These references seem to suggest that Çūdraka was a merely legendary person, a fact rather supported than otherwise by his quaint name, which is absurd in a king of normal type. Nevertheless, Professor Konow treats him as historical, and finds in him the Ābhīra prince Çivadatta, who, or whose son, Īçvarasena, is held by Dr. Fleet to have overthrown the last of the Andhra dynasty and to have founded the Cedi era of A.D. 248–9.[9] This remarkable result is held to be supported by the fact that in the play the king of Ujjayinī is Pālaka, and is represented as being overthrown by Āryaka, son of a herdsman (gopāla), and the Ābhīras are essentially herdsmen. But this is much more than dubious; we have in fact legendary history in the names of Pālaka, Gopāla—to be taken probably in the Mṛcchakaṭikā as a proper name—and Āryaka. The proof is indeed overwhelming, for Bhāsa, who is the source of so much of the Mṛcchakaṭikā, [[130]]mentions in his Pratijñāyaugandharāyaṇa as sons of Pradyota of Ujjayinī both Gopāla and Pālaka, and the Bṛhatkathā must have contained the story of Gopāla surrendering the kingdom on Pradyota’s death to Pālaka, and of the latter having to make room for Āryaka, his brother’s son. To make history out of these events, which belong to the period shortly after the Buddha’s death, say 483 B.C., and history of the third century A.D., is really impossible. Çūdraka is really clearly mythical, as is seen by the admission that he entered the fire, for no one can believe that he foresaw his death-day so precisely, or that the ceremony referred to is that performed on becoming an ascetic, or even that the prologue was added after his death; if it had been, it would have doubtless been of a different type. Still less can we imagine that he was helped in his work by Rāmila and Somila.
Windisch,[10] on the other hand, attempted to prove a close similarity between the plot of the political side of the play and the legend of Kṛṣṇa, instancing the prediction of Āryaka’s attaining the throne, the jealousy of the king and his efforts to destroy him, and the final overthrow of the tyrant. The similarity, however, is really remote; the story is a commonplace in legend, and nothing can be made of the comparison.
We are left, therefore, to accept the view that the author who wrote up the Cārudatta, and combined with it a new play, thought it well to conceal his identity and to pass off the work under the appellation of a famous king. Lévi’s suggestion that he chose Çūdraka for this purpose because he lived after Vikramāditya, patron of Kālidāsa, and wished to give his work the appearance of antiquity by associating it with a prince who preceded Vikramāditya, is clearly far-fetched, and insufficient to suggest a date. Nor can anything be deduced from the plentiful exhibition of Prākrits, which is not, to judge from Bhāsa, a sign of very early date; while the use of Māhārāṣṭrī Prākrit would be, if proved, conclusive that he is fairly late. Konow’s effort to support Çūdraka’s connexion with Pratiṣṭhāna by this use is clearly untenable.
There is more plausibility in the argument from the simple form of the construction of the drama; the manner of Bhāsa is [[131]]closely followed; thus in Act IX the absurd celerity with which the officer of the court obeys the order to bring the mother of Vasantasenā on the scene, and secures the presence of Cārudatta, is precisely on a par with Bhāsa’s management of the plot in his dramas. The scenes of violence, in which Vasantasenā is apparently killed and Cārudatta is led to death, are reminiscent of Bhāsa’s willingness to present such scenes, but they do not depart from the practice of the later drama as in Bhavabhūti’s Mālatīmādhava. The Çakāra and Viṭa are indeed figures of the early stage, but they are taken straight from Bhāsa and prove nothing. The position of the Buddhist monk is more interesting, but here again it is borrowed, though developed, and we find Buddhism respected in Kālidāsa and Harṣa. The arguments based on the apparent similarity with the Greek New Comedy are without value for an early date, for they apply, if they have any value at all, to the Cārudatta of Bhāsa. We are left, therefore, with no more than impressions, and these are quite insufficient to assign any date to the clever hand which recast the Cārudatta and made one of the great plays of the Indian drama.[11]
3. The Mṛcchakaṭikā
The first four acts of the play are a reproduction with slight changes of the Cārudatta of Bhāsa;[12] the very prologue shows the fact in the inexplicable transformation in the speech of the director, who opens in Sanskrit and then changes to Prākrit, while in the Cārudatta he speaks Prākrit only as fits the part of the Vidūṣaka which he is to play. The names are slightly changed; the king’s brother-in-law is called Saṁsthānaka, and the thief Çarvilaka. Act I carries the action up to the deposit of the gems by Vasantasenā; Act II relates the generosity of the hetaera to the shampooer who turns monk, and the attack made on him as he leaves her house by a mad elephant, from which Karṇapūraka, a servant of Vasantasenā’s, saves him, receiving as reward a cloak which Vasantasenā recognizes as Cārudatta’s. In Act III we learn of Çarvilaka’s success in stealing the jewels, and the generous resolve of the wife of Cārudatta to give her necklace to [[132]]replace them. In Act IV Çarvilaka gives the jewels to Vasantasenā, who, though aware of the theft, sets his love free. As he leaves with her, he hears of the imprisonment of his friend Āryaka by order of the king, who knows the prophecy of his attaining the kingship, and leaving his newly-made bride, he hastens to aid his friend who is reported to have escaped from his captivity. The Vidūṣaka then comes with the necklace, which the hetaera accepts in order to use it as a pretext to see Cārudatta once more. The visit occupies Act V, which passes in a storm forcing Vasantasenā to spend the night in Cārudatta’s house. Act VI reveals her next morning offering to return to Cārudatta’s wife the necklace, but her gift is refused. The child of Cārudatta appears, complaining that he has only a little earth cart (mṛcchakaṭikā), whence the name of the play; Vasantasenā gives him her jewels that he may buy one of gold. She is to rejoin Cārudatta in a neighbouring park, the property of Saṁsthānaka, but by error she enters the car of Saṁsthānaka, while Āryaka, who has been seeking a hiding-place, leaps into that of Cārudatta and is driven away; two policemen stop the cart, and one recognizes Āryaka, but protects him from the other with whom he contrives a quarrel. In Act VII Cārudatta, who is conversing with the Vidūṣaka, sees his cart drive up, discovers Āryaka, and permits him to go off in it, while he himself leaves to find Vasantasenā. In the next act Saṁsthānaka, with the Viṭa and a slave, meets in the park the shampooer turned monk, who has gone there to wash his robe in the tank; he insults him and beats him. The cart with Vasantasenā then is driven up, and the angry Saṁsthānaka first tries to win her by fair words; then, repulsed, orders the Viṭa and the slave to slay her; they indignantly refuse; he pretends to grow calm, dismisses them, and then rains blows on Vasantasenā, who falls apparently dead; the Viṭa, who sees his action, deserts at once his cause and passes over to Āryaka’s side. Saṁsthānaka, after burying the body under some leaves, departs, promising himself to put the slave in chains; the monk re-enters to dry his robe, finds and restores to life Vasantasenā, and takes her to the monastery to be cared for. In Act IX Saṁsthānaka denounces Cārudatta as the murderer of Vasantasenā to the court;[13] her [[133]]mother is summoned as a witness, but defends Cārudatta, who himself is cited; the police officer testifies to the escape of Āryaka, which implicates Cārudatta; the Vidūṣaka who enters the court, while en route to return to Vasantasenā the jewels she had given the child, is so indignant with the accuser that he lets fall the jewels; this fact, taken together with the evidence that Vasantasenā spent the night with Cārudatta and left next morning to meet him, and the signs of struggle in the park, deceives the judge, who condemns Cārudatta to exile; Pālaka converts the sentence into one of death. Act X reveals the hero led to death by two Caṇḍālas, who regret the duty they have to perform; the servant of Saṁsthānaka escapes and reveals the truth, but Saṁsthānaka makes light of his words as a disgraced and spiteful slave, and the headsmen decide to proceed with their work. Vasantasenā and the monk enter just in time to prevent Cārudatta’s death, and, while the lovers rejoice at their reunion, the news is brought that Āryaka has succeeded Pālaka whom he has slain, and that he has granted a principality to Cārudatta. The crowd shout for Saṁsthānaka’s death, but Cārudatta pardons him, while the monk is rewarded by being appointed superior over the Buddhist monasteries of the realm, and, best of all, Vasantasenā is made free of her profession, and thus can become Cārudatta’s lawful wife.
To the author we may ascribe the originality of combining the political and the love intrigue, which give together a special value to the play. We know of no precise parallel to this combination of motifs, though in the Bṛhatkathā there was probably a story recorded later[14] of the hetaera Kumudikā who fell in love with a poor Brahmin, imprisoned by the king; she allied herself to the fortunes of a dethroned prince Vikramasiṅha, aided him by her arts to secure the throne, and was permitted by the grateful prince to marry her beloved, now released from prison. The idea was doubtless current in some form or another, just as for the incidents of Bhāsa’s story we can trace parallels in the Kathā literature of hetaerae who love honest and poor men and desire to abandon for their sakes their hereditary and obligatory calling, which the law will compel them to follow.[15] The conception of the science of theft is neatly paralleled in the Daçakumāracarita, [[134]]where a text-book of the subject is ascribed to Karṇīsuta, and the same work contains interesting accounts of gambling which illustrate Act II. The Kathāsaritsāgara[16] tells of a ruined gambler, who takes refuge in an empty shrine, and describes in Sarga xxxviii the palace of the hetaera Madanamālā in terms which may be compared with the description by the Vidūṣaka in Act IV of the splendours of Vasantasenā’s palace.[17] The court scene conforms duly to the requirements of the legal Smṛtis of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., but the conservatism of the law renders this no sign of date.
Though composite in origin and in no sense a transcript from life, the merits of the Mṛcchakaṭikā are great and most amply justify what else would have been an inexcusable plagiarism. The hints given in the Cārudatta here appear in full and harmonious development aided and heightened by the introduction of the intrigue, which combines the private affairs of the hero with the fate of the city and kingdom. Cārudatta’s character is attractive in the extreme; considerate to his friend the Vidūṣaka, honouring and respecting his wife, deeply devoted to his little son, Rohasena, he loves Vasantasenā with an affection free from all mere passion; he has realized her nobility of character, her generosity, and the depth and truth of her love. Yet his devotion is only a part of his life; aware of the vanity of all human things, he does not value life over-highly; his condemnation affects him most because it strikes at his honour that he should have murdered a woman, and he leaves thus to his child a heritage of shame. Not less attractive is Vasantasenā, bound, despite herself, to a profession which has brought her great wealth but which offends her heart; the judge and all the others believe her merely carried away by sensual passion; Cārudatta and his wife alone recognize her nobility of soul, and realize how much it means for her to be made eligible for marriage to her beloved. There is an admirable contrast with the hero in the Çakāra Saṁsthānaka, who is described vividly and realistically. His position as brother-in-law of the king and his wealth make him believe that he is entitled to whatever he wants; Vasantasenā’s repulse of him outrages his sense of his own importance [[135]]more than anything else; brutal, ignorant[18] despite his association with courtiers of breeding and refinement, and cowardly, he has only skill in perfidy and deceit, and is mean enough to beg piteously for the life he has forfeited, but which Cārudatta magnanimously spares. The Viṭa is an excellent foil to him in his culture, good taste, and high breeding; despite his dependence on his patron, he checks his violence to Vasantasenā, strives to prevent his effort to murder her, and when he fails in this takes his life into his own hands and passes over to Āryaka’s side. The Vidūṣaka may be fond of food and comfortable living, but he remains faithful in adversity to his master, is prepared to die for him, and consents to live only to care for his son.
The minor characters among the twenty-seven in all who appear have each an individuality rare in Indian drama. Çarvilaka, once a Brahmin, now a professional thief, performs his new functions with all the precision appropriate to the performance of religious rites according to the text-books. The shampooer, turned Buddhist monk, has far too much worldly knowledge to seek any temporal preferment from the favour of Āryaka. Māthura, the master gambler, is a hardened sinner without bowels of compassion, but the two headsmen are sympathetic souls who perform reluctantly their painful duty. The wife of Cārudatta is a noble and gentle lady worthy of her husband, and one who in the best Indian fashion does not grudge him a new love if worthy, while the lively maid Madanikā deserves fully her freedom and marriage with Çarvilaka. Even characters which play so small an actual part as Āryaka are effectively indicated. The good taste of the author is strikingly revealed by the alteration made in the last scene by a certain Nīlakaṇṭha,[19] who holds that the omission to bring upon the stage Cārudatta’s wife, his son, and the Vidūṣaka was due to the risk of making the time occupied by the representation of the play too great. He supplies the lacuna by representing all three as determined to commit suicide when Cārudatta rescues them; the author himself would never have consented to introduce the first wife at the moment when a second is about to be taken.