealize their princes they are sure to describe the lives of these princes as closely in keeping with the rules of dharma and other sciences.[1] But dramas like the Toy-
- ↑ With the aid of the commentary of Mallinātha, I have found various passages in the first three cantos of Raghuvansha, which imply some similiarity of the lives of the princes with the precepts of dharma and niti, and even with the rules of astrology regarding conditions on which good luck depends. The passages which can be compared with Manusmriti are canto i, 58, 62, 76, 85; canto iii, 11, 33. Those having such relations with other dharma writers are canto i, 8, 20, 25, 26; canto iii, 28, 31, 38, 39. The statements from Raghu which can be compared with the advice of Dandanīti literature are i, 26, 59, 63; iii, 30. But this relation is of very little use to us excepting to show that the poet and his commentator admired that prince best who followed dharma and niti.
ners instead of Bengali manners. In some works men and women are depicted as discussing learnedly, and making love, as one may find in European Society, while the fact that Bengali women are ignorant and Purda-ridden is well known. Though since 1890 Maratha novelists and playwriters are taking a greater amount of pairs to represent facts as they are, still I have noticed in one or two very recent popular dramas, imaginary names and even imaginary geography. Almost every playwriter feels uncomfortable if he cannot introduce a love scene in his play, though there is no such thing as making love before marriage in Maratha society. Even in introducing names they often resort to names that are more high sounding than true and actually found in society (the puritanic and Orthodox spirit of Marathas prevent having even high sounding names for their sons and daughters, though they like such names in the plays). Gujarathi and Hindi novels have the same tale to relate. When we try to interpret dramas for historical purposes, we should always guard against the possibility of survival in literature of conditions and manners that are long dead and gone, and against wilful depicting of imaginary manners. The love scenes that are depicted in Kalidasa's Shakuntala, and Vikramorvashiya are by no means a picture of his times; I am also inclined to doubt the reality of the love scenes even in the works like Dashakumāracharita.
