We may press this point somewhat further. To mention our play and the famed temples of Khajuraho in a single breath may appear to be an incongruent pairing, for the great north Indian temple-complex, after all, is widely associated with the celebration of the erotic, while Krishna· mishra’s drama represents orthodox Vedanta, a philosophy that values detachment from worldly delights in favor of the inner realization of an immutable, transcendent self. But Khajuraho’s marvels and “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” both issued from the court of the Chandella monarchs, and the period during which our play was composed was not far removed from the height of development at Khajuraho.19 It is not difficult, in fact, to imagine that the play might have been performed among the temples and palaces there. While sexual frankness characterizes many of the scenes adorning the outer walls of Khajuraho’s temples, in the interior they are almost all dedicated to the great gods of the Hindu pantheon, in forms that arouse not the slightest hint of tantric transgressions.20 By the same token, “The Rise of Wisdom Moon,” though surely ridiculizing our erotic proclivities, also sees a place for them in the order of things and can hardly be considered as prudish in its treatment of sexual desire:
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She slithers hither:
slowed by the big burden of her booty,
and revealing by a little trick
of her flowing garland’s pose,
pressed by playful arms,
breasts marked with lovers’ scratches;
With glances as long as strings of blue lotuses
she drinks up your mind
while jingling her bangles
with the languid movements of her wrists. (2.162 [34])
To focus upon sex, however, is to miss the chief concerns of both the temples and the play. Just as the deity Vishnu, as honored by Intuition at the conclusion of act four, is clearly exempt from the fun and folly of the preceding acts, so too the great image of Vishnu as Vaikuntha, in Khajuraho’s Lakshmana Temple, a temple with which Krishna·mishra may well have been familiar, transcends the swirling activity, erotic and otherwise, depicted on the shrine’s outer walls.21 The imperial order is silent at its center, but nonetheless this imperturbable calm forms the basis for both the love and the war whereby the kingdom thrives. Taken together, Khajuraho’s temples and Krishna· mishra’s play are perhaps best regarded as diverse iterations of the Chandella royal religion, for which divinity and sovereignty, cosmos and realm, were never quite two. Our play’s Vaishnavism, therefore, unmistakeable though it may be, was not yet distinguished from kingly cult and must not be assimilated to the devotional movements that would soon emerge as predominant throughout much of the North Indian religious scene.22
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Krishna·mishra’s Legacy
The reception history of “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” in India has been studied in depth so far only with respect to one regional language, Hindi (including Braj).23 It is clear, however, that, starting with its impact within Sanskrit literary culture itself, the play became established as a touchstone for the form of the allegorical drama, and more specifically a model for literary instruction in philosophical matters. The evidence available to us demonstrates both unusually broad diffusion and enduring popularity. The interest that its philosophical content generated is indicated by its widespread use as a source for knowledge of the “heretical” doctrine of the Charvakas (or Lokayatas), the skeptical hedonists and materialists who had been among the bugbears of early Indian thought. Indeed, the fourteenth-century “Compendium of All Viewpoints” (Sarvadarsanasamgraha), among the best known of all Indian philosophical summations, bases its record of the Charvakas to a large extent upon their representation in “The Rise of Wisdom Moon.”24
M. Krishnamachariar (1970 [1937]: 678), in his history of classical Sanskrit literature, mentions no fewer than ten commentaries on our play. This fact alone confirms the high regard with which it was held among Sanskrit scholars, and suggests, too, that it was frequently a subject of instruction. Not all learned readers of Sanskrit, however, followed Krishna·mishra in his adherence to Advaita Vedanta. This was surely one of the reasons for which imitations of his play proliferated, tailoring his model to the needs of differing philosophical or sectarian affiliations. These works often ________
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declare the source of their inspiration by the inclusion of the word udaya, “rise, ascent” in the title. More than a dozen such plays, some written as late as the nineteenth century, are known, of which several have enjoyed relative success. Among them, we may note in particular “The Sunrise of Comprehension” (Sankalpasuryodaya) by the famed teacher of the “qualified non-dualist” (visistadvaita) Vedanta tradition, Venkata·natha (fourteenth century, also known as Vedanta·deshika); the medical allegory entitled “The Rise of Ambrosia” (Amrtodaya) of Gokula·natha (ca. early seventeenth century); and “The Rise of the Moon of Chaitanya” (Caitanyacandrodaya) of Karna·pura (early sixteenth century).25 The latter is distinguished by its combining of allegory with historical elements drawn from the lives of Chaitanya (1486–1534), the renowned apostle of devotion to Krishna, and his contemporaries. A Jain play, “The Conquest of King Confusion” (Moharajaparajaya), composed by Yashah·pala in the thirteenth century similarly combines allegory with history in recounting the conversion to Jainism of King Kumara·pala of Gujarat.26
“The Rise of Wisdom Moon,” written early in the second millennium, entered into circulation just as the regional languages of the subcontinent began gradually to supplant the dominance of Sanskrit in Indian literary cultures.27 This process of vernacularization, however, offered new avenues for the diffusion of Krishna·mishra’s play, and from the fifteenth century onward, we find it being translated or transfigured throughout a wide range of north and south Indian tongues, including Hindi, Braj, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu, Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, and no doubt oth- ________
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ers as well.28 In Hindi and Braj, in particular, numerous versions are known. Most of these seem to have stemmed from the Vaishnava bhakti movements that proliferated in late medieval North India, whose devotees were attracted to the play owing to its generalized Vaishnava orientation, as we have discussed above. One such version, by GulAb SiNgh (1905), versifies the entire text in Braj, following prosodic conventions dear to the Braj bhakti poets.
Perhaps the most remarkable of the Indian translations of “The Rise of Wisdom Moon,” however, was one that carried it beyond the Hindu fold. This was the Persian version that emerged from