325. THE TECHNIQUE OF SANSKRIT DRAMA 361

THE TECHNIQUE OF SANSKRIT DRAMA 361

would not have as her husband, one whose beauty led her to mistake him for Cupid, particularly when she knows the views of her parents in favour of it ? Naturally enough, she immediately falls in deep love with the king. But she is in a foreign land in the house of a stranger. Her position is simply that of an attendant on the queen, as a keeper of her pet bird. The queen has already given a hint of her feeling of jealousy by driving her away from the scene of festivity. Sagarika could imagine what her own fate would be, if the queen somehow could know of her love for King Udayana. She could not freely move about so as to get at a place wherefrom she could have a glance at the object of love. Intensity of love made her deeply think of all possible ways of getting a sight of the king, but she could not find any, which could put the king within her ken. At last, finding no way to see the person of the King, she decides somehow to satisfy her desire by seeing him in a picture drawn by herself. Accordingly, she repairs to the plantain bower and sits down to draw a picture. This is the effort. The full1 value of it can be realised by the reader only when he takes into account the ultimate effect of such an effort. The reader, familiar with the plot, knows that it was this simple effort of the heroine, which was ultimately responsible for her union with her object of love. III. THE HEIGHT (PRĀPTYĀSĀ). The effort leads to the organisation of all the charac- ters of a drama into two groups, if they are not already so grouped : (i) one which helps the central figure in the attainment of the object and (ii) the other which tries to put obstacles in the way to the realisation and to frustrate all efforts. The third stage of action, therefore, represents the 1. A. Bh. (MSS) Ch. 19, V. 10, 46