UGC MHRD e Pathshala

Subject: English
Principal Investigator: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad

Paper 09: Comparative Literature: Drama in India

Paper Coordinator: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad

Module 06:Sudraka: Mrichhakatika

Content Writer: Mr. Surajit Maity, University of Hyderabad

Content Reviewer: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad

Language Editor: Prof. Tutun Mukherjee, University of Hyderabad

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 Sudraka: Mrichhakatika

Introduction:

‘Mrichchhakatika’ or ‘The Little Clay Cart’ is an ancient Sanskrit play written by King
Shūdraka (Ujjayini) in around 3rd century A.D. It is one of the oldest of all the so far known
Sanskrit plays in Indian Literature. Concerning the life, the date and the very identity of the
author King Shūdraka, we are curiously ignorant. No other work is ascribed to him and we
have no direct information about him till date beyond the somewhat fanciful and exaggerated
self praising statements in the prologue of this play. Surely there are many tales, who cluster
about the name of King Shūdraka but none of them found so far represents him as an author.
A few years back the age and even the authorship of this play was uncertain. After the
unexpected discovery of the plays of Bhasa provided us with new data and brought light to
the drama Charudatta whose enlarged and completed version Mrichchhakatika seems to be.

According to its prologue, Shūdraka was a Kshatriya king of some country (not mentioned)
brave and handsome in appearance knowing Rigveda, Samaveda and mathematics. He knew
the art of regarding courtesans and the science of training elephants; was a devotee of Lord
Siva and had performed the Asvamedha sacrifice. The great King died at the ripe age of
hundred years and ten days. Due to lack of information, facts and evidences the authorship of
this play is still uncertain. There are many theories prevailing about the same, but none of
them could be considered reliable.

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.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kālidāsa, 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. Kalidasa – “the
grace of poetry” and Bhavabhuti – “the master of eloquence” are far more intimately allied in
spirit than is either of them with the author of Mrichchhakatika. Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti are
Hindus of the Hindus; the Shakuntala and the Latter Acts of Rama 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
Sansthanaka and Maitreya and Madanika 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 Bhavabhuti 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 Bhavabhuti’s “for causeless love there is no remedy.” As
regards the predominance of swill-moving action over the poetical expression of great truths,
The Little Clay Cart stands related to the Latter Acts of Rama as Macbeth does to Hamlet.
Again, Shūdraka’s 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 Bhavabhuti.

Yet Shūdraka's 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.

To gain a rough idea of Shūdraka's 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

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Vasantasenā. From farce to tragedy, from satire to pathos, runs the story, with a breadth truly
Shakespearian.

Here we have philosophy:

The lack of money is the root of all evil. (i. 14)

And pathos:

My body wet by tear-drops falling, falling;

My limbs polluted by the clinging mud;
Flowers from the graveyard torn, my wreath appalling;
For ghastly sacrifice hoarse ravens calling,
And for the fragrant incense of my blood. (x. 3)

And nature description:

But mistress, do not scold the lightning. She is your friend,

This golden cord that trembles on the breast

Of great Airāvata; upon the crest
Of rocky hills this banner all ablaze;
This lamp in Indra's palace; but most blest
As telling where your most belovèd stays. (v. 33)

And genuine bitterness:

Pride and tricks and lies and fraud

Are in your face;
False playground of the lustful god,
Such is your face;
The wench's stock in trade, in fine,
Epitome of joys divine,
I mean your face
For sale! the price is courtesy.
I trust you'll find a man to buy
Your face. (v. 36)

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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 heroine 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.

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.

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 as dramas.

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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.

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.
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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.

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
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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 courtezan.
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.

THE THEME AND THE DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF THE PLAY

Mrichchhakatika is one of the most famous prakaranas i.e. a play whose plot is partly derived
from the history and partly is a creation of the author’s fancy of the ancient India that is not
based on the epic material and is full of rascals. 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, Mrichchhakatika is the only extant drama which fulfils the spirit of the
drama of invention, as defined by the Sanskrit canons of dramaturgy.

An exaggerated tongue-in-cheek self-praise by the author begins as:

Who vied with elephants in lordly grace;

Whose eyes were those of the chakora bird
That feeds on moonbeams; glorious his face
As the full moon; his person, all have heard,
Was altogether lovely. First in worth
Among the twice-born was this poet, known
As Shūdraka far over all the earth, –
His virtue's depth unfathomed and alone.

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And again:

The Samaveda, the Rigveda too,

The science mathematical, he knew;
The arts wherein fair courtesans excel,
And all the lore of elephants as well.
Through Shiva's grace, his eye was never dim;
He saw his son a king in place of him.
The difficult horse-sacrifice he tried
Successfully; entered the fiery tide,
One hundred years and ten days old, and died.
And yet again:

Eager for battle; sloth's determined foe;

Of scholars chief, who to the Veda cling;
Rich in the riches that ascetics know;
Glad, giant the foeman's elephant to show
His valor; – such was Shūdraka, the king.
And in this work of his,
Within the town, Avanti named,
Dwells one called Charudatta, famed
No less for youth than poverty;
A merchant’s son and Brahman, he.
His virtues have the power to move
Vasantasena’s inmost love;
Fair as the springtime’s radiancy,
And yet a courtesan is she.
So here king Shūdraka the tale imparts
Of love’s pure festival in these two hearts,
Of prudent acts, a lawsuit’s wrong and hate,
A rascal’s nature, and the course of fate.

Mrichchhakatika – a ten act play based on the love of Charudatta, a prominent but poor
inhabitant of Ujjayini (also called Avanti) and Vasantasena, an exquisitely beautiful and pure
minded courtesan of the same city. The play begins with prologue consisting of a benedictory

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stanza which basically is a prayer for the people of the world. Author asks Lord Siva to
protect the people from all kind of pain and prejudice, free them from all kind of bounds of
mind and body. This is followed by some interesting particulars about the author told to the
audience by the director of the play in a poetic sense.

The characters of the Mrichchhakatika are living men and women. It is quite evident from the
play that Shūdraka’s men are better individualized than his women. The characters include
every class of individuals in the society from Brahmans to executioner to housemaids.

Two elements of the play often perplex western audiences. First, Vasantasena’s profession
and second, Charudatta is married.

Vasantasena’s profession is not as tawdry as western audiences often suppose. She is not
merely a body for sale. In the opening moments of the play, she rejects Sansthanaka’s
advances, though he is not only wealthy but the king’s brother-in-law. Furthermore, we find
her speaking Sanskrit (albeit briefly) in act four. This is not an insignificant detail.
Vasantasena is educated. She circulates among the privileged of society. And she circulates
in the open, among the movers and shakers of the community—which is to say: among the
men.

Indeed, Charudatta is married. But his wife is only identified as “the wife”, hardly appears in
the play, and, then, not outside the confines of her home. The courtesan has a unique status
in the cultural context of this play.

The play gives not a single word to concerns over Charudatta’s marriage. Like Duhshanta
in Shakuntala, Charudatta is free to pursue whatever paramours attract his attention. The
world of Mrcchakatika is a man’s world. Only educated courtesans like Vasantasena have a
place of their own in it.

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."

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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. And side by side with them moves the hero
Chārudatta, the Buddhist beau-ideal of manhood,

A tree of life to them whose sorrows grow,

Beneath its fruit of virtue bending low. (i. 48)

To him, life itself is not dear, but only honor. He values wealth only as it supplies him with
the means of serving others. 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.

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. 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.

ADAPTATIONS AND MEDIA

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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
romanticized 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.

Play adaptations: The play was translated into English, notably by Arthur W. Ryder in 1905
as The Little Clay Cart. (It had previously been translated as The Toy Cart by Horace
Hayman Wilson in 1826.) Ryder's version was enacted at the Hearst Greek Theatre in
Berkeley in 1907, and in New York City in 1924 at the Neighbourhood Playhouse, which
was then an off-Broadway theatre, at the Theater de Lys in 1953, and at the Potboiler Art
Theater in Los Angeles in 1926, when it featured actors such as James A. Marcus, Symona
Boniface and Gale Gordon. The play has been adapted in several Indian languages and
performed by various theatre groups and directors, like Habib Tanvir.

Film adaptations: The first silent film of Kannada film industry, Mricchakatika (Vasantsena)
(1931), starring Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Vasantasena, a 1941 Indian Kannada
film directed by Ramayyar Shirur, and Utsav, a 1984 Hindi Bollywood film by Girish
Karnad was based on an adaptation of this play.

The Indian play depicted in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, "Spectacular Spectacular", may
have been based on The Little Clay Cart.

WORKS TO BE CITED
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• Basham, Arthur Llewellyn, and Arvind Sharma. The Little Clay Cart: An English
Translation of the Mrcchakatika of Sudraka as adapted for the stage by AL Basham.
SUNY Press, 1994.
• Ryder, A. W. "Mricchakatika of Sudraka:“The Little Clay Cart, attributed to King
Sudraka (Translated)." Cambridge, Mass (1905).
• The Mrichchhakatika of Sudraka – Edited by M. R. Kale, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi
(2004).
• Two plays of ancient India: The little clay cart; The minister's seal / translated from
Sanskrit and Prakrit, with an introduction, by J.A.B. van Buitenen, Motilal
Banarsidass, Delhi (1971).
• Wohlsen, Marcus (2005). "The Greatest Show on Earth: The First Indian Play
Performed at UC Berkeley -- And Anywhere in the United States -- Took the Stage of
the Greek Theater in 1907, Along with Elephants, Zebras, and a Cast of
Hundreds". Illuminations. University of California Berkeley. Retrieved 17 July 2012.

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