315. THE TECHNIQUE OF SANSKRIT DRAMA 351

THE TECHNIQUE OF SANSKRIT DRAMA 351

particular emotion differs according to (i) the relation, which the percipient has or establishes with the person, who is the agent of action or to whom something happens : and (ii) the qualities of head and heart and their manifes- tation in action, with which the person is associated in the mind of the percipient. Thus, when one looks upon a man, to whom some evil has happened, in the light of distant social relations and his services to society ; his moral, political and social principles, his physical, intellectual and moral great- ness and their beneficial effect on society ; and his achieve- ments and his weaknesses and failures figure predomi- nantly in one's consciousness; one has social emotions such as sympathy and pity. But when one views the person in closer relation of family, one has an emotion which is deeper and more intense, such as grief. If the percipient completely identifies himself with the sufferer, he has identical feeling and emotion. Thus, an event, how- soever great, is not capable of arousing definite feelings or emotions unless it is viewed in the proper perspective. Hence there is the necessity in dramas to put the important events, which are intended to arouse certain feeliugs, in the necessary background. This seems to have been the idea in the mind of Bradley, which has been responsible for the following statement :- "The story depicts also the troubled part of the hero's life, which precedes and leads up to his death; and an instantaneous death occurring by accident in the midst of prosperity would not suffice for it." (p. 7). In the presentation of this background of the central event of a drama, different nations of the world have got different literary traditions, The fundamental