mricchkatikam by shudraka in english

it explains mricchkatikam by shudraka in a very easy way.

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THE AUTHOR AND THE PLAY
Concerning the life, the date, and the very identity of King Shūdraka, the reputed author of
The Little Clay Cart, we are curiously ignorant. No other work is ascribed to him, and we have
no direct information about him, beyond the somewhat fanciful statements of the Prologue to
this play. There are, to be sure, many tales which cluster about the name of King Shūdraka,
but none of them represents him as an author. Yet our very lack of information may prove, to
some extent at least, a disguised blessing. For our ignorance of external fact compels a closer
study of the text, if we would find out what manner of man it was who wrote the play. And the
case of King Shūdraka is by no means unique in India; in regard to every great Sanskrit writer,
—so bare is Sanskrit literature of biography, —we are forced to concentrate attention on the
man as he reveals himself in his works. First, however, it may be worthwhile to compare
Shūdraka with two other great dramatists of India, and thus to discover, if we may, in what
ways he excels them or is excelled by them.
Kalidasa, Shūdraka, Bhavabhūti—assuredly, these are the greatest names in the history of the
Indian drama. So different are these men, and so great, that it is not possible to assert for any
one of them such supremacy as Shakespeare holds in the English drama. It is true that
Kalidasa’s dramatic masterpiece, the Shakuntala, is the most widely known of the Indian plays.
It is true that the tender and elegant Kalidasa has been called, with a not wholly fortunate
enthusiasm, the "Shakespeare of India." But this rather exclusive admiration of the
Shakuntala results from lack of information about the other great Indian dramas. Indeed, it is
partly due to the accident that only the Shakuntala became known in translation at a time when
romantic Europe was in full sympathy with the literature of India.
Bhavabhūti, too, is far less widely known than Kalidasa; and for this the reason is deeper-
seated. The austerity of Bhavabhūti style, his lack of humor, his insistent grandeur, are
qualities which prevent his being a truly popular poet. With reference to Kalidasa, he holds a
position such as Aeschylus holds with reference to Euripides. He will always seem to minds
that sympathize with his grandeur the greatest of Indian poets; while by other equally
discerning minds of another order he will be admired, but not passionately loved.

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Yet however great the difference between Kalidasa, "the grace of poetry," and
Bhavabhūti, "the master of eloquence," these two authors are far more intimately allied
in spirit than is either of them with the author of The Little Clay Cart. Kalidasa and Bhavabhūti
are Hindus of the Hindus; the Shakuntala and the Latter Acts of Rāma could have been written
nowhere save in India: but Shūdraka, alone in the long line of Indian dramatists, has a
cosmopolitan character. Shakuntala is a Hindu maid, Madhava is a Hindu hero; but
Sansthānaka and Maitreya and Madanikā are citizens of the world. In some of the more striking
characteristics of Sanskrit literature—in its fondness for system, its elaboration of style, its
love of epigram—Kalidasa and Bhavabhūti are far truer to their native land than is Shūdraka.
In Shūdraka we find few of those splendid phrases in which, as the Chinese say, it is only the
words which stop, the sense goes on —phrases like Kalidasa’s "there are doors of the
inevitable everywhere," or Bhavabhūti "for causeless love there is no remedy."
As regards the predominance of swift-moving action over the poetical expression of great
truths, The Little Clay Cart stands related to the Latter Acts of Rāma as Macbeth does to
Hamlet. Again, Shūdraka style is simple and direct, a rare quality in a Hindu; and although
this style, in the passages of higher emotion, is of an exquisite simplicity, yet Shūdraka cannot
infuse into mere language the charm which we find in Kalidasa or the majesty which we find
in Bhavabhūti.
Yet Shūdraka limitations in regard to stylistic power are not without their compensation. For
love of style slowly strangled originality and enterprise in Indian poets, and ultimately proved
the death of Sanskrit literature. Now just at this point, where other Hindu writers are weak,
Shūdraka stands forth preeminent. Nowhere else in the hundreds of Sanskrit dramas do we
find such variety, and such drawing of character, as in The Little Clay Cart; and nowhere else,
in the drama at least, is there such humor. Let us consider, a little more in detail, these three
characteristics of our author; his variety, his skill in the drawing of character, his humor.
To gain a rough idea of Shūdraka variety, we have only to recall the names of the acts of the
play. Here the Shampooer who Gambled and The Hole in the Wall are shortly followed by
The Storm; and The Swapping of the Bullock-carts is closely succeeded by The Strangling of
Vasisthasana. From farce to tragedy, from satire to pathos, runs the story, with a breadth truly
Shakespearian.

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It is natural that Shūdraka should choose for the expression of matters so diverse that type
of drama which gives the greatest scope to the author's creative power. This type is the so-
called "drama of invention," a category curiously subordinated in India to the heroic
drama, the plot of which is drawn from history or mythology. Indeed, The Little Clay Cart
is the only extant drama which fulfils the spirit of the drama of invention, as defined by the
Sanskrit canons of dramaturgy. The plot of the "Mālatī and Madhava," or of the
"Mallikā and Māruta," is in no true sense the invention of the author; and The Little
Clay Cart is the only drama of invention which is "full of rascals."

But a spirit so powerful as that of King Shūdraka could not be confined within the strait
jacket of the minute, and sometimes puerile, rules of the technical works. In the very title
of the drama, he has disregarded the rule that the name of a drama of invention should be
formed by compounding the names of heroin and hero. Again, the books prescribe that the
hero shall appear in every act; yet Chārudatta does not appear in acts ii., iv., vi., and viii.
And further, various characters, Vasantasenā, Maitreya, the courtier, and others, have
vastly gained because they do not conform too closely to the technical definitions.

The characters of The Little Clay Cart are living men and women. Even when the type
makes no strong appeal to Western minds, as in the case of Chārudatta, the character lives,
in a sense in which Dushyanta or even Rāma can hardly be said to live. Shūdraka's men are
better individualized than his women; this fact alone differentiates him sharply from other
Indian dramatists. He draws on every class of society, from the high-souled Brahman to the
executioner and the housemaid. His greatest character is unquestionably Sansthānaka, this
combination of ignorant conceit, brutal lust, and cunning, this greater than Cloten, who,
after strangling an innocent woman, can say: "Oh, come! Let's go and play in the
pond." Most attractive characters are the five conspirators, men whose home is "east of
Suez and the ten commandments." They live from hand to mouth, ready at any
moment to steal a gem-casket or to take part in a revolution, and preserving through it all
their character as gentlemen and their irresistible conceit.

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To him, life itself is not dear, but only honor. He values wealth only as it supplies him with
the means of serving others. We may, with some justice, compare him with Antonio in The
Merchant of Venice. There is some inconsistency, from our point of view, in making such
a character the hero of a love-drama; and indeed, it is Vasantasenā who does most of the
love-making.
Vasantasenā is a character with neither the girlish charm of Shakuntalā nor the mature
womanly dignity of Sītā. She is more admirable than lovable. Witty and wise she is, and
in her love as true as steel; this too, in a social position which makes such constancy
difficult. Yet she cannot be called a great character; she does not seem so true to life as her
clever maid, Madanikā. In making the heroine of his play a courtesan, Shūdraka follows a
suggestion of the technical works on the drama; he does not thereby cast any imputation of
ill on Vasantasenā's character. The courtesan class in India corresponded roughly to the
hetæræ o ancient Greece or the geishas of Japan; it was possible to be a courtesan and retain
one's self-respect. Yet the inherited 1 way of life proves distasteful to Vasantasenā; her one
desire is to escape its limitations and its dangers by becoming a legal wife.

In Maitreya, the Vidūshaka, we find an instance of our author's masterly skill in giving life
to the dry bones of a rhetorical definition. The Vidūshaka is a stock character who has
something in common with a jester; and in Maitreya the essential traits of the character—
eagerness for good food and other creature comforts, and blundering devotion to his
friend—are retained, to be sure, but clarified and elevated by his quaint humor and his
readiness to follow Chārudatta even in death. The grosser traits of the typical Vidūshaka
are lacking. Maitreya is neither a glutton nor a fool, but a simple-minded, whole-hearted
friend.

The courtier is another character suggested by the technical works, and transformed by the
genius of Shūdraka. He is a man not only of education and social refinement, but also of
real nobility of nature. But he is in a false position from the first, this true gentleman at the
wretched court of King Pālaka; at last he finds the courage to break away, and risks life,
and all that makes life attractive, by backing Aryaka.

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Of all the conspirators, it is he who runs the greatest risk. To his protection of Vasantasenā
is added a touch of infinite pathos when we remember that he was himself in love with
her. Only when Vasantasenā leaves him without a thought, to enter Chārudatta's house,
does he realize how much he loves her; then, indeed, he breaks forth in words of the most
passionate jealousy. We need not linger over the other characters, except to observe that
each has his marked individuality, and that each helps to make vivid this picture of a society
that seems at first so remote.

Shūdraka's humor is the third of his vitally distinguishing qualities. This humor has an
American flavor, both in its puns and in its situations. The plays on words can seldom be
adequately reproduced in translation, but the situations are independent of language. And
Shūdraka's humor runs the whole gamut, from grim to farcical, from satirical to quaint. Its
variety and keenness are such that King Shūdraka need not fear a comparison with the
greatest of Occidental writers of comedies.

It remains to say a word about the construction of the play. Obviously, it is too long. More
than this, the main action halts through acts ii. to v., and during these episodic acts we
almost forget that the main plot concerns the love of Vasantasenā and Chārudatta. Indeed,
we have in The Little Clay Cart the material for two plays. The larger part of act i. forms
with acts vi. to x a consistent and ingenious plot; while the remainder of act i. might be
combined with acts iii. to v. to make a pleasing comedy of lighter tone.
The second act, clever as it is, has little real connection either with the main plot or with
the story of the gems. The breadth of treatment which is observable in this play is found in
many other specimens of the Sanskrit drama, which has set itself an ideal different from
that of our own drama. The lack of dramatic unity and consistency is often compensated,
indeed, by lyrical beauty and charms of style; but it suggests the question whether we might
not more justly speak of the Sanskrit plays as dramatic poems than as dramas.
In The Little Clay Cart, at any rate, we could ill afford to spare a single scene, even though
the very richness and variety of the play remove it from the class of the world's greatest
dramas.

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The Translation
THE following translation is sufficiently different from previous translations of Indian plays
to require a word of explanation. The difference consists chiefly in the manner in which I have
endeavored to preserve the form of the original. The Indian plays are written in mingled prose
and verse; and the verse portion forms so large a part of the whole that the manner in which it
is rendered is of much importance. Now this verse is not analogous to the iambic trimester of
Sophocles or the blank verse of Shakespeare, but roughly corresponds to the Greek choruses
or the occasional rhymed songs of the Elizabethan stage. In other words, the verse portion of
a Sanskrit drama is not narrative; it is sometimes descriptive, but more commonly lyrical: each
stanza sums up the emotional impression which the preceding action or dialogue has made
upon one of the actors. Such matter is in English cast into the form of the rhymed stanza; and
so, although rhymed verse is very rarely employed in classical Sanskrit, it seems the most
appropriate vehicle for the translation of the stanzas of a Sanskrit drama. It is true that we
occasionally find stanzas which might fitly be rendered in English blank verse, and, more
frequently, stanzas which are so prosaic as not to deserve a rendering in English verse at
all. 1 But, as the present translation may be regarded as in some sort an experiment, I have
preferred to hold rigidly to the distinction found in the original between simple prose and types
of stanza which seem to me to correspond to English rhymed verse.
It is obvious that a translation into verse, and especially into rhymed verse, cannot be as literal
as a translation into prose; this disadvantage I have used my best pains to minimize. I hope it
may be said that nothing of real moment has been omitted from the verses; and where lack of
metrical skill has compelled expansion, I have striven to make the additions as insignificant as
possible. There is another point, however, in which it is hardly feasible to imitate the original;
this is the difference in the dialects used by the various characters. In the Little Clay Cart, as
in other Indian dramas, some of the characters speak Sanskrit, others Prakrit. Now Prakrit is
the generic name for a number of dialects derived from the Sanskrit and closely akin to it. The
inferior personages of an Indian play, and, with rare exceptions, all the women, speak one or
another of these Prakrit’s. Of the thirty characters of this play, for example, only five
(Chārudatta, the courtier, Aryaka, Sharvilaka, and the judge) speak Sanskrit; 1 the others speak
various Prakrit dialects.

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Only in the case of Sansthānaka have I made a rude attempt to suggest the dialect by
substituting sh for s as he does. And the grandiloquence of Sharvilaka's Sanskrit in the satirical
portion of the third act I have endeavored to imitate.

Whenever the language of the original is at all technical, the translator labors under peculiar
difficulty. Thus, the legal terms found in the ninth act are inadequately rendered, and, to some
extent at least, inevitably so; for the legal forms, or lack of forms, pictured there were never
contemplated by the makers of the English legal vocabulary. It may be added here that in
rendering from a literature so artificial as the Sanskrit, one must lose not only the sensuous
beauty of the verse, but also many plays on words.
In regard to the not infrequent repetitions found in the text, I have used my best judgment.
Such repetitions have been given in full where it seemed to me that the force or unity of the
passage gained by such treatment, or where the original repeats in full, as in the case of v. 7,
which is identical with iii. Elsewhere, I have merely indicated the repetition after the manner
of the original.
The reader will notice that there was little effort to attain realism in the presentation of an
Indian play. He need not be surprised therefore to find (page 145) that Vīraka leaves the
courtroom, mounts a horse, rides to the suburbs, makes an investigation and returns—all
within the limits of a stage-direction. The simplicity of presentation also makes possible
sudden shifts of scene. In the first act, for example, there are six scenes, which take place
alternately in Chārudatta's house and in the street outside. In those cases where a character
enters "seated" or "asleep," I have substituted the verb "appear" for the verb "enter"; yet I am
not sure that this concession to realism is wise.
The system of transliteration which I have adopted is intended to render the pronunciation of
proper names as simple as may be to the English reader. The consonants are to be pronounced
as in English, the vowels as in Italian. Diacritical marks have been avoided, with the exception
of the macron. This sign has been used consistently 2 to mark long vowels except e and o,
which are always long. Three rules suffice for the placing of the accent. A long penult is
accented: Maitreya, Chārudatta. If the penult is short, the antepenult is accented provided it be
long: Sansthānaka. If both penult and antepenult of a four-syllabled word are short, the pre-
antepenultimate receives the accent: Madanikā, Sthá, varaka.

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AN OUTLINE OF THE PLOT
Act I- Entitled the Gems are left Behind. Evening of the first day. —After the prologue,
Chārudatta, who is within his house, converses with his friend Maitreya, and deplores
his poverty. While they are speaking, Vasantasenā appears in the street outside. She is
pursued by the courtier and Sansthānaka; the latter makes her degrading offers of his
love, which she indignantly rejects. Chārudatta sends Maitreya from the house to offer
sacrifice, and through the open door Vasantasenā slips unobserved into the house.
Maitreya returns after an altercation with Sansthānaka, and recognizes Vasantasenā.
Vasantasenā leaves a casket of gems in the house for safe keeping and returns to her
home.

Act II- entitled The Shampooer who Gambled. Second day. —The act opens in
Vasantasenā's house. Vasantasenā confesses to her maid Madanikā her love for
Chārudatta. Then a shampooer appears in the street, pursued by the gambling-master
and a gambler, who demand of him ten gold-pieces which he has lost in the gambling-
house. At this point Darduraka enters, and engages the gambling-master and the gambler
in an angry discussion, during which the shampooer escapes into Vasantasenā's house.
When Vasantasenā learns that the shampooer had once served Chārudatta, she pays his
debt; the grateful shampooer resolves to turn monk. As he leaves the house he is attacked
by a runaway elephant, and saved by Karnapūraka, a servant of Vasantasenā.

Act III- Entitled the Hole in the Wall. The night following the second day. —Chārudatta
and Maitreya return home after midnight from a concert, and go to sleep. Maitreya has
in his hand the gem-casket which Vasantasenā has left behind. Sharvilaka enters. He is
in love with Madanikā, a maid of Vasantasenā's, and is resolved to acquire by theft the
means of buying her freedom. He makes a hole in the wall of the house, enters, and
steals the casket of gems which Vasantasenā had left. Chārudatta wakes to find casket
and thief gone. His wife gives him her pearl necklace with which to make restitution.

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Act IV- Entitled Madanikā and Sharvilaka. Third day. —Sharvilaka comes to
Vasantasenā's house to buy Madanikā's freedom. Vasantasenā overhears the facts
concerning the theft of her gem-casket from Chārudatta's house, but accepts the casket,
and gives Madanikā her freedom. As Sharvilaka leaves the house, he hears that his friend
Aryaka, who had been imprisoned by the king, has escaped and is being pursued.
Sharvilaka departs to help him. Maitreya comes from Chārudatta with the pearl
necklace, to repay Vasantasenā for the gem-casket. She accepts the necklace also, as
giving her an excuse for a visit to Chārudatta.
Act V- entitled The Storm. Evening of the third day. —Chārudatta appears in the garden
of his house. Here he receives a servant of Vasantasenā, who announces that
Vasantasenā is on her way to visit him. Vasantasenā then appears in the street with the
courtier; the two describe alternately the violence and beauty of the storm which has
suddenly arisen. Vasantasenā dismisses the courtier, enters the garden, and explains to
Chārudatta how she has again come into possession of the gem-casket. Meanwhile, the
storm has so increased in violence that she is compelled to spend the night at
Chārudatta's house.
Act VI- Entitled the Swapping of the Bullock-carts. Morning of the fourth day. —Here
she meets Chārudatta's little son, Rohasena. The boy is peevish because he can now have
only a little clay cart to play with, instead of finer toys. Vasantasenā gives him her gems
to buy a toy cart of gold. Chārudatta's servant drives up to take Vasantasenā in
Chārudatta's bullock-cart to the park, where she is to meet Chārudatta; but while
Vasantasenā is making ready, he drives away to get a cushion. Then Sansthānaka's
servant drives up with his master's cart, which Vasantasenā enters by mistake. Soon
after, Chārudatta's servant returns with his cart. Then the escaped prisoner Aryaka
appears and enters Chārudatta's cart. Two policemen come on the scene; they are
searching for Aryaka. One of them looks into the cart and discovers Aryaka, but agrees
to protect him. This he does by deceiving and finally maltreating his companion.

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ACT VII., entitled Aryaka's Escape. Fourth day. —Chārudatta is awaiting Vasantasenā in
the park. His cart, in which Aryaka lies hidden, appears. Chārudatta discovers the fugitive,
removes his fetters, lends him the cart, and leaves the park.
ACT VIII., entitled The Strangling of Vasantasenā. Fourth day. —A Buddhist monk, the
shampooer of the second act, enters the park. He has difficulty in escaping from
Sansthānaka, who appears with the courtier. Sansthānaka's servant drives in with the cart
which Vasantasenā had entered by mistake. She is discovered by Sansthānaka, who pursues
her with insulting offers of love. When she repulses him, Sansthānaka gets rid of all
witnesses, strangles her, and leaves her for dead. The Buddhist monk enters again, revives
Vasantasenā, and conducts her to a monastery.

ACT IX., entitled The Trial. Fifth day. —Sansthānaka accuses Chārudatta of murdering
Vasantasenā for her money. In the course of the trial, it appears that Vasantasenā had spent
the night of the storm at Chārudatta's house; that she had left the house the next morning to
meet Chārudatta in the park; that there had been a struggle in the park, which apparently
ended in the murder of a woman. Chārudatta's friend, Maitreya, enters with the gems which
Vasantasenā had left to buy Chārudatta's son a toy cart of gold. These gems fall to the floor
during a scuffle between Maitreya and Sansthānaka. In view of Chārudatta's poverty, this
seems to establish the motive for the crime, and Chārudatta is condemned to death.

Act X- Entitled the End. Sixth day. —Two headsmen are conducting Chārudatta to the
place of execution. Chārudatta takes his last leave of his son and his friend Maitreya. But
Sansthānaka's servant escapes from confinement and betrays the truth; yet he is not
believed, owing to the cunning displayed by his master. The headsmen are preparing to
execute Chārudatta, when Vasantasenā herself appears upon the scene, accompanied by the
Buddhist monk. Her appearance puts a summary end to the proceedings. Then news is
brought that Aryaka has killed and supplanted the former king, that he wishes to reward
Chārudatta, and that he has by royal edict freed Vasantasenā from the necessity of living
as a courtesan. Sansthānaka is brought before Chārudatta for sentence, but is pardoned by
the man whom he had so grievously injured. The play ends with the usual Epilogue.

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Summary of ‘Mrcchakatika’

Mrcchakatika is a love story and a political satire. A play more ancient than the equally
famous Shakuntala, it remains one of India’s most enduring works, one still widely
performed in various formats and versions. The main storyline of Mrcchakatika, with its
ten acts and thirty characters, runs thus: Charudatta is a noble, impoverished Brahmin. One
night, the courtesan Vasantasena on the run from the evil Sansthanaka, seeks refuge in
Charudatta’s house. She leaves her jewels (and, evidently, her heart) there. The jewels are
later stolen by the thief Sharvilaka who is in love with Vasantasena’s attendant and needs
them to secure the latter’s freedom. As the theft is discovered, Charudatta’s wife offers her
own pearl necklace. Vasantasena returns to his house, ostensibly to return
the ratnamala but with the hope of seeing him again. Predictably, it is a dark and stormy
night. The next morning, she meets Charudatta’s young son, Rohasena. Moved by his
fervent childish desire to own a gold cart (the cart that gives the play its name), quite like
his playmate’s, Vasantasena fills it with her ow n jewelry.

It is this jewelry that will implicate Charudatta in Vasantasena’s murder (actually
committed by Sansthanaka). But along with all this, there is political upheaval, a trial and
then the sensational last act – when Vasantasena is miraculously resuscitated by a masseur
turned monk whom Charudatta had once played.

The mysterious playwright
For all the familiarity with the play, there remains much that is mysterious about its
author. All existing versions of the play Mrcchakatika begin with a prologue which states
that its author Shudraka was a mighty and wise king. A “dvija-mukhyatama”, he
knew the Vedas and scriptures, and was a great warrior to boot. Having ruled for 110
years, he performed the horse sacrifice, in the manner of all great kings, and then
abdicated in favour of his son and consigned his own self to the fire.

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But the evident exaggerations implied that the prologue was added on, much after the
play assumed its final version – even though scholars of an earlier generation also
postulated that it was customary for playwrights to introduce themselves this way in the
prologue.
Philologists, linguists, historians and scholars of theatre have played detective trying to
ascertain the authorship and also the date of the text. This becomes important so as to
place the work in context, and to determine the times and period it talks about.

The doubts about Shūdraka’s authorship begin early on. The playwright Dandin, who
lived in the seventh century CE, and his contemporary, Rajasekhara mention Shūdraka
but more as a romantic hero rather than poet.
In a text attributed to Dandin but now lost, and whose versions were quoted by later
writers, it is believed that Shūdraka was either a prince or a noble figure who lived in
Asmaka (in present day Maharashtra). He was a friend of then Satavahana king Svati; the
Satavahanas ruled from about 230 BCE for another 400 years, around present-day Andhra
Pradesh, south-east Maharashtra and parts of Karnataka. As the story goes, Shudraka first
dethroned Svati but out of regard for their old friendship restored Svati’s kingdom to him.
In the end though, he defeated Svati at Ujjaiyani and became king instead.

There were some scholars who have also suggested that Mrcchakatika was derived from
an earlier play, Charu-datam by Bahasa (who lived in the early centuries BCE), since the
first four acts of the plays share close similarities. Bahasa’s Charu-datam continued for
long to be performed by practitioners of the Kutiyattam dance form in Kerala, and was
rediscovered in the early twentieth century – Raja Ravi Varma’s famous painting of
Vasantasena is based on this version.

Shudraka or the author, it is surmised, added on to the original story – the rest that
includes the episodes of the rebellion and Vasantasena’s murder. Based on this surmise,
Shudraka is supposed to have lived between the times of Bhasa and Kalidasa, who came
later during the Gupta era, in the fifth century CE.

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Plot summary
"The Little Clay Cart" tells the story of a Brahman named Chrudatta, who despite being a
member of the highest caste, is not endowed with riches because he gave them all out to people
in need. Despite his misfortunes, Chrudatta continues with his duties as a Brahman, helping
the people and giving advice where he can. Vasantasen, a courtesan, falls in love with
Chrudatta as he is preaching at one of the temples. Despite being happily married, Chrudatta
also falls for Vasantasen, and they start an affair. Vasantasen sees Chrudatta in secret and gives
him expensive gifts—one which puts him in trouble after it's used as evidence in a murder
case. After Samsthnaka strangles Vasantasen, he thinks that she is dead and frames the murder
on the Brahman. Chrudatta refuses to be incriminated, but one of Vasantasen's kneck laces is
found at his house. The judges find him guilty, believing that he killed the victim to steal the
jewelry from her. The tyrant King Plaka orders his execution for the crime, but before he is
killed, Vasantasen reappears and saves him. The story ends with Chrudatta's wealth and
position reinstated by the new king Aryaka and his wife accepting Vasantasen as the
Brahman's second lover.
Chrudatta is a Brahman who has impoverished himself by spending his substance on the public
welfare and in helping individuals who have sought his aid. Although dwelling in poverty in
a broken-down house, he still enjoys a fine reputation in Ujjaiyani as an honest and upright
man of rare wisdom. This reputation eases somewhat the fact that he has been deserted by
most of his friends and is embarrassed by his lack of wealth.
Although married happily and the proud father of a small son, Rohasena, Chrudatta is
enamored of Vasantasen, a courtesan of great wealth and reputation who, having seen him at
a temple, is also in love with him. One evening, as Chrudatta and his friend Maitreya sit
discussing Chrudatta’s misfortunes and the efficacy of devotion to the gods, Vasantasen finds
herself pursued by Samsthnaka, a half-mad brother-in-law of King Plaka, and one of his
henchmen. The men threaten to do violence to Vasantasen, but she escapes from them in the
darkness and finds safety in the house of Chrudatta, where a meeting between the two increases
the love they already feel for each other. Before she leaves to return to her own palace, the
courtesan entrusts a casket of jewelry to Chrudatta as an excuse to see him again.

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During the night a thief, Sharvilaka, enters Chrudatta’s house and steals the jewelry to buy his
love, Madanik, who is Vasantasen’s slave and confidant. The courtesan accepts the jewels and
frees Madanik to marry Sarvilaka, intending to see that Chrudatta should learn that the jewels
have been recovered. In the meantime, Chrudatta sends a rare pearl necklace of his wife’s to
Vasantasen to recompense the courtesan for the loss of her fewer valuable jewels. His friend
Maitreya, fearing that Vasantasen’s attentions can bring only bad luck and disaster, cautions
Chrudatta against doing so. Maitreya, knowing courtesans, believes that Vasantasen is merely
scheming to take from Chrudatta the few possessions he still has.
After leaving Vasantasen’s palace with his newly freed bride, Sarvilaka learns that his friend
Prince ryaka has been arrested by King Plaka and placed in a dungeon. The king, neither a
popular nor a just monarch, fears that the people might rise up, as a soothsayer has predicted,
to place Prince ryaka on the throne. After Sarvilaka succeeds in freeing the prince from prison,
ryaka seeks help from Chrudatta, who aids him in escaping the pursuing guards.
Mrcchakatika Sanskrit: Mrcchakatika (मृच्छकटिका), also
spelled Mṛcchakaṭikā, Mrchchhakatika, Mricchakatika, or Mrichchhakatika (The Little Clay
Cart) is a ten-act Sanskrit drama attributed to Śūdraka, an ancient playwright whose is
possibly from the 5th century AD, and who is identified by the prologue as a Kshatriya king
as well as a devotee of Siva who lived for 100 years.
[1]
The play is set in the ancient city
of Ujjayini during the reign of the King Pālaka, near the end of the Pradyota dynasty that made
up the first quarter of the fifth century BC.
[2]
The central story is that of a noble but
impoverished young Brahmin, Sanskrit: Cārudatta, who falls in love with a wealthy courtesan
or nagarvadhu, Sanskrit: Vasantasenā. Despite their mutual affection, however, the couple's
lives and love are threatened when a vulgar courtier, Samsthānaka, also known as Shakara,
begins to aggressively pursue Vasantasenā.
Rife with romance, comedy, intrigue and a political subplot detailing the overthrow of the
city's despotic ruler by a shepherd, the play is notable among extant Sanskrit drama for its
focus on a fictional scenario rather than on a classical tale or legend. Mṛcchakaṭika also departs
from traditions enumerated in the Natya Shastra that specify that dramas should focus on the
lives of the nobility and instead incorporates many peasant characters who speak a wide range

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of Prakrit dialects. The story is thought to be derived from an earlier work called Cārudatta in
Poverty by the playwright Bhāsa, though that work survives only in fragments.
[1]

Of all the Sanskrit dramas, Mṛcchakaṭika remains one of the most widely celebrated and oft-
performed in the West. The work played a significant role in generating interest in Indian
theatre among European audiences following several successful nineteenth century
translations and stage productions, most notably Gérard de Nerval and Joseph Méry's highly
romanticised French adaptation titled Le Chariot d'enfant that premiered in Paris in 1850, as
well as a critically acclaimed "anarchist" interpretation by Victor Barrucand called Le Chariot
de terre cuite that was produced by the Théâtre de l'Œuvre in 1895.
[2]

Unlike other classical plays in Sanskrit, the play does not borrow from epics or mythology.
The characters of Śūdraka are drawn from the mundane world. It is peopled with gamblers,
courtesans, thieves, and so on. The protagonist of the play, Cārudatta, does not belong to the
noble class or royal lineage. Though Vasantasenā is a courtesan, her exemplary attitude and
dignified behavior impress the audience. The nobility of the characters does not stem from
their social conditioning but from their virtues and behavior.
Cārudatta is a generous young man who, through his charitable contributions to unlucky
friends and the general public welfare, has severely impoverished himself and his family.
Though deserted by most of his friends and embarrassed by deteriorating living conditions, he
has maintained his reputation in Ujjayini as an honest and upright man with a rare gift of
wisdom and many important men continue to seek his counsel.
Though happily married and the recent father of a young son, Rohasena, Cārudatta is enamored
of Vasantasenā, a courtesan of great wealth and reputation. At a chance encounter at the temple
of Kāma she returns his affection, though the matter is complicated when Vasantasenā finds
herself pursued by Samsthānaka, a half-mad brother-in-law of King Pālaka, and his retinue.
When the men threaten violence, Vasantasenā flees, seeking safety with Cārudatta. Their love
blossoms following the clandestine meeting, and the courtesan entrusts her new lover with a
casket of jewelry in an attempt to ensure a future meeting.
Her plan is thwarted, however, when a thief, Sarvilaka, enters Cārudatta’s home and steals the
jewels in an elaborate scheme to buy the freedom of his lover, Madanikā, who is Vasantasenā’s
slave and confidant.

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The courtesan recognizes the jewelry, but she accepts the payment anyway and frees Madanikā
to marry. She then attempts to contact Cārudatta and inform him of the situation, but before
she can make contact he panics and sends Vasantasenā a rare pearl necklace that had belonged
to his wife, a gift in great excess of the value of the stolen jewelry. In recognition of this,
Cārudatta's friend, Maitreya, cautions the Brahmin against further association, fearing that
Vasantasenā is, at worst, scheming to take from Cārudatta the few possessions he still has and,
at best, a good-intentioned bastion of bad luck and disaster. Refusing to take this advice,
Cārudatta makes Vasantasenā his mistress and she eventually meets his young son. During the
encounter, the boy is distressed because he has recently enjoyed playing with a friend's toy
cart of solid gold and no longer wants his own clay cart that his nurse has made for him. Taking
pity on him in his sadness, Vasantasenā fills his little clay cart with her own jewelry, heaping
his humble toy with a mound of gold before departing to meet Cārudatta in a park outside the
city for a day’s outing. There she enters a fine carriage, but soon discovers that she is in a
gharry belonging to Samsthānaka, who remains enraged by her previous affront and is madly
jealous of the love and favor she shows to Cārudatta. Unable to persuade his henchmen to kill
her, Samsthānaka sends his retinue away and proceeds to strangle Vasantasenā and hide her
body beneath a pile of leaves. Still seeking vengeance, he promptly accuses Cārudatta of the
crime.
Though Cārudatta proclaims his innocence, his presence in the park along with his son's
possession of Vasantasenā's jewels implicate the poverty-stricken man, and he is found guilty
and condemned to death by King Pālaka. Unbeknownst to all, however, the body identified as
Vasantasenā’s was actually another woman. Vasantasenā had been revived and befriended by
a Buddhist monk who nursed her back to health in a nearby village. Just as Cārudatta faces
execution, Vasantasenā appears and, seeing the excited crowd, intervenes in time to save him
from execution and his wife from throwing herself onto the funeral pyre. Together the three
declare themselves a family. Reaching the courts, Vasantasenā tells the story of her near death
and, following her testimony, Samsthānaka is arrested and the good Prince Āryaka deposes
the wicked King Pālaka. His first acts as the newly declared sovereign is to restore Cārudatta’s
fortune and give him an important position at court. Following this good will, Cārudatta
demonstrates in the final act his enduring virtue and charity, appealing to the King for pardon
on behalf of Samsthānaka who is subsequently declared free.

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Present day interpretations
The play’s first Marathi production was in 1887, performed by the Lalit Kalotsav Mandali in
Pune. This play was based on the Sangita Mricchakatika by the playwright Govind Ballal
Deval. Apparently, he relied on an earlier version by the noted scholar and lexicographer
Parashuram Godbole published in 1862, though there is the version of Mrcchakatika in 1896
by Narayan Ballal Godbole which uses all existing versions of the play. Godbole procured
different versions of the play from places as far apart as Tanjore, Nagpur and Jeypore in Bengal
to write his own magisterial version.

It was staged in Bengali by the Bohurupee theatre group, directed by Kumar Roy. Even in its
later presentations, Mrcchakatika had many firsts to its credit. Vasantasena was the first
Kannada silent film to be made in 1931, starring Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay in the eponymous
role. Suchet Singh, a young filmmaker who had worked with Charles Chaplin, shot four silent
films including one on Vasantasena. He died in 1930 and not one of his films survives.

One of its most famous adaptations was by the Hindustani Theatre Group in 1958, under the
name Mitti Ki Gadi, in a Hindi-Urdu version. Translated by Begum Qudsia Zaidi and Noor
Nabi Abbasi, it also involved folk artistes from Chattisgarh, introduced by the play’s director
Habib Tanvir. Tanvir’s adaptation, which also highlighted the play’s political message, melded
the classical Sanskrit tradition with the idiom of folk theatre, complete with music and
dialogue.
It was Tanvir who pointed out that all translations of the play had extolled its literary virtues
but were reticent about aspects of dramaturgy, as Anjum Katyal writes. Indian concepts of
drama based on the Natyashastra were different from Aristotle’s Poetics, which defined
dramatic traditions in Europe. The time flows and space shifts that occur within one act in the
play might have been difficult to replicate on a western stage setting, but Tanvir got around
this by introducing innovative stage sets and his use of music and perambulation, so that the
change was obvious to all.

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Its silver screen adaptation in 1985, the Girish Karnad directed Utsav, was a latter-day
interpretation, seeking to revoke the past in a radically different way. The script,
however, had to be redone in conventional ways for the silver screen. For instance, some
scenes not in the original play had to be written. Aryaka’s escape appears as dialogue in
the play but in the film, there is an entire sequence which shows Sharvilaka breaking
into jail and assisting Aryaka’s escape.
How the film ends (still on a happy note as in the true tradition of kavya), is of course
different from earlier versions of the play. Utsav is a women-centered movie, and
attempts to ascribe agency to both women – especially in the instance of Charudatta’s
wife who appears as Aditi in this version. Its interpretation won the movie critical
acclaim (though apparently not much commercial success) and its success as a classic
endures.
For all its period detail, Mrcchakatika continues to offer re-interpretation in many ways.
And in its timelessly radical message, it also remains important to our times and even
after.

Many versions of Mrcchakatika
For all its unknown origins, the play evidently moved through different versions (this
piece, for instance, relies on Arthur Ryder’s version for its spellings). The play assumed
the version now known to us in the time of Prithvidhara, a scholar of the thirteenth
century CE, who wrote a commentary on it. At this time there were, besides Sanskrit,
eight known dialects used in Mrcchakatika: Sauraseni, Maharashtri, Avantika, Pracya,
Magadhi, Sakari, Candali, Dakkhi (Prithvidhara, as quoted by Anthony Kennedy
Warder). It was also adapted into later versions such as, for instance, by the poet Manika
in Nepal, the second half of whose play, Bhairavananda, written in the late fourteenth
century, is clearly based on Mrcchhakatika.