underscoring this fact by the use of clearly imitative titles (Krishnamachariar 1970 [1937]: 675–85).
Allegory, however, is an unfortunate genre. It suffers from the constraint of its major premise, for it must tell a story that is in fact a second story, a double task restricting the author’s free creation and often lending to allegorical works a rigid, contrived quality, as we know from European medieval mysteries like “Everyman,” or from Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.” That Krishna·mishra succeeded in his task better than most is demonstrated by his work’s enduring success. However, it is difficult in this case not to concur with the assessment of one of the path-breakers in the study of Sanskrit literary history, S.K. De:
With … abstract and essentially scholastic subject-matter, it is difficult to produce a drama of real interest. But it is astonishing that, apart from the handicaps inherent in the method and purpose, Krsnamisra succeeds, to a remarkable degree, in giving us an ingenious picture of the spiritual struggle of the human mind in the dramatic form of a vivid conflict, in which the erotic, comic and
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devotional interests are cleverly utilized. (Dasgupta & De 1962: 483)
As De rightly stressed, the demands of Krishna·mishra’s subject-matter, the attainment of spiritual peace in the soul’s liberation as understood within the tradition of the nondualist school of Vedanta (advaita vedanta), both pose a challenge to the author in relation to properly literary expression and at the same time inhibit the reader’s properly literary reading of the text. An unfortunate result has been that modern readers have sometimes taken the work merely to be an elementary primer of Advaita philosophy, almost entirely ignoring its literary qualities. In the present translation, therefore, I have sought to lay stress on “The Rise of Wisdom Moon” as a clever and often quite funny play, quite apart from its message per se.
The message, however, is essential for any understanding of the work, and in seeking to address it in dramatic form, rather than in a formal theological treatise, Krishna·mishra was accepting a considerable risk. For above and beyond the difficulties inherent in dramatizing spiritual growth, he was taking a forthright stand in regard to one of the keenest disputes in classical Indian literary theory. In essence, the critics wished to establish whether, besides the aesthetic sentiments with which we are generally familiar—erotic love, humor, horror, and the like—is there additionally a distinct sentiment of peace?11 Can the mystical realization of oneness and the void be the subject-matter of great literature, or does its awesome depths compel only a surpassing silence, from which no literary art can emerge? Krishna·mishra was ________
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among those who affirmed that a sentiment of peace can serve as an appropriate focus for literary creation, and he tells us this explicitly, affirming at the outset that he has written “a play conveying the sentiment of peace” (1.7).
But how to convey such a sentiment? To elicit horror, one can show frightening things, for humor things that are funny, and so on. The attempt to display peace directly—perhaps by depicting a group of persons in silent meditation—is guaranteed to be merely a bore. The only strategy that might work is to arrive at peace through contrast. Peace becomes dramatically interesting only in relation to its opposites: war, struggle, the erotic distractions, and so on. Krishna·mishra very well understood this and, using the contrastive categories underscored in Indian traditions, sought to realize the sentiment of peace as the conclusion of a journey through what peace is not.12
In order to achieve this end, Krishna·mishra’s work depends on one of the fundamental dichotomies informing classical Indian thought, that between pravrtti and nivrtti.13 The pair is often translated, misleadingly I think, as “activity” and “inactivity.” It is important, however, to gain a more nuanced sense of their meaning, as this provides an essential key to understanding the play as whole.
To begin, we may cite a popular verse that states: “I know the dharma, but it is not what I engage in; I know non-dharma, too, but it is not what I desist from.”14 Here, I have translated pravrtti as “what I engage in” and nivrtti as “what I desist from.” The relevant contrast is not one between activity and inactivity, but between the forward, outgoing channeling of energies into a particular pattern ________
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of action, and, oppositely, the withdrawal or turning away from that course. Though the verse nicely introduces the terms as they apply to our individual, active undertakings, we must recognize further that the distinction in question may be invoked in some rather different contexts. In Buddhist idealist philosophy, for instance, it pertains to perceptual processes, pravrtti referring to the proliferations of consciousness which constructs the world as we perceive it, and nivrtti to the inversion of that process in meditation, where our constructions are dissolved as tranquility and insight develop.15 We should be aware, too, of the cosmological significance of these concepts in Brahmanical thought. In this case, pravrtti indicates the emanation of the phenomenal world through the agency of maya, creative illusion generating the world of appearance, while nivrtti is the dissolution that occurs when maya’s work is undone.
Several of these strands of meaning are beautifully woven together in the introduction to the commentary on the “Bhagavad·gita” attributed to the renowned Advaita Vedanta philosopher Shankara (eighth century).16 While it is not certain the Krishna·mishra had precisely this text in mind when he composed “The Rise of Wisdom Moon,” he was no doubt thinking of closely similar materials. The philosopher’s words, therefore, will help to clarify some essential elements in the structure of the play:
The Lord, having created this world, desired to make it endure. Having first produced the lords of creatures—the sun and the others—he caused them to maintain the law (dharma) whose characteristic is engagement (pravrtti), ________
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as taught in the Veda. Then, having given rise to others—Sanaka, Sanandana, etc.—he caused them to maintain the law whose characteristic is disengagement (nivrtti) and whose characteristic is knowledge and dispassion. For twofold is the law taught in the Veda—that having the characteristic of engagement and that having the characteristic of disengagement—and this is the cause for the world’s enduring. That which is the basis for the manifest well-being and beatitude of creatures, that law has been upheld for long ages by those who aspire for the good, brahmins and others, according to their caste (varna) and life-station (asrama).17
As they are described here, pravrtti and nivrtti are complementary processes,
