1. The Date of Viçākhadatta
A curious vagueness besets our knowledge of Viçākhadatta or Viçākhadeva, son of the Mahārāja Bhāskaradatta or the minister Pṛthu, grandson of the feudatory Vaṭeçvaradatta. None of these persons are elsewhere known, and for his date we are reduced to conjectures. The play ends with a stanza mentioning Candragupta as would be natural in a play of which he is hero, but there are variants in the manuscripts, including Dantivarman, Rantivarman, and (A)vantivarman. The last has been utilized to fix the date, but in two different ways; Avantivarman might be the Maukhari king whose son married Harṣa’s daughter, or the king of Kashmir (A.D. 855–83); Jacobi[1] identifies the eclipse referred to in the play as that of December 2, 860, when, he holds, Çūra, the king’s minister, had the play performed. There is no conclusive argument for or against this clever combination. Konow[2] sees in Candragupta the ruler of the Gupta line, and would make the poet a younger contemporary of Kālidāsa, but this is fantasy. We have some evidence of imitation of Ratnākara by Viçākhadatta, but it is possibly not conclusive as to date. Still less weight attaches to the fact that in one manuscript the Nāndī is supposed to be over before the play begins, for that is merely a habit of South Indian manuscripts, true to the Bhāsa tradition. There is nothing that prevents a date in the ninth century, though the work may be earlier.[3] [[205]]
2. The Mudrārākṣasa
Whatever its date, the Mudrārākṣasa[4] is one of the great Sanskrit dramas, although in India itself its merits have long been underrated, because it does not conform to the normal model. It is a drama of political intrigue, centred in the person of Rākṣasa, formerly minister of the Nandas, who is now sworn to revenge their destruction on Cāṇakya, the Brahmin who vowed to ruin them, and who, in pursuance of this end, secured an alliance between Candragupta, their rival, and Parvateça[5] and attacked Pāṭaliputra. Rākṣasa seeing resistance vain surrendered the city; the last of the royal house, Sarvārthasiddhi, retired to an ascetic life, and Rākṣasa left to weave plots elsewhere. His effort by a poison maiden to slay Candragupta miscarried; instead, Parvateça fell a victim through Cāṇakya’s cunning. This so far aided Rākṣasa that his son Malayaketu left Candragupta and is now his ally, preparing with the aid of a host of motley origin, including princes of Kulūta, Malaya, Kashmir, Scind, and Persia to attack the capital. Act I shows Cāṇakya’s schemes; in a monologue he expresses his detestation of the Nandas and his determination to secure Rākṣasa as minister for his lord, for he is convinced of Rākṣasa’s worth and has no desire himself to rule. Nipuṇaka, his spy, enters; he has found a Jain Jīvasiddhi hostile to the king—he is in reality Cāṇakya’s agent; the scribe Çakaṭadāsa is a real enemy, as is the jeweller Candanadāsa, in whose house are Rākṣasa’s wife and child; by good fortune he has secured the signet ring of Rākṣasa, dropped by the former in pulling indoors the child. Cāṇakya sees his chance; he writes a letter, has it copied in good faith by Çakaṭadāsa and sealed with Rākṣasa’s seal; Çakaṭadāsa is then arrested, but on the point of impalement is rescued by Siddhārthaka, another spy of the minister’s, who flees to Rākṣasa; Jīvasiddhi is banished in ignominy to the same destination, and Candanadāsa is flung into prison, to await death for having harboured Rākṣasa’s family, which has escaped. Finally, it is reported that Bhāgurāyaṇa and others of the court are also fled, [[206]]news received by Cāṇakya with admirable composure, for they are also his emissaries.
Act II shows Rākṣasa’s counter-plots. Virādhaka, in a serpent-charmer’s disguise, bears him news of ill import: the scheme to murder Candragupta, as he passed under a coronation arch, has failed, Vairodhaka, uncle of Malayaketu, who stayed when his nephew fled and had been crowned also as lord of half the realm, being slain in lieu of Candragupta; Abhayadatta, who offered him poison, has been forced to drink the draught; Pramodaka, the chamberlain, has flaunted the wealth sent to him to use in bribes, and is dead in misery; the bold spirits, who were to issue from a subterranean passage into the king’s bedchamber, have been detected by the king through the sight of ants bearing a recent meal, and burnt in agony in their hiding place; Jīvasiddhi is banished, Çakaṭadāsa condemned to the stake, Candanadāsa to the same fate. The tale of woe is interrupted by the advent of Çakaṭadāsa with Siddhārthaka, who restores his seal to Rākṣasa, saying he had picked it up at Candanadāsa’s house, and begs permission to remain in his train. Virādhaka now gives the one piece of good news: Candragupta is tired of Cāṇakya. At this moment Rākṣasa is asked if he will buy some precious jewels, and hastily bids Çakaṭadāsa see to the price, little knowing that they are sent by Cāṇakya to entrap him. Act III displays Cāṇakya at his ablest; a fine scene takes place between him and Candragupta, on the score that he has forbidden all feasting without telling the king; the monarch finally upbraids him, the minister taunts him with ingratitude and insolence, resigns office, and leaves in high dudgeon; none but the chief actors know the whole is but a ruse, and Rākṣasa’s fortunes seem again fair. In Act IV the bright prospect begins to darken; Bhāgurāyaṇa, for the officials who have deserted to Malayaketu, explains to that monarch that they desire to deal direct with him, not Rākṣasa; the latter, they suggest, is no real foe of Candragupta; if Cāṇakya were out of the way, there would be nothing to hinder his allying himself with Candragupta. The king is perplexed, and his doubt increases when he overhears a conversation between Rākṣasa and a courier who bears the glad tidings of the split between the king and Cāṇakya; Rākṣasa eagerly exclaims that Candragupta is now in the palms of his hands [[207]](hastatalagata), a phrase which unhappily lends itself to the suspicious interpretation that he meditates alliance with that king. Malayaketu’s conversation with Rākṣasa, which ensues, leaves him half-hearted for an advance, for he cannot rid himself of his suspicions of the minister. The Act ends with Jīvasiddhi’s admission to see Rākṣasa, who asks him in vain for intelligible advice as to the time for an advance, receiving in lieu much astrological lore and what is really a presage of disaster. This is achieved in Act V. First Jīvasiddhi approaches Bhāgurāyaṇa, who is entrusted with the grant of permits to leave the camp, and admits—with feigned reluctance—in order to get a permit, that he fears Rākṣasa, who used him formerly when he was arranging for the poisoning of Parvateça, but now seeks to slay him. The king, who overhears this, is wild with rage; he had deemed his father slain by Cāṇakya, and Bhāgurāyaṇa has great difficulty in persuading him that Rākṣasa’s action might be deemed justifiable, and that at any rate vengeance must wait. Siddhārthaka, however, now appears a prisoner, caught trying to escape without a passport; beaten, he finally gives evidence against Rākṣasa in the shape of the letter written in Act I by Çakaṭadāsa, which he asserts he was to bear from Rākṣasa to Candragupta, a jewel sealed, like the letter, with Rākṣasa’s seal—one given by Malayaketu to Rākṣasa and by him to Siddhārthaka for rescuing Çakaṭadāsa, and a verbal message, stating the terms demanded by the allied kings for their treachery, and Rākṣasa’s own demand, the removal of Cāṇakya. The king confronts Rākṣasa with the proofs, and the minister has made his case worse from the start, for, asked the order of march proposed, he assigns to the allied kings the proud duty of guarding the king’s person, which Malayaketu interprets as a device to facilitate their treachery. Rākṣasa is bewildered; he can deny the message, but the seal and the writing are genuine; can Çakaṭadāsa have turned traitor through fear? The argument against him is clinched by the king’s seeing that he wears a fine jewel, one of those purchased at the close of Act II; it was the king’s father’s, and must, he insists, be the price of the minister’s treachery. Incensed, the foolish king gives orders to bury alive those allied kings who craved territory as their reward, and to trample under elephants those who sought them as their share. [[208]]All is confusion, and Rākṣasa, insolently spared, slips away to fulfil his duty of rescuing his friend Candanadāsa.
Act VI reveals Rākṣasa in the capital deeply soliloquizing on the failure of all his ends, and the fate of his friend. A spy of Candragupta’s approaches him, and passes himself off as one seeking death, in despair for Candanadāsa’s fate, on which Candragupta’s mind is relentlessly set. He warns Rākṣasa that he may not attempt a rescue, for, when they fear one, the executioners slay the victim out of hand, and Rākṣasa sees that nothing save self-sacrifice is left for him. The net is now firmly cast; Act VII sees Candanadāsa led out to death, his wife and child beside him, a scene manifestly imitated from the Mṛcchakaṭikā; the wife is determined to die also, but Rākṣasa intervenes; Cāṇakya and Candragupta come on the scene, and Rākṣasa decides to accept the office of minister pressed on him by both, when thus alone he can save, not his own life, but that of Candanadāsa and his friends. They, indeed, are in sore case, for Malayaketu’s massacre of the kings has broken the host into fragments, and the apparent rebels have taken the moment to capture him and his court. As minister, Rākṣasa is permitted to free Malayaketu and restore his lands, Candanadāsa is rewarded, and a general amnesty approved.
The interest in the action never flags; the characters of Cāṇakya and Rākṣasa are excellent foils. Each in his own way is admirable; Cāṇakya in his undying and just hatred of the Nandas, and Rākṣasa in his unsparing devotion to their cause, his noble desire to save Candanadāsa, and his fine submission, for the sake of others, to a yoke he had purposed never to bear. The maxims of politics in which both delight may amuse us; they are essentially the Indian views of polity and give the play a contact with reality which Professor Lévi[6] wrongly denies; the plots and counterplots of both ministers are the type in which Indian polity has ever delighted. The minor figures are all interesting; Siddhārthaka and Samiddhārthaka, gentlemen who even disguise themselves as Caṇḍālas in the last Act, so that they may serve Cāṇakya’s aims; Nipuṇaka, whose cleverness in finding the seal justifies the name he bears; the disguised Virādhaka, the honest Çakaṭadāsa, the noble Candanadāsa and [[209]]his wife, the one female figure in the play. The kings Candragupta and Malayaketu represent the contrast of ripe intelligence with youthful ardour, and the weak petulance of one who does not know men’s worth, and who rashly and cruelly slays his allies on the faith of treachery. Bhāgurāyaṇa, who is the false friend deluding Malayaketu in Candragupta’s interest, is a carefully drawn figure; he dislikes the work, but dismisses his repulsion as essentially the result of dependence which forbids a man to judge between right and wrong.
Viçākhadatta’s diction is admirably forcible and direct; the martial character of his dramas reflects itself in the clearness and rapidity of his style, which eschews the deplorable compounds which disfigure Bhavabhūti’s works. An artist in essentials, he uses images, metaphors, and similes with tasteful moderation; alone of the later dramatists, he realizes that he is writing a drama, not composing sets[7] of elegant extracts. Hence is explained the paucity of citations from him in the anthologies, which naturally find little to their purpose in an author of a more manly strain than is usual in the drama. It is significant that the Subhāṣitāvali cites but two stanzas, under his name, as Viçākhadeva, both pretty but undistinguished; the second[8] is graceful:
sendracāpaiḥ çṛtā meghair nipatannirjharā nagāḥ