308. 342 CHAPTER Vİ

342 CHAPTER Vİ

of a Sanskrit dramatist being different, his choice of the material also has got to be different. His presentation is meant for an audience, which seeks æsthetic experience, which is due to the subjective realisation of the central fact in the presentation, the basic mental state, and not that which comes from the objective perception of the presented.

He has, therefore, so to present the æsethetic object, that the public, to whose taste he caters, may have the desired experience. We propose to state in the following paragraphs how Bharata, as interpreted by Abhinavagupta, would like the original material for a dramatic presentation to be handled.

Let this, however, be clearly understood that Bharata does not lay down any hard and fast rules, which have to be blindly followed. They are for the guidance of the dramatic genius. He allows perfect freedom to the drama- tist in every matter. The dramatist can exclude, as much as he likes, out of what Bharata has pointed out as the constituent elements of a drama. He also can bring in as much as he likes of what is not mentioned by Bharata. What Bharata says is this much only, that the dramatist must maintain harmony and unity in his production. All that he presents on the stage and all that he makes the different characters speak, must perfectly harmonise with the basic mental state of the focus of the situation, which is primarily intended to be presented.

The so called rules, laid down by Bharata, refer to the general elements of a dramatic work, as discovered after a careful analysis of a very large number of dramas, which must have existed long before the time when the Bharata Sutras, assumed their present form. The consti-