Part 8 - Styles (vṛtti) of the Ḍima

According to Bharata, the Ḍima should be composed with:

1. grand style (sāttvatīvṛtti) and
2. violent style (ārabhaṭīvṛtti).

Further, verbal style (bhāratīvṛtti) any way occurs in the prologue of every drama. Therefore, Ḍima contains the above three types of styles (vṛttis).

Verbal Style (Bhāratīvṛtti) -

The Bhāratīvṛtti has four elements, i.e.

1. propitiation (prarocanā),
2. preface (āmukha),
3. garland (vīthī) and
4. the farce (prahasana).

The Vīthī and Prahasana are exluded here because they are described separately as two types of drama. The propitiation (prarocanā) comes under the preliminaries of drama (pūrvaraṅga).

Further, preface (āmukha), which is a part of the drama, is divided into five types; i.e.

1. abrupt dialogue (udghātyaka),
2. story caught up (kathodghāta),
3. excess of representation (prayogātiśaya),
4. entrance (pravṛttaka) and
5. continuance (avalagita).

According to the rule, prologue should contain at least one of these five divisions of preface (āmukha), (Nāṭyaśāstra.XXI.35). In Tripuradāha Ḍima, Vatsarāja has applied the excess of representation (prayogātiśaya). The Excess of representation means that a character should enter through the observation of the Sūtradhāra. In the Tripuradāha, thus, Nārada enters through the observation of Sūtradhāra, when he was discussing about the nature of Nārada with Pāripārśvika.

Grand style (Sāttvatīvṛtti) –

The grand style (sāttvatīvṛtti), has the story containing some characteristics like challenge, change of effort, shower of abuse, dialogue with insult and breach of alliance for the sake of friend. Since the Tripuradāha has the story based on excited sentiments, the above features may be admitted as being observed. Sāttvatīvṛtti is generally applied where the heroic and marvellous sentiments are present. In the Tripuradāha Ḍima, the heroic sentiment is the principal sentiment and the marvellous is applied as subordinate sentiment. In every act of the Tripuradāha, the heroic sentiment is reflected and the last act is full of marvelous sentiment like the demons were regaining their life by falling into the pond of ambrosia with more power and the war between Sarvatāpa and Kārtikeya was stopped by Nārada. It should be noted that the gods were united to destroy the powers of demons from the three worlds.

Violent style (Ārabhaṭīvṛtti) –

The violent style (ārabhaṭīvṛtti) consists of the features like war, use of arms, haughtiness etc. All these features are applied in the Tripuradāha. The gods and the demons have been depicted as using arms to fight with each other. Further, Rāhu is depicted as showing haughtiness when he was speaking to Nārada. The Tripuradāha is full of violence; and hence can rightly be considered to be composed in the violent style.