Śūdraka’s Mrichchhakatika, one of the oldest Sanskrit plays, is considered by the pundits
as a masterpiece in the realm of Sanskrit drama. This ten-act play is the only extant
drama that stands as an outstanding example to the spirit of ‘prakarana,’ ‘drama of
invention,’ the technique that was indeed subordinated in the Sanskrit literature to the
heroic drama, the plot of which is drawn often from mythology or history by such stalwarts
as Bhāsa, Kālidāsa, and Bhavabhuti. This unique invention offered the playwright a fertile
ground to explore a pretty complex plot—complex in terms of events, situations, and
characters of varied nature, but all rooted firmly in the contemporary society and moving
at a fast pace, keeping the audience on toes all through. The main plot of the play revolves
around the passionate love between the protagonist, Cārudatta—a prominent but poor
Brahmin merchant of Ujjain—and the veritably beautiful Ganika, a courtesan but with a
noble mind of the same city. Several exquisitely interwoven subplots portraying the
contemporary society—a tyrannical king, an overbearing brother-in-law of the king, the
political upheaval, and the resultant rebellion waiting to erupt—pepper the play.
According to Ryder (1905), it is the variety of issues—such as a Ganika’s ardent love
for a virtuous but a married man, the married man’s silent passion for the Ganika, a shampooer’s gambling, the making of a hole in the wall by a thief to steal a gold casket,
Abhisārika’s proceeding to her lover’s abode under a storm, the swapping of bullockcarts
that led to the strangulation of Vasantasenā in the garden, and the escape of an
imprisoned rebel from the jail to finally replace the despotic king—expounded in the
different Acts of the play; the skill with which different characters such as Samsthānaka,
Śarvilaka, Maitreya, Madanikā, and Dhūta, the silent wife of Cārudatta are drawn from
every class of society to expound the socio-politico-cultural issues; and the infusion of
subtle humor, that too, through the foolish utterances of the villain of the play, Samsthānaka—
that make Mrichchhakatika stand out as a preeminent Sanskrit play. |
