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The love of Pururavas towards Urvasi, a celestial nymph, though not justifiable in itself must be viewed with the same latitude as we have shown in the case of Charudatta. Polygamy may appear to us, as indeed it is, one of the degrading sins of any age or country. But our forefathers unfortunately never for a moment dreamt that polygamy was a sin. Manu ordains that a brahman may marry four wives, a Kshatriya three, a Vaisya two, and a Sudra one. It was considered a privilege for the higher castes to marry a greater number of wives than the lower. Although such an abominable practice appears to have been discouraged as centuries rolled on, still there are relics of the custom embalmed in the families of the Kulin Brahmins of Bengal and in the harems of our nobles.
In comparison with the Sakuntala this drama is more skilfully got up and the succession of events here is more natural and contiguous. Perhaps there is no character here to answer Sakuntala.
; •" Trivial as the incidents may appear, unimportant as may TDQ the loves of the hero and the heroine, both persons and ^events are subject to an unlawful control, whose interference invests them with a dignity superi6r to their natural level, :Fate:is the ruling principle orthe narrative and the monarch, the nymph and the sovereign df the Gods himself are portrayed as .subject to the inscrutable and inevitable decrees of "destiny."— ff.-B. Wilson.
-« Th& MalaVikatgnimitra1 forms the third drama of Kaii-dasa's authorship. "The subject is not heroic or divine, the plot being derived from the. ordinary palace life of Indiail
I kcannot save himself from varying the original and the varia-1 tion itself must depend on the poet's fancies, the popular notion and the: environments of dramatic scenes. Besides the Professor himself states that the story of Pururavas as stated in the Matsya Purana keeps close with that dramatised by our poet. Is it not therefore more probable that the Puranas weres weji-known by that day and that the poet might have preferred the account pf,the Matsya finding it., more, suitable for drama-tisation? ' . • • • . /•;-.: ". ... -' '-•• ..;-• ' . ' . f,/: \\